In its 2020 report, the Institute for Ethical AI in Education noted that despite the risks posed by artificial intelligence, it also held many benefits that could help remove obstacles and challenges faced by learners around the world. Fast forward to 2024 and AI is ubiquitous, with generative AI in particular enabling students to complete their work in rapid time.
Generative AI is widely used across the education sector and even comes as a standard feature on most new Chromebooks. Here students and teachers have access to powerful new tools that are changing the way they work and learn. Copilots and AI-infused apps are automating tasks, providing more insights into subjects, and, also, preparing students for the future of work.
It’s all generative
There is a wealth of AI-based tools available to students today, such as NPU-enabled laptops and on-device assistance, often dubbed ‘copilots’. The latter is particularly noteworthy as it is being used as an aid to both learners and teachers in the classroom.
For students, copilots and on-device generative AI programs can help automate research tasks and even create content. This is largely why generative AI has captured such media attention, and why it encourages such intense public discourse. The ability to instantly create content is driving dramatic change within seemingly all industries – for good and bad. While there are concerns about academic integrity or lack of engagement from students who might offload tasks to AI tools, there is a great deal of untapped potential.
For educators, generative AI can be a powerful tool to aid teaching. From generating bespoke learning resources to offering more personalized tutoring, it’s believed that the technology can create more engagement and help students in their studies.
For starters, generative AI offers more opportunities for personalization, particularly when it comes to feedback. With AI algorithms able to adapt to the learning patterns and performance of students, tutors can customize assessments with more accurate reflections of the individual’s work. This can be a more fair and inclusive way to assess students as it caters to more diverse learning needs. The data gleaned from such personalized assessments might also provide insights into the learning process and go on to inform future curriculum development and teaching strategies.
AI teaching assistants
The adoption of generative AI in the classroom is not to usurp educators, but rather aid them – like digital teaching assistants. However, the onset of generative AI has brought the importance of academic integrity into focus. Now that students have access to software and programs that can generate essays and instantly solve equations, it may mean the traditional methods of assessment are no longer up to scratch. Here, educators will need to harness the same technology to find new ways to assess work, with the need to distinguish between genuine and AI-generated work.
It may mean a shift towards assessments that prioritize the process by which students achieve their finished work – which will need to be documented as they go – rather than the actual work itself. These process-orientated outputs will force students to engage more deeply with their subject matter – potentially offsetting the lack of engagement that is believed to come as a result of greater automation.
Here, generative AI can also help build soft skills, like communication and ethical reasoning, or create studies that encourage teamwork, such as simulations and role-playing exercises. AI-driven assessments can also mimic interactions more akin to the working world, and help students develop their negotiation, and decision-making skills. It’s worth pointing out that AI competencies are not only vital for personal development, but are also highly sought-after skills for modern employers.
AI for learning and learning AI
While the purpose of school is not solely to prepare you for the workplace, it’s largely where your understanding of jobs and careers starts to take shape. Here, generative AI is becoming not just a tool for learning, but it is also an important subject to learn about.
By the time today’s students reach the workplace, generative AI software could be as commonplace as the laptop. The ability to command and prompt could be more crucial than coding. Digital assistants might even be your most valuable colleagues. These feel like fairly easy predictions to make, especially as they are backed by most leading think tanks and institutions.
By 2025, 50% of the boards of directors of the world’s largest 500 companies will use gen AI-enabled software for idea creation, planning, and decision-making, according to Gartner’s Emerging Tech Report 2023. At the other end of the work spectrum, the report also suggests that gen AI will augment 30% of all knowledge workers' tasks by 2027.
Gartner’s report suggests that gen AI will start to have a profound impact on enterprise operations and the workplace in the next two to three years, with the technology becoming “pervasive” by the end of this decade.
Our educational practitioners will be key to ensuring that all learners can benefit from Al. Digital exclusion was acutely highlighted during the pandemic with a critical loss of learning time for many disadvantaged young people. The hope is that the same mistakes won’t be repeated with generative AI as it becomes more widely available.
