12 Caleb Mauer – Why AI Needs To Be Embraced In Schools

Caleb Mauer is a Sophomore from Fort Loramie, Ohio and a basketball player at IU East .This work was prepared for Jackie Kauza’s English W290, who states, “Caleb constructed a nuanced and well-reasoned argument that explores the issue of AI in classrooms. He explores multiple perspectives while supporting his stance and guiding the reader toward his strong conclusion.”

Why AI Needs To Be Embraced In Schools

Did you know almost 50% of all classrooms use Artificial Intelligence weekly (Rosenbaum, 2024, para. 3)? The use of artificial intelligence, or AI, is skyrocketing in schools all across the country. Artificial intelligence allows students to get a higher quality education, expands resources for administration and teachers, and it is getting more popular by the year in classrooms. If administrators, teachers, and even parents do not all come together and realize the benefits of AI, we are doing the students a massive disservice because the positives of artificial intelligence in schools far outweigh the negatives .

First, here is an introduction into what could actually be classified as “Artificial Intelligence” in a classroom, because this is something that is still relatively new and there is somewhat of a debate on what can count as AI. Artificial intelligence has been around for a decent amount of time in less academic forms, and one way that most people can relate to would be on their iPhone with “Siri.” Now, AI expands vastly beyond Siri (Hamilton, 2024, para. 4),  but it is a great example to show what one AI system can do. “Siri” can help you do a lot of different things by simply using your voice and telling it what you want it to do. There is a wide range of things that Siri can do by listening to your voice. For example, Siri can do something like open an app, turn on an alarm, provide basic information on a topic that you ask about, and many more things, and it is constantly evolving just like the rest of the AI field. AI can be defined as, “a field of study and the resulting innovations and developments that have culminated in computers, machines, and other artifacts having human-like intelligence characterized by cognitive abilities, learning, adaptability, and decision-making capabilities” (Chen, 2020, para. 1). This suggests just how vast AI can be in a school setting. AI can be on your phone, computer, tablet, and even more items in a school to help students, teachers, and administrators in their everyday workload.

Speaking of benefits for students, AI can help students in so many different areas. For example, say a student has a big test coming up and needs to find an efficient way to study. There are ways that AI can help students in their studying methods. This includes helping them with the material they should be studying, but also with how to study efficiently, which is an issue that so many students have. Aileen Lam (2024), the writer of an article on AI, had this to say: “For students, generative AI could act as a virtual tutor to answer questions, summarize information, check conceptual understanding, and even assist in drafting. It could provide not only interactive and ongoing feedback but can also provide personalized learning and even adapt teaching methods based on their progress and performance” (para. 3). Personalization is something that technology previously could not offer, and that is expanding every year. There are websites that students can go to for personalization such as Khan Academy that can really help to expand a student’s understanding of material. There are even methods of technology that can simulate a human tutor (Lam, 2024, para. 4), which makes the process more real for some students who need that direct one-on-one attention. And while these sites can help with tutoring and helping students with how to learn, it can also help with the curriculum, which is what the student will learn. According to a study on AI in schools, “because the systems leverage machine learning and adaptability, curriculum and content has been customized and personalized in line with students’ needs, which has fostered uptake and retention, thereby improving learners experience and overall quality of learning” (Chen, 2020, para. 1). When talking about AI’s impact on curriculum, it is important to realize all the things that can be done now that could not be done. You look at the vast nature of this sort of technology, and the AI will be able to see what students need to learn more of, because it can analyze scores from homework and tests. It gives a precision that is almost impossible for educators to exactly achieve because the AI has so much more knowledge than educators. Educators have to realize they do not know everything and AI can bridge the gap and help students learn things they otherwise would not have been able to learn.

As stated previously, AI in education has great benefits for the students, but it also has tremendous benefits for educators as well. Different kinds of artificial intelligence can help with the time management and convenience for teachers, and this can allow teachers to focus on more student interaction and teaching rather than doing miscellaneous tasks. AI is also something that can help all faculty and not just teachers. It can help administration and counselors as well. For example, “For administrators, there are tasks that generative AI could possibly assist in so it can free up time for other pressing issues. For example, it could assist in the enrollment and registration process, aid in student record management, deal with course scheduling, and even lend a hand in determining financial aid eligibility” (Lam, 2024, para. 5). Teachers and administrators do not want to have to worry about these small, sometimes annoying tasks, and instead they want to focus on the things that actually matter more, which is engaging in academic activities with students to help push them in their education. A great example of AI aiding teachers is shown in a quote from Lijia Chen (2020): “For example, Rus et al. posited that intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) perform a wide range of functions, including grading and providing students with feedback on their work [12]. Instructors, working with ITS achieve improved efficiencies in various administrative tasks, as well as their core responsibilities, providing guidance and instructions to help students excel in their studies” (para. 29). It is very convenient for teachers to have AI grading homework and tests, especially when the question is a multiple choice question and there is not much feedback to offer at all. It is also a phenomenal help to be able to have help on feedback from AI because the artificial intelligence could have picked up on some errors or smaller details that the teacher did not pick up on. AI is not meant to replace teachers and administrators in any way, but when AI and teachers are working together, there can be great results like we have never seen before in education.

However, AI in schools is not something that is universally accepted as something that is positive for students and administrators. The main concern with AI for some people is that AI may compromise the integrity of school work. On this issue, one article said, “There is no way to discuss AI in education without including its use in cheating, even though online cheating is nothing new. ‘Students are highly incentivized to cheat,’ Mollick said, with too much work to do and not enough time to complete it” (Rosenbaum, 2024, para. 22). This is a claim that cannot be denied. However, there are getting to be more and more ways to combat this main counterclaim to AI in education. There are websites that can detect what is written in AI in a paper. The websites can tell how much is also stolen from AI, with percentages showing how much was copied. Two of the main websites to detect AI usage are Grammarly and Turnitin, which are commonly used in high schools and universities. These detectors are actually a form of AI as well, which means that we need to use AI to detect AI usage! This is a great way to combat students taking advantage of AI.

The use of AI in schools inevitably will only increase as time goes on. It is ultimately up to administrators and teachers to get ahead of the curve on AI in their schools so they do not fall behind and hinder their students’ ability to reach their potential. Administrators and teachers will help themselves out tremendously while helping out their students. AI has proven to open new doors in education that would have never even been thought to be possible. Personalized plans, tutoring, scheduling, expanded resources, and more are all great reasons to embrace AI in schools. Schools would be doing a disservice to their students by not giving them all the available resources they have to help them be successful. Now, a question for all teachers and administrators: will you get ahead of AI or fall behind?

References

Chen, Lijia, et al. (2020) Artificial intelligence in education: a review. IEEE Access. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9069875

Erprose (2024). AI is getting very popular among students and teachers, very quickly. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/11/ai-is-getting-very-popular-among-students-and-teache rs-very-quickly.html

Hamilton, I (2024). Artificial Intelligence in Education: Teachers’ opinions on AI in the classroom. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/it-and-tech/artificial-intelligence-in-school/

Lam, A. W. (2024). Embracing AI in education. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/embracing-ai-in education/