Nothing is more important than educating the younger generation, and AI will never be able to replace great educators. However, it is also true that teachers are using generative AI to help with creative tasks and automate their daily routines, freeing up more time for what really matters—like spending time with students and connecting with people.
As generative AI transforms all walks of life and even jobs, each of us should and must understand the impact it has on our daily work lives, the opportunities for innovation and improvement, and the potential risks that come with it.
Therefore, we might as well start with teaching and talk about the impact that various jobs may be affected by this rapid change.
This article will outline how generative AI can be used to augment those irreplaceable human skills in education, while looking to the future and thinking about how the role of teachers will evolve with the penetration of this technology.
At the end of 2023, the UK** conducted a solicitation of evidence to study the use of generative AI in the education industry.
After talking to teachers, the investigators found that most practitioners have started using generative AI tools in their daily work, or at least have tried it. Teachers who have used it have generally said that generative AI can help save time, improve the quality of teaching, and improve interaction with students.
The most common generative AI use cases in education include:
Curriculum and Assignment Planning – Teachers use natural language tools such as ChatGPT to design lesson plans and quickly generate topics and learning activities based on the content of the assignments.
Teaching and Research – Helping teachers better understand the subjects they are supposed to teach.
Content Creation – Quickly generate readings, images, games, quizzes, or worklists that cover current teaching and research topics.
Language Learning and Translation – Enables teachers to communicate effectively in multilingual lessons.
Of course, generative AI comes with its own risks. When inaccurate results, inappropriate content, and even bias are introduced into the educational environment, it is bound to have a negative impact on students. Therefore, while teachers and educators should be encouraged to actively experiment with this technology, they must also be vigilant about the risks it may pose.
This is also one of the most anticipated potential use cases for generative AI in education.
With generative AI for children (and students of all ages) learning in different ways, teachers can create personalized lessons and learning plans for them, even tailored to the individual student's situation.
For example, students who are better at getting information from visual images can be shown more**, charts, and graphs, while others tend to prefer to learn from puzzles, tasks, and games.
Online course providers such as Coursera are already using feedback algorithms to adjust course content and learning speed based on learning. In the near future, this trend is expected to gradually extend to traditional campuses and classrooms as well.
For large classroom lessons, generative AI can provide personalized feedback frequently and in detail that goes far beyond manual adjustments by teachers.
AI will also provide valuable teaching resources for learners with special educational needs. Teachers can use AI technology to enhance their judgment and quickly and accurately identify the strengths and weaknesses of different teaching methods.
Generative AI is even expected to help a large group of "lifelong learners" – employees who need to constantly update their knowledge base and skill sets to meet new challenges and responsibilities.
These groups of learners often have different educational backgrounds and experiences, and rely on generative AI to determine the best teaching strategies for them.
But in education-related fields, privacy and security are particularly important. The aforementioned algorithms will touch highly personal, extremely sensitive data, and care must be taken to mitigate the risk of data leakage or loss.
Most teachers prefer to devote their time and energy to direct contact with their students, rather than wasting a lot of resources on grading assignments or drafting daily communication tasks.
The good news is that generative AI is particularly good at handling these kinds of tasks. There are a number of platforms out there that offer specialized build tools to help teachers take care of these tasks, including Teachermatic and Microsoft Education Copilot.
These tools can dramatically improve the efficiency of critical repetitive tasks, such as sending letters or emails to students or parents, creating class contacts, collating academic reports, and creating documents such as policy and risk assessment materials.
Assignment grading and grading is one of the still controversial use cases, as generative AI still creates "illusions" and accuracy issues from time to time. At present, this is still in the experimental stage, and teachers are testing its features, but they have not yet fully trusted the final results given by the AI.
Other popular use cases related to teaching and learning include transcribing content from learning materials to text, or converting text to speech to create audio learning materials, as well as proofreading textbook content and establishing compliance checklists for tasks such as security and data protection.
As generative AI reshapes the entire world of education, teachers will increasingly realize that their role is changing from knowledge providers to learning supervisors.
Perhaps the most important shift for educators in the future will be to focus more on developing skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and empathy in the student community. As AI technology continues to grow, our human value will be more and more reflected in performing tasks that machines cannot handle, and this will inevitably become the top priority of the next stage of education. In addition to academic instruction, educators will play a key role in safeguarding the well-being of students, which will be a responsibility that goes far beyond traditional teaching. This requires not only protecting students from physical harm, but also supporting their emotional aspirations, maintaining mental health, creating a safe and inclusive learning environment, and guiding students to adapt and be respected. This person-centred empathy of teachers will become an indispensable pillar of education and will also show irreplaceable significance and value in cultivating well-rounded, mentally healthy individuals.
Of course, the attitude of teachers will also determine whether students can enjoy the technological benefits provided by generative AI. Foundational skills such as programming, word processing, and computer-aided design have been an important part of the curriculum for decades. It is believed that in the near future, the younger generation will begin to learn how to interact with AI systems from an early age, and teachers will have to take on the responsibility of imparting this knowledge.
This historic shift requires educators not only to continue to study their disciplines and educational affairs, but also to become familiar with the emerging tools and technologies that are changing the rules of instruction. Engineers of the human soul, please do your best!