AI in education:
The role of AI
in schools

Artificial intelligence has been a crucial part of our daily lives for years. AI chooses the ads we see online, filters our emails and acts as our personal assistant. AI helps to make our lives efficient by taking on time-consuming tasks we might not want to do ourselves.

It is understandable that educators, parents and others may be unsure about the role of artificial intelligence in education. They all want what is best for students.

However, just as we already benefit from AI in our broader society, today's students can also benefit from AI in education. AI can both help stimulate learning and improve engagement, while also taking on some of the time-consuming tasks of teaching. This helps teachers to focus on their most important task—the learning and development of every child.

AI allows software to learn and make decisions often more quickly and accurately than humans. This understandably may make those who are new to AI in education nervous. A common concern about AI is that people will be automated out of their jobs. While AI can take on many tasks that humans previously handled, it's not intended to replace people in the workplace. Likewise, AI is unlikely to replace teachers. So, what exactly is the role of artificial intelligence in education?

AI plays a role in many classrooms already, and Market Research Engine estimates that the global artificial intelligence education market will increase to about $12 billion by 2027, representing a CAGR of 45% over the five-year forecast period starting in 2022. Many of the ways that classrooms use AI—like Google and YouTube—is to find and recommend content.

AI can also help students get excited about learning and engaged by providing enhanced classroom experiences in the form of instructional games, activities, and quiz platforms. Take the example of a music teacher in Pennsylvania who used an AI-based web application to teach music: Students were able to play with tempo, key, mood and genre to create their own compositions in class.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications typically use AI to create virtual words or augment a person's experience in reality. Both can be used in the classroom to enhance learning. For example, AR allows students to interact with a topic they're learning about, like a 3D model of a human body, a museum exhibit or the water cycle. Virtual reality can allow students to participate in virtual field trips to places that might be impractical (a city in another country) or impossible (the moon) to visit. Virtual reality can also help create accessible environments that fit the needs of most students.

For better or worse, testing has become a huge part of education. AI in education can help ease the burden of grading by scoring students as they take tests. Automatic grading and quiz applications already see significant use in the classroom; instructors use them in both online higher education courses and workplace training modules. Online scoring does not remove the teacher from the equation. Instead, the scores are delivered to the teacher via a dashboard where they can review student performance.

Teachers have always adapted learning to the needs of the learners, but adaptive learning takes personalization to a new level. The AI used in adaptive courseware can use a student's performance on a quiz or activity to offer them more practice when they need it in a certain subject, creating a learning path tailored to their needs.

Teachers are notoriously overworked. A recent study by EdWeek found the typical teacher works 54 hours a week—a little less than half of which is spent actually teaching students. Instructors spend the bulk of their time on administrative tasks, grading and other tasks. AI, which often helps businesses automate repetitive or tedious tasks, can be used to take some of the workload from teachers' plates. For example, automation can help teachers with record keeping, worksheet creation and some forms of grading. AI can minimize the time teachers spend with repetitive and time-consuming tasks through automation, freeing them for higher-order tasks like lesson prep, curriculum review and—of course—teaching.