AI's Takeover in Classrooms: How Gen AI is Transforming Education

Student: Hi, Can you explain World War II and its consequences? 
AI: Certainly, I am providing details and links on WW-II and related articles. I hope it will help you. If you need further help kindly ask.

This will be a general scenario of the classroom in 2032. Step inside a classroom where every student gets personal attention, instant feedback, and customized learning materials, all thanks to the latest technology. This vision of education is becoming increasingly feasible with Generative AI (Gen AI). AI is changing people's perspectives on the world. Moreover, we are now learning how to think in an advanced way.

GitHub CEO recently envisioned in his interview that AI is now breaking down all the language barriers and soon it will be ready to answer in any language you can think of. Co-Pilot can be operated in Hindi and Kannada proving language is not a barrier for AI now, it means that throughout the world students who speak and understand any language can use AI. Let’s further understand how this Gen AI is changing our and Gen-Z world.

What is Gen AI?

The branch of artificial intelligence specializes in creating new content by learning from data already in its memory. So how is Gen AI different from traditional AI?  It implements algorithms, replicating the style and structure of data it has learned from to produce original outputs. Generative AI uses Neural Networks which are so powerful that they can make Gen AI process information exactly in the way a Human Brain does it. Nonetheless, it also uses Probabilistic Models which can predict the likelihood of certain outcomes, for instance, it can understand and generate human language.

In September 2023, UNESCO introduced global guidelines designed to assist policymakers and educators in integrating AI into education. ChatGPT, DALL-E, GPT-3, Bing, and Midjourney-1 are a few AI tools that assist students and teachers in various tasks. These guidelines focus on ensuring ethical practices and promoting inclusivity, aiming to balance the innovative capabilities of AI with the fundamental principles of fairness and accessibility. Soon after its launch, Teachers and Students recognized its immense power and started harnessing it in the education sector.

As we all are aware we are gradually entering a world where AI is addressing many of our daily challenges, by offering innovative solutions and easing our work for instance Google Scholar is used for research, Meta AI provides mental and emotional support while ChatGPT and Gemini, Duolingo ease cumbersome work and facilitate language learning, Tutor AI is used for tutoring platform and guiding students by qualified teachers. 74% of students aged between 16-24 in the UK rely on AI for their school homework and project assignments. Recently Flexi launched by Neeru Ghosla is also providing students complete guidance, and extensive and authentic resources for Science and Maths subjects again based on AI.  Notwithstanding these advancements, it’s essential to critically evaluate whether reliance on AI is crippling the capabilities of Human beings or aiding us.

The Impact of Generative AI on Education:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming education by shifting the focus from memorization to deep understanding and creativity. It’s presence in education market size is predicted to reach $30 billion by 2032, transforming elementary, high school, and university education and beyond.

It challenges educators to rethink their roles and adapt to AI-driven tools that offer personalized and inclusive learning experiences. Embracing this change requires careful consideration of the benefits of generative AI, alongside the ethical and practical issues of integrating it into educational systems. This paradigm shift from traditional learning methods to generative AI compels us to reflect on our current shortcomings and areas needing improvement.

This raises a critical question: In Front of the immense power of AI, is it time to change our traditional education system??

The Traditional Assessment System:

The traditional assessment methods that have been used for many years mainly rely on standardized tests which are not framed according to individual learning style, grasping power, tracking their previous records, and most importantly their abilities. The method only follows rote memorization of facts, and answers and writes them down to get good scores in exams. Is this process assessing critical thinking skills or problem-solving skills? Certainly Not.

Even in a recent survey students feel anxiety and pressure due to continuous assessments and 6-7 hours studying hours in school. Students after exams don't get timely feedback from teachers, as teachers are already overloaded with work, and they don't have sufficient time to check the notebooks properly. This gap in timely feedback and personal attention to each student highlights the loopholes in our traditional education system.

What Challenges Educators Face Daily?

1. Limited Resources: Teachers lack updated resources and materials which makes it difficult to implement comprehensive assessments, for instance, an educator daily takes a minimum 6 classes and has to make corrections in at least 40 copies with teaching, controlling the class, checking the classwork and also personal attention within 30-40 minutes, it sound insane but these human machines do it daily.

2. Large class size: as per CBSE norms a per class student should not be more than 40, but handling 40 students and their questions, daily work, checking their assignments, pending work, class work, homework, projects, and paying attention to students at a time is quite impossible, which creates hurdles in proper assessment.

3. Rapid shift in Curriculum: The rapid changes in curriculum and educational standards make it tough for teachers to do the proper assessments.

How AI can Address these Challenges?

Artificial intelligence is not just a momentary trend in the education sector, it is a revolution, which came to change the current education system. To effectively harness its power, educators need to develop them professionally to keep pace with the rapid transformation in AI and its applications.

Using AI in education means solely focusing on students' learning, and analyzing and interpreting students' performance, it is not an additional resource for teachers but it is central to the system. The sole purpose of teaching is connecting with the students and working on their holistic development so it's time to take the initiative by holding the hand of AI to fulfill this commitment. Let's see how AI-enabled transformation makes our students and educators' lives simple.

1. Personalized Learning: As each student has a unique personality, they have their unique learning style. AI adopts various analysis techniques, and questioning methods to personalize the learning experience of students. It's a digital tutor that knows the previous educational background of students, it knows in which subject students need more attention, and by personalized discussion prompts it gives instant feedback also.

2. Individualised Instant Feedback: Every class has a minimum of 40 students, a teacher takes at least 2-3 hours to check the exam papers, while AI can handle large volumes of data, complete assessments, and provide quick, detailed, and personalized feedback. Tools such as Techflow, Gradescope, Turnitin Feedback Studio, and Nearpods can be used in automated grading and personalized feedback, to help teachers.

3. Elevate Learning Experience: To make the learning experience adventurous AI inculcates games to simplify complicated topics and engage students. It makes the learning process full of fun, increases retention of content and they apply their knowledge in the practical world.

4. Collaborative Learning: Artificial intelligence fosters an environment where students can share and learn together, they can express their views and discuss a common topic, a feature that is specifically for those students who are preparing for competitive exams such as NEET, IIT, UPSC, or any PCS exams. Students can be involved in sharing materials, resources, links, and notes and create a common platform where they can express their understanding, integrate various perspectives, and expand their thinking.

5. Performance Learning Management Systems: AI assesses key skills and capabilities of students to generate their performance report which can be used to identify their competency. These generated data can be used to make the assessment process more comprehensive.

6. Automatization reduces teachers' burden: Teachers spend a lot of time designing exam papers, creating syllabi, preparing notes, and evaluating assessments. These all administrative works drain their energy and they are not effectively delivering the lesson. Gen AI can automate these cumbersome tasks and can relieve the burden of teachers so they can do the actual task which is teaching. They can take the help of AI to generate quizzes, assessments, test papers, notes, search resources, and video links, and evaluate assessments and test papers in very little time, which gives them plenty of time to interact with students.

7. A broad range of assessments: Educational assessments can be conducted in various types, AI can play an important role by providing a diverse array of evaluation processes which are generally not possible by a teacher alone. For instance, AI can create live simulation tests, which provide a real-life challenge for students, so students can implement what they have learned in theory classes.

8. Use of Natural Language Processing: The Natural Language Processing (NLP) capability of AI makes it appropriate for assessing students' capabilities in various ways, for example during oral assessments it can check students' grammar, syntax, and pronunciation by speech recognition process. To improve the writing development of students it can help them by providing detailed feedback, improving their writing structure, suggesting grammatical errors, and other critical aspects. Grammarly, Hemingway, Evernote, and Thesaurus are a few examples of writing tools.

Time to Create An AI Friendly Classroom For Students?

As soon as ChatGPT launched in the market it created history by onboarding 1 million users in just 5 days, it is the most popular and rapidly growing AI model till now. Schools also started using Chat GPT around the world in their classroom successfully. San Marino California School teacher Peter Paccone used ChatGPT in his classroom to explain the topics to students and utilized his time for in-depth discussion.

The complicated math problems can be easily solved by just uploading the pictures of questions on Photomath and a detailed description will be available for students, just like a piece of cake. Other tools such as Readwise highlight the main points of PDFs so that students can read them fast, while Tome can convert notes into narrative so students can write any lengthy essay fast. (Reference How Teachers Are Using AI Like ChatGPT in Schools | TIME).

In November 2023, 42% of primary and secondary teachers had integrated generative AI into their teaching practices, a significant rise from 17% in April of the same year. Interestingly, 60% of educators have incorporated AI into their classrooms. This widespread adoption demonstrates how AI has quietly but significantly integrated into the educational landscape, becoming a permanent fixture in the world of learning.

These examples highlight the growing trend of harnessing AI for better educational experiences and producing resources that are personalized. It's time to use AI tools to engage students in innovative ways and improve the learning outcomes, now the educational landscape can be transformed by a click.

Students and teachers often find their lives brimming with activity, juggling a multitude of tasks each day. AI is proving invaluable in this context, not only by streamlining their workload but also by providing innovative ideas that help them stay ahead of the curve. By automating routine tasks and offering creative suggestions, AI enables educators and learners to focus more on meaningful engagement and effective learning, ultimately enhancing their productivity and staying on the cutting edge of educational advancements.

With just a single click, a wealth of information is instantly accessible, marking a revolutionary moment in education with the rise of generative AI. This advanced technology, known for its ability to autonomously generate content, is set to transform classrooms and educational practices. However, this shift brings both significant opportunities and challenges that policymakers and educators must navigate carefully.

Challenges by Generative AI-powered assessments:

While Gen AI provides on the one hand various benefits, on the other hand, it comes up with several challenges. These obstacles are critical to unlocking the full potential of AI while maintaining fairness, privacy, and clarity in educational assessments. As with any technology, GenAI-powered assessments face challenges that require careful consideration. These raising concerns can be addressed by following these steps:

1.  Addressing Bias and Fairness
To make AI-generated data unbiased and fair educators and developers should actively change algorithms and use diverse data to train the AI system, the Manual control over the AI-produced data is very crucial to ensure fairness and equality.

2. Protecting Data Privacy
As AI uses students' data while producing personalized feedback, and evaluation of their results, this sensitive information has to be protected by data protection regulators tools such as GDPR so that trust and students' confidentiality are maintained.

3. Balancing Technology and Human Oversight
AI tools are helping hands for teachers but they will never be a replacement for a teacher, so a balanced approach needs to be adopted in which human involvement in evaluation is required to maintain educational integrity. Teachers need to be involved in the design and review of AI-generated assessments.

The Future of AI in Education

Technology is a boon for human beings if used effectively, Generative AI has a transformative force to change the education system mainly by advancement in assessment and evaluation process to foster honest learning. It smoothens the process of evaluation, provides various assessment tools, and a rapid grading system, atomization cumbersome tasks to reduce teachers' burden, and promotes academic integrity through plagiarism detection. It is reshaping the process by which educators should approach assessments so by embracing this innovation responsibly and ethically teachers can unlock new opportunities for personalized learning and equip students with skills to get them ready for this rapidly evolving world.

The AI Education market is booming like never before, valued at $2.5 billion in 2022, and is projected to soar to $88.2 billion by 2032, this rapid growth will be seen in the personalized learning segment only. If we look at public opinion, and what impact they see of  AI in the education field, shocking data reveal that 37% of men and 27% of women view it positive impact and 53% of men and 51% of women believe that AI literacy should be a part of regular school curriculum.

AI is demonstrating tangible benefits for students, with 73% reporting improved comprehension of learning materials and 63% noting enhanced study efficiency. Recently Jindal Global Law School collaborated with the University of Aizu Japan to conduct an International conference on AI horizons which will be conducted on 27-29 March 2025, where various experts and researchers discuss law and AI topics extensively. (Reference from news)

As we continue to navigate the complexities of integrating AI into education, one thing remains clear: GenAI has the power to democratize access to high-quality education, empower educators, and inspire lifelong learning. By harnessing the potential of AI-driven innovations, we pave the way for a future where every student has the opportunity to thrive and excel.

Reference: International Conference, Artificial Intelligence, Jindal Global Law School, With University Of Aizu (live law.in)
How Teachers Are Using AI Like ChatGPT in Schools | TIME