The Potential Impact of AI on Education

(The above image was created using AI technology. It is meant to represent AI in the classroom.)

Since the advent of tools such as ChatGPT, MidJourney and Gemini, the progress of AI has become very apparent in the public consciousness. AI has the potential to be hugely disruptive to business, to save time, to automate processes that once required human input and to even do things we previously thought were creative and unique to humans, such as extended pieces of writing, or creating images.

AI has the potential not just to disrupt jobs and skills, but also to have a very significant impact on education. Schools need to think carefully, not just about verifying whether a pupil’s work is entirely their own but, more significantly, how do we deliver education in an AI-enabled age and what skills, qualities and dispositions are needed by our pupils, as they enter into the wider world?

We have essentially been delivering education in the same sort of way for hundreds of years; pupils sitting in a room, dictated by their date of birth, studying the same topics at a roughly similar level. Teachers will, of course, adapt what they are teaching to each pupil, challenging and supporting them according to their needs, but they will still, nevertheless, be studying the same topic and working towards the same qualification. We may use more devices in the past and deliver lessons in a more innovative way, but there are still a great many similarities between the education delivered in the 1800s and the classroom of 2024.

AI-enabled Adaptive Learning Systems force us to think carefully about the entire model of education and how it is delivered. These are still in their infancy, but are now rapidly accelerating, in terms of their capabilities. One example would be Khanmigo, developed by the online learning platform Khan Academy. Pupils can study at their own pace, ask questions of an AI chatbot, get specific personalised feedback on their progress and suggestions of what to do next, in a way which even the most dedicated human teacher would struggle to achieve.

What, then, might the classroom of the not-so-distant future look like? Why do we group together pupils, for example, by age rather than ability? If a pupil’s current level of progress means that they are best suited to studying Physics at GCSE-level, but English at A Level, why shouldn’t we allow them to do that, if an adaptive learning system is able to deliver the content they need and challenge them appropriately?

There are lots of practical, logistical issues why schools don’t currently this; the very idea of a timetable that is unique to every single pupil is mind-boggling for school administrators, but if AI makes it possible and we feel it is best educationally for children, schools will need to consider it carefully. Even more radically, what is the role of subject-specialist teachers, when delivery, assessment and feedback can all be give in a truly personalised way?

This may seem like a slightly dystopian view of the future of education. Crucially, I believe there is good news for schools such as Westonbirt, which deliver a broad, holistic education, developing the character of the individual, whilst building confidence and skills, alongside academic success. The skills needed by our young people will, I believe, be those which a Westonbirt education already delivers; the ability to work in a team, to show leadership, to be able to articulate their ideas and to be creative. The skills and abilities which will not be automated away by AI are those which make us uniquely human.

– by Simon Balderson, Deputy Head Academic