A key role of any education system is to act as a collaborative partner to businesses and employers, ensuring that the future generations are being trained and educated in ways that are valuable not just to themselves, but also to society. As AI becomes increasingly central in both our workplaces and everyday interactions, it is crucial for education systems to proactively educate students about its uses, limitations, and risks.
For example, in a BBC News article, Rand Corporation researcher Christopher Doss highlights the importance of teaching children how to spot deepfakes from an early age to tackle the threat of misinformation arising from generative AI.
Currently, the burden of this responsibility falls primarily on individual teachers, given that AI has not yet been properly integrated into school curricula. But this needs to change. Without the support of a curriculum that provides structured guidance on how to teach students about AI or integrate it into existing subjects, teachers are struggling to know where, when, and how to utilize it.
Their predicament is only made more complicated by the seemingly anti-technology approach adopted across different schools, and by education systems themselves. For example, the Department of Education has recently imposed a blanket ban on smartphones in schools in England. This controversial policy, which is heavily backed by parents, indicates widespread concern over technology’s impact on learning and student behaviour, which has been at an all-time low since the pandemic.
Several schools piloting the ban have reported significant improvements in behaviour, engagement, and achievement. This likely results from the limited use of social media, which is linked to antisocial behaviour, isolation, and decreased attention spans.
Nevertheless, by completely banning the use of digital technology in schools, education systems run the risk of neglecting to provide a modern and holistic education for upcoming generations, and failing to equip them with the relevant skills for digitally integrated employment.
But this is where the curriculum plays a key role. By providing a structured framework for the use of technology and online applications within teaching, education systems can continue to limit unconstructive smartphone use, while ensuring that students are not missing out on the potential of digital technology in education.
Current debate over curricular changes
Formulating school curricula has never been an easy job, but it has perhaps also never been so hard.
Amidst the range of strong and divided opinions over AI’s use in education, policymakers are faced with the difficult task of finding the right balance between promoting the use of AI as a productivity enhancing pedagogical tool, and safeguarding against its inherent risks — these include not just the explicit risks of bias and misinformation, but also the longer term social and existential impact of our growing dependence on AI technology.
A key aspect of the debate over curricular change focuses on the skills and subjects that should be taught in schools. Many promote a shift towards STEM subjects which equip students with technical skills that are often directly applicable to jobs in tech.
Ryan Lufkin, VP of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure, argues that STEM subjects should be the major focus in schools at the moment, particularly in the USA which is falling behind in some areas of STEM education.
“Groups like the National Science Foundation have been raising the alarm for some time that the United States is falling behind in science education and much more needs to be done around STEM education in K12 and beyond. The generative AI revolution adds the need to train students on prompt engineering and the abilities to build and train these powerful tools in ways that will solve the challenges of tomorrow.”
Ryan Lufkin, VP of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure
However, according to Copyleaks CEO Alon Yamin, a shift towards STEM subjects will happen naturally through students’ own initiatives. He argues that the current shortage of tech skills in the workplace shouldn’t reduce the importance of literacy and the arts, which provide key skills in creativity, public speaking, and comprehension.
“Students are tuned into the world around them and typically very aware of what they need to know, so I think you’ll see them gravitate towards STEM subjects, even requesting certain subjects be offered within a curriculum if they aren’t. But that isn’t to say that STEM subjects will overtake others. Literacy and the arts provide essential skills you can’t necessarily get from STEM subjects but are needed for success in science, mathematics, and technology.”
Alon Yamin, CEO and Co-founder of Copyleaks
Nevertheless, as Dr Adnan Masood, Chief AI Architect at UST points out, STEM subjects such as robotics don’t just teach children technical skills. They also provide them with opportunities to develop soft skills such as critical thinking and creativity.
“Robotics gives students interdisciplinary learning opportunities to use and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. For instance, if you are trying to teach someone how to programme, teaching them how to programme a robot to move 10 metres, for example, is much more exciting as they can see their coding in action. That really helps them to understand and engage more.”
Dr Adnan Masood, Chief AI Architect at UST
But even within STEM subjects, there is further debate over which technical skills are still relevant and robust enough to be worth teaching in schools. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, for example, argues that coding is no longer a vital skill that youngsters should be encouraged to pursue, given that AI now automates most of the process.
But many others, such as Alon Yamin and tech industry analyst Patrick Moorhead, stand by the view that coding remains a key digital skill which should be taught in schools alongside other subjects to give students a holistic understanding of the fundamental principles that underscore many business operations, and the creation of AI systems in the first place.
“Students can be assessed on their ability to identify and edit AI-generated source code, read AI-generated data to hone analytical skills, utilize AI to explore literary patterns across a certain time period to display their critical thinking skills, use AI to enhance research, and more. In high schools and universities, several computer science departments worldwide have already begun integrating AI within their curriculum by having students identify vulnerabilities and then edit and correct AI-generated code.”
Alon Yamin, CEO and Co-founder of Copyleaks
Another aspect of the debate focuses on not just what kids are learning, but how they are learning it. This issue is particularly important when thinking about how AI can be integrated into more traditional subjects. According to Sari Factor, CSO at Imagine Learning, there needs to be a shift in focus from quantitative learning (i.e. producing the right answer) to a more qualitative form of learning (i.e. asking the right question).
“Curricula must focus on higher-level thinking skills that challenge students to distinguish whether something they’re reading or seeing is actually rooted in reality or was generated by AI. Learning to create prompts is a skill that all students will need in an AI-enabled future. We need to move beyond teaching how to get the right answer to asking the right questions. This higher level of thinking challenges students to not only think about solutions but to also evaluate and synthesize their work—keys skills that will prepare them for college and future jobs… We must teach kids that it is far more important to ask the right question than it is to get the right answer.”
Sari Factor, Vice Chair and CSO at Imagine learning
How AI could diversify curricula
A further consideration that needs to be taken into account in curricular change is the diversity of subjects and material.
Education systems should avoid a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach in formulating curricula in order to foster diversity in students’ natural talents, and preserve the skill heritages of individual communities. This has proven effective in Estonia, a country which, despite its impoverished past, is considered to be a world leader in terms of its exemplary education system. In a Guardian article, Gunda Tire, director of assessment for Estonia’s youth board, states that giving schools autonomy and the independence to adapt their curriculum as they see fit is a key reason for their success. “We have given schools the ability to decide for themselves”, she says.
Sylvia Schmelkes, Director of the Mexican National Institute for Educational Evaluation, holds a similar opinion. She points out in an article for the United Nations that when curriculums are overloaded and the same nationwide, it can isolate disadvantaged students who are more likely to be from minority and/or rural backgrounds where the communities typically have less sway in affecting educational policy.
Fostering diversity in taught subjects is therefore key in enabling individual communities to benefit from the potential that AI holds within education. Nevertheless, there is concern among some educational experts that AI could reduce curricular diversity. Sam Illingworth, associate professor in Learning and Teaching Enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University, argues in a Wonkhe article that the blind use of Generative AI in teaching will undermine the diversity and objectivity of curricula, given that LLM models such as ChatGPT contain the inherent values and biases of their creators.
Heidi Messer, Chairperson and Co-Founder of Collective[i], shares an insightful and refreshing perspective on this issue, arguing that that the arrival of Generative AI has in fact had a positive impact on educational diversity by increasing our awareness of the narrow definition of intelligence that permeates our education systems.
“The wonderful thing about LLMs is that they have exposed the narrow view of intelligence that currently permeates our educational system. We measure performance and potential through written regurgitation of material presented in class. Kids are put on tracks of learning and either excel or fall behind based on an average. While the system worked for a certain set of kids, many are left behind. When an LLM can reproduce an A+ version of a high school essay in seconds, perhaps that’s not the best (or only way) to assess learning. We may want to reward other expressions of intelligence through oral exams or truly creative applications of ideas… Artificial intelligence offers us an opportunity to reassess how we measure and accelerate student progress.”
Heidi Messer, Chairperson and Co-Founder of Collective[i], an AI platform for B2B commerce
Leveraging AI in a way that enhances teaching rather than undermines the diversity and objectivity of curricula requires an evaluation of specific skills and a review of where existing teaching methods fall short. For example, AI can address the current challenge in teaching comprehension in written vs oral contexts, as Dr. Rebecca Mannis explains.
“Some skills require ongoing assessment, and others must be assessed in new ways as AI both evaluates and contributes to a student’s learning. For example, most of the current reading tests record errors but do not differentiate between oral reading errors that change the meaning of a sentence or that do not. This is critical because students whose oral reading errors change the meaning (and whether the students recognize and self-correct for these errors) correlates with comprehension. AI can definitely play a role, whether in training psychologist and teachers or in doing that error analysis for them.”
Dr. Rebecca Mannis, Learning Specialist at Ivy Prep
Initiatives to educate the educators
Although aspects of AI have been prevalent in education for quite some time, the rapid influx of tools and resources that have sprouted from advances in Generative AI has left many teachers struggling to find the best uses for AI in the classroom.
“We have been engaging with aspects of AI for a long time in Education, dating as far back as 1965 when programmers at Stanford developed an AI powered program to teach students basic math and science concepts. While it will play a bigger role moving forward, AI has been prevalent in education for quite some time… However, 93% of teachers also admitted they didn’t know where to start with [AI] tools”
Jason Wilmot, Head of Education at Canva
“The biggest challenge facing the productive adoption of generative AI in education is training and education around AI tools for educators at all levels. Research done by Tyton Partners at the end of 2023 found that only 22% of faculty are using AI tools regularly. In our discussion with educators it seems the vast majority still hold the perceptions that these are simply “cheating tools” and this perception is preventing the majority of them from exploring how they can be used productively in the classroom.”
Ryan Lufkin, VP of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure
In recognition of the challenge experienced by teachers in bringing AI into the classroom, several universities and colleges have started offering training courses in AI, specifically aimed at educators. MIT, for example, is offering courses for educators on how to integrate Generative AI into their courses.
“The University of Michigan-Flint has created an outline for helping educators design assignments in the generative AI era that begins with “Enhance students’ intrinsic motivation to learn.” I often call this explaining the “why” of the assignments. Too often we as educators make an assumption that students understand the purpose of the course work, but too often they see the work, without a clear “why” as busy work, increasing their likelihood of taking the easy route through AI.”
Ryan Lufkin, VP of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure
“For AI to be deployed effectively, however, it must leverage a foundation of high-quality digital curricula to build trust with educators and school leaders, who must first believe in this technology for it to have a meaningful impact. The 21st Century skills, the four Cs – communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking – will become more prominent and important in the age of artificial intelligence”
Sari Factor, Vice Chair and CSO at Imagine learning
Katheleen Dubois, Education Industry Leader at Wipfli LLP, highlights how AI can be used to assist teachers with assessment, lesson planning, and learning reviews. These applications of AI can help teachers to understand and trust the technology more, by experiencing for themselves both its use-cases and its limitations.
“I think the use of AI in assessment could be really powerful, especially with regards to measuring the impact of particular curricula decisions, scopes and sequences, even teacher performance goals, and then allowing educators to iterate on all of that. Being a reflective practitioner is a must for every teacher, and AI could be a powerful, time saving tool to do so; after a full day of teaching, grading, lesson planning, communicating with families, etc., teachers are at capacity and reflection is challenging. I also like the idea of AI being used to determine what type of teaching or reteaching needs to occur—it could help perform gap analysis using formative and summative assessments (again, informed by AI) and more quickly uncover areas teachers need to focus on. I imagine, too, that policymakers could leverage AI to gather data to help guide their conversations with teachers about how to design curriculum.”
Kathleen Dubois, Education Industry Leader at Wipfli LLP.
The big picture
AI’s targeted and creative use in education is one of the most fundamental and important ways it can have a significant and beneficial impact on the future of our world. By bringing about changes in curricula to open up integrated learning and new opportunities, education systems will not only succeed in educating the upcoming generations better about the ethics, limitations, and real-life use cases for AI, they will also cultivate young minds with strong visions of how to use AI for good, and encourage students to dream bigger.
As Dr. Rebecca Mannis, Learning Specialist at Ivy Prep sees it, “Technology is constantly evolving and finding relevance in education. Whether it was the first caveman, the printing press, use of an iPad or bringing universal design to AI, the role of educators is to master the tools and think critically about how to use the technology toward enhancing learning, mastery, and critical thinking.”
