Students can easily access AI, here's how schools can make sure it benefits them

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It's been two years since ChatGPT was released to the public. Since then, tens of millions of Americans have used it weekly. Other large language model artificial intelligence chatbots, like Gemini, have also emerged.

Students and educators have begun using this technology — for better or worse.

Purdue University’s College of Education hosted its first-ever AI in P-12 Education conference in 2024. Professor William Watson, who also serves as director of the Purdue Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments, organized the conference.

WFYI’s Lee Gaines spoke with Watson about how AI could benefit teachers and students, the challenges it poses, and how it could transform the educational landscape.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Lee V. Gaines: In preparation for this interview, I actually turned to a large language model, and I asked it to give me a summary of how preschool through 12th-grade educators are integrating artificial intelligence into the classroom. It said:

Personalized learning — AI-driven platforms assess individual student performance to tailor educational content and address their specific strengths and weaknesses.

Intelligent tutoring systems — AI-powered tutors provide real-time feedback and support.

Administrative support — AI can automate tasks like grading and attendance, reducing teacher workloads and allowing for more focus on instruction.

Language translation — AI facilitates communication with students and families who speak other languages.

AI literacy education — Recognizing the growing importance of AI, some schools have introduced AI literacy programs to prepare students for future challenges and opportunities in a world filled with AI.

So what do you think about this summary?

Bill Watson: I think it's a good summary of where we want to go, though not necessarily where we are yet with P-12 education. So I think it effectively summarizes what people are saying we can be using AI for. But my experience has largely been that it's more limited than that in practice.

Gaines: Yeah, tell me what the real-world application of AI in learning has been so far.

Watson: It's not that AI is new. It's been around for decades, and we've been talking about what it could do. But ChatGPT has really thrust AI into ubiquity, where it's in everyone's pockets and accessible to everyone. I think that shift came faster than anticipated.

By and large, when AI is implemented, it's often happening with individual teachers. Even here at Purdue, the approach has largely been: individual instructors can do what they want, but we don’t have a university-wide policy on how AI is or isn't used.

I think that's largely been the case at P-12 schools as well. They're not quite sure yet how to get a handle on it. You’ll have individual teachers who think they have to fight against AI and students using AI. And then you have other teachers who are early adopters trying to leverage it. By and large, its use is happening at an individual level rather than through a systematic approach to addressing both its potential benefits and challenges.

Gaines: What are some ways that you've seen AI employed in the classroom or in learning environments that you think are really interesting and potentially very valuable?

Watson: My research focuses on leveraging technology to realize personalized approaches to learning. And so that's always been the most exciting aspect for me, is that potential it has to really move us beyond a very time based system, where it's very teacher-centered. We're treating all students as if they're the same and they have X amount of time to learn the same content in the same way.

And that sort of approach, which is one that we've been using forever, really forces learning to vary amongst the students, because some people are stronger in some areas than others. And the current system is very much structured in a way where if you need more time to learn, you don't have that time.

I really think AI, more than any other technology or intervention that we've seen, grants us the ability to treat each learner in a way so their learning will be optimal, and where we're focusing on ensuring mastery of learning, rather than focusing on just how much time they're trying to learning and moving on. So that's a real strong, exciting potential for AI, and something that I hope we can realize. I don't think we're there yet.

Gaines: So what I hear you saying is that instead of one teacher trying to standardize learning for a group of 25 students, the teacher could help support individual students who are also being supported by AI that’s tailored to their specific strengths and weaknesses.

Watson: Absolutely. When we standardize the learning, it's not only having a negative impact on students who need more time to learn something, it's also demotivating those who could go more quickly or have a passion about a particular topic and would like to invest in it. So AI really can support us with that, and that includes the sort of individualized tutoring that you mentioned.

Right now, our system puts so much of the responsibility on teachers to do everything, and that's simply not possible when you're dealing with 25 different students who are in 25 different areas of their learning. So AI can really support us with that and really move it towards more of a learner centered approach and a personalized approach to that learning.

Gaines: I want to talk about some of the challenges. Since ChatGPT came on the scene, we’ve heard concerns about cheating, plagiarism, that kind of thing. What do you have to say about those issues that teachers are already encountering in the classroom?

Watson: Yeah, I think it's a very real concern. My pushback on that is that the genie is out of the bottle. We cannot get rid of this technology, which is easily available to everyone. And so in my mind, it's less a matter of trying to focus on catching everyone who's using it in an inappropriate way, and instead focus more on AI literacy. I think it is hugely important for all learners, as well as all teachers, to understand what AI is good at, what it's not good at, how you can use it in an ethical fashion, where you can have ethical problems beyond just cheating, but in terms of the data itself.

Just as an example, there are a lot of companies that are racing to try to come out with technologies to identify when written language has been produced by AI rather than humans. They are trying to get better, but right now, it's very problematic. They tend to flag non-native English speakers because the way that they learn a new language and use a new language is not always natural to how a native speaker might talk or write. So they're getting flagged for using AI even when they're not using it. It's hugely problematic.

And some of the things that we need to focus on are, what sort of assessments are we doing? If our learning outcomes are focused on regurgitating canned knowledge, that's something AI is very, very good at. Maybe those aren't the learning outcomes we should be paying attention to for our students in this day and age, where they will have AI all around them the rest of their lives. It’s not going away. So it's a matter of understanding how to use it effectively, and focusing on assignments that highlight what humans bring to the table and what humans do well, outside of what AI is doing.

Gaines: I imagine that data privacy is a concern. In education, there are federal rules around information pertaining to students and their educational experience that keep that information confidential. I'm wondering whether you think that poses a challenge for the integration of AI in education?

Watson: I do absolutely think it's a challenge, and it's something that we have to be paying attention to. Anytime we do anything these days, every time we're on the web, when you're on your phone, there's data being gathered about us. And most of us are busy in our day-to-day lives, and so of course, we're not paying close attention to what data is being gathered and how it's being used and who it's being sold to.

But when it comes to things like healthcare, when it comes to things like education, that is sensitive data, and it needs to be paid attention to who has access to it, including the companies that are selling us AI platforms. What exactly are they using that data for? Who are they selling it to? I would say that's really, really important for school administrators and instructors to be paying close attention to, particularly if they're signing any agreements with companies to get access to AI services.

Gaines: Looking ahead, as this technology continues to be incorporated into not just education, but all aspects of our daily lives, there is a very valid, I think, concern among regular people and policy makers that AI is going to take jobs away from folks. Do you see a scenario where there will be fewer teachers because AI will be doing more of the teaching? How do you think AI is going to change the educational landscape?

Watson: I do think AI is going to definitely impact employment. I'm not sure that teachers are an area where I would highlight that as a concern. I’m not going to say it's not possible, but what I hope to see is that AI will alleviate the burden on teachers and allow them to teach more, instead of focusing on all the other aspects.

Again, we put so much on our teachers’ shoulders. We put so much responsibility on them for administration, for creating instruction, finding instruction, implementing the instruction. And I think AI has the potential to alleviate some of the distracting responsibilities that teachers have and allow them to focus more on the human interaction and the human teaching that is so important for what they do.

Most people have a teacher that they remember as being so impactful to them in their lives. And that can be as a human being gaining confidence, in generating curiosity and sparking a desire to seek further knowledge in a particular area. When people think about the teachers that had that impact on them, it's that human element — that teacher seeing them as a person that stays with them. And so that need will never go away. We can't dehumanize the process of learning, because learning shapes everything about us as humans.

Our system is very much structured in a way as if knowledge exists and we have to transfer it from one vessel, which is the teacher, to another vessel, which is the student. And that's not the reality of how learning actually works,at least the sort of learning that we need in modern society. So that human connection in our increasingly digital world is going to be more and more important. And so my hope is that, rather than replacing teachers, we're freeing teachers to focus on the most important aspects of their work, which is that human connection around learning.

Contact WFYI investigative education reporter Lee V. Gaines at lgaines@wfyi.org. You can follow her on Bluesky.