The Role of AI in the Future of Education
By Alexandra Loli, PhD | Business Partners, Jul-Aug 2023

Shortly after the end of World War II, English mathematician, logician and cryptologist Alan Turing gave quite possibly the earliest public lecture to mention computer intelligence. “What we want,” Turing presciently said, “is a machine that can learn from experience. To achieve this we will have to give the machine the ability to change its own instructions as it learns.” His insight was truly extraordinary.

It is up to us to see to it that AI proves advantageous to humankind

Today, AI tools are at everyone’s fingertips, no longer an exclusive privilege of the wealthy and most powerful. Already, anyone can easily have a machine produce sound, image, text, video and even code with just a few simple requests given in human language, and ongoing developments in this field are expected to usher in drastic changes to the way we do things, with ground-breaking applications in many areas—not least in education.

As is the case with any new technology and scientific achievement—and as is the case with any superpower—it is up to us to see to it that AI proves advantageous to humankind. Indeed, the implementation of AI requires a set of rules based on a specific ethical framework to ensure that we don’t fall victim to misinformation, propaganda, discrimination, and prejudice, as well as to ensure that personal data and intellectual property are protected. Still, the benefits for individuals and society as a whole far outweigh the risks.

The field of education is one that can benefit greatly from AI. Increased access to AI tools will significantly contribute to driving innovation and supporting the implementation of new ideas and research projects, educators will be able to develop new teaching models, and students will have access to knowledge and educational resources in a more inclusive way and will enjoy more opportunities to learn and develop new skills.

To date, we have only been afforded a glimpse of this new world. I look forward to the thrilling developments ahead and the extraordinary benefits these technologies hold for future generations.

AI holds significant potential to revolutionize education by tailoring educational content to individual students’ needs, preferences, and learning styles. Using data analysis, AI can create customized learning paths, recommend relevant resources, and provide timely feedback, thereby enhancing student understanding and engagement.

Integrating AI into education requires careful planning, collaboration among educators and technologists, and continuous evaluation to provide impactful student experiences

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), acting as virtual tutors, offer personalized guidance to students, adapt teaching strategies based on learner progress, and identify areas of difficulty. These systems provide targeted help and track students’ performance over time, identifying learning gaps for improvement. The application of natural language processing (NLP) in AI allows systems to understand and generate human language. This technology supports the creation of intelligent chatbots or virtual assistants that answer student questions, provide explanations, and assist with assignments, enhancing student-teacher interaction. Data analytics and predictive modeling, analyzing large amounts of data, uncover patterns that can shape instructional practices. This knowledge enables educators to identify at-risk students and provide targeted interventions. Institutions can optimize resource allocation and curriculum design and improve teaching effectiveness. AI also facilitates smart content creation, assisting educators in developing high-quality learning materials, including quizzes, exercises, and interactive simulations. AI recommendations help students in self-guided and lifelong learning.

At ACT, the tertiary division of Anatolia College, the curriculum has already been updated to include the most recent developments in cutting-edge courses such as AI and Machine Learning, and students are able to take their knowledge to the next level making use of its state-of-the-art labs. However, integrating AI into education requires careful planning, collaboration among educators and technologists, and continuous evaluation to provide impactful student experiences. It’s crucial to ensure ethical AI use, address biases, and balance technology-human interaction.

*This article was written with the help of AI before being edited for publication

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live and work, and it is crucial for schools to recognize the evolving needs of the job market and adapt their educational approach accordingly. With AI automation and machine learning algorithms taking over repetitive tasks and data analysis, there is a rising demand for individuals who possess strong interpersonal skills, critical thinking abilities, creativity, adaptability, and emotional intelligence.

Education must prepare students to navigate an AI-driven future effectively, fostering environments that encourage imagination, problemsolving, and the ability to think outside the box

AI has already made its way into the realm of education, with the potential to enhance learning experiences. Intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive learning platforms, and personalized feedback mechanisms are just a few examples of how AI is being utilized in classrooms. However, as AI assumes a more prominent role, the education sector must prepare students to navigate an AI-driven future effectively, fostering environments that encourage imagination, problemsolving, and the ability to think outside the box. Developing critical thinking skills enables students to assess, analyze, and evaluate effectively the information and data analysis generated by AI. Additionally, the ability to communicate clearly, work in teams, and navigate diverse perspectives also becomes vital.

While AI can analyze and imitate emotions to some extent, it lacks the ability to truly understand human feelings. Emotional intelligence, which encompasses empathy, self-awareness, and relationship-building skills, is essential for navigating interpersonal interactions and providing the human touch that AI cannot replicate.

Together with these skills, schools must equip students with a growth mindset, resilience, and the ability to embrace change, enabling them to thrive in an ever-changing technological landscape.

How can schools ensure that they are relevant and responsive to a world abundant with AI? To answer this question, I propose five essential curriculum design pillars for PK-12 schools that we spiral throughout the student experience at Pinewood.

All students must engage in philosophical and ethical debate brought on by AI

Philosophy and Ethics: All students must engage in philosophical and ethical debate brought on by AI. By learning the complexities, both promise and peril, AI can be used for good. This will build ethical judgment and concern for humanity.

Psychology: AI and psychology are interconnected. By understanding how we perceive, reason, and make decisions, students will learn the difference between agency and manipulation in order to understand human-AI interactions. This will build social-emotional intelligence and self-regulation.

The Arts: Visual and performing arts foster traits that are uniquely human and difficult to replicate with machines. We must absolutely build artistic capacities in students, and AI creates a clear imperative for doing so. This will build imagination, creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking.

Entrepreneurship: An entrepreneurial mindset teaches students how to navigate a rapidly changing world by learning to identify emerging opportunities and seeking to address complex challenges. This will build adaptability, willingness to embrace change, design and systems thinking.

Programming: Students must learn the fundamentals of programming, not to become programmers, but to understand that algorithms are created by people with their own values, assumptions, and biases. This will build an understanding of the algorithmic way of thinking for ethical AI.

As generative AI tools facilitate our quest to change the DNA of schooling, these collective student skills are the foundation for relevant schools and society.

AI is propelling the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and human-like intelligence crafted by humans and demonstrated by machines is becoming abundant, transforming economies and societies at the scale the internet and mobile phones did. The public release of ChatGPT has allowed anybody with an internet connection to harness the power of this state-of-the-art conversational agent—a true Sputnik moment for all industries, including education. Generative AI tools can pave the way toward adaptive and personalized learning, fast creation of educational content, automated assessment of students’ work, and more intuitive employment of learning analytics.

The journey to create responsible, confident, hopeful, AI-literate citizens has just begun

Today’s children are going to live and work in a world of abundant, empowering intelligence that most K-12 institutions are insufficiently preparing them for. AI literacy needs to be obtained by all stakeholders, students and educators. Educating students about AI and training educators and administrators on AI education is the single most important step forward. Technology, data, and media literacies are also essential. It is of utmost importance that students grow up to use AI as a problemsolving tool to improve the state of the world.

Building on the belief that “Towards harnessing AI for good as conscious citizens, students will become literate in AI and explore AI holistically”, ACS Athens has established a K-12 AI curriculum framework that expands the reach of AI to all grade levels and disciplines, allowing for reflective practice beyond technology education and highlighting the gravity of the human factor. K-12 institutions are evolving, embracing an analogue older generation of professionals, technology-native students, and an emerging population of—still very young—AI natives. AI is evolving faster. The journey to create responsible, confident, hopeful, AI-literate citizens has just begun.

In recent years, AI has entered virtually every field of our life and education could be no exception. Day by day its impact increases, and it lies in our hands to see the opportunities and challenges it presents and handle them to the benefit of education.

Policies should be built to ensure ethics, safety and equity

To begin with, AI maximizes efficiency and speed. It enables differentiated instruction, customizing the teaching practices to meet the needs and pace of every learner, including students with special needs. It enables personalized tutoring and feedback outside the classroom, includes innovative teaching practices through intelligent tools, and introduces new forms of T-S or S-S interaction. Time management is also improved since it saves valuable classroom time and automizes grading and feedback processes, outsourcing some mundane teaching tasks. Last but not least, the distance barrier is removed and access to knowledge and life-long learning is facilitated. Thus, the T-L experience is optimized, inequalities are reduced and students become more creative, autonomous and self-confident, acquiring meta-learning skills.

On the other hand, the challenges presented have to be addressed. When it comes to time and effort required, especially by more mature teachers, it becomes obvious that training and support guaranteeing consistent implementation should be provided. More importantly, policies should be built to ensure ethics, safety and equity. Attempts should be made to design and evaluate AI practices that keep the human-machine balance. AI is not to replace teachers but to enhance education by combining the best of both worlds and aiming for fair, inclusive and sustainable education.

AI has the potential to revolutionize education and transform the learning experience. At Hellenic American University, we realized the impact of AI early on and restructured our engineering and informatics programs to cater to the emerging technology.

We see AI as a brave new world awaiting exploration

Our first AI project—an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaborative effort that capitalized on the knowhow of the Informatics, Engineering and English Language Departments and the Office of Language Assessment—was the design of a virtual language examiner that performs accurate simulations of speaking examinations. The robot interacts with students, prompts them to engage in discussion, answers questions, and guides them through each stage of the speaking examination. Our robot has enhanced perception, visualization, interaction, and collaboration between humans and AI systems working together as partners to achieve common goals, sharing mutual understanding, and learning of each other’s abilities and respective roles. Using the best of human and machine knowledge capabilities, our robot is transparent, fair, and intuitive to use.

We see AI as a brave new world awaiting exploration

Our next AI project is a virtual teaching assistant that aims to enhance students’ learning experience. The AI-powered assistant will assist teachers in performing various tasks, from administrative duties to providing personalized learning support to students. The robot will be able to analyze student data, identify areas where they require additional support, and provide personalized learning materials and suggestions to students, helping them improve their understanding of the subject matter. It will also assist teachers in grading assignments and providing feedback to students.

Some perceive AI as a danger and adopt a defensive stance, but within the Hellenic American University community, we see AI as a brave new world awaiting exploration.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19, which unleashed the development and use of tools to support online learning, a new challenge has emerged: generative artificial intelligence (GAI). While AI is not new, the advent of GAI has opened a whole new array of possibilities.

AI will significantly change the role of learners, educators, and researchers

AI has the potential to enable both teachers and learners to innovate, create effective learning environments, and enhance academia’s ability to work more efficiently and effectively. Learners can be more independent in their learning, adjusting the content and pace, and can interact faster with sources, enabling them to hold a conversation with research papers and get assistance in structuring their ideas.

Educators can benefit from AI by focusing on more important aspects, removing the impediments of clerical work, such as meaningless communication, now facilitated by chatbots. Additionally, dynamic assessments are facilitated, while the ability to facilitate the grading reduces the strain on educators. Concerning curriculum development, AI can identify gaps based on student performance and industry trends.

AI empowers researchers by providing advanced tools to conduct literature searches efficiently and accurately. Research originality has become a major issue. Moreover, AI changes the way we conduct analytics, using machine learning and natural language processing to name a few.

Deree – The American College of Greece fosters collaboration between students and faculty to establish AI guidelines, promote opportunities, and maintain academic integrity. Overall, AI will significantly change the role of learners, educators, and researchers as well as the way that academic institutions will develop and implement their strategies.

Just as we have done with new technologies throughout history, we are now reacting to the latest AI advances with hyperbole in both trepidation and reverence, questioning the limits of what it means to be human. How does today’s education prepare everyone for a future dominated by AI? Already there are hundreds of applications exploiting tools like ChatGPT for scholarly research, intelligent tutoring, adaptive learning, student advising, and administration. Sooner or later we will see systemic adaptations to the fundamental logic of education, beyond today’s standalone applications, as AI promises to make high quality learning more accessible and affordable for all.

As Picasso once suggested, computers are useless; they can only give answers.

But if search engines brought the world’s knowledge to our fingertips and if large language models now master the art of analysis and expression in language, what is the future of work, teaching, and learning? Perhaps AI could take care of training and certifying credentials for the job market while education rediscovers its purpose to help people in their pursuit of Aristotelian wellbeing: exercising judgment, engaging in productive argumentation in society, applying knowledge in action, making an impact, and revising their beliefs based on the experience of the inevitable ethical consequences of their choices. To get there, we need to begin today to contest AI.

ChatGPT might appear oracle-like, but we must learn to question both what it is telling us and, more importantly, what it is not telling us. As Picasso once suggested, computers are useless; they can only give answers. Now is the time to learn to ask better questions.

Teaching history and archaeology frequently involves site and museum visits, personal examinations of monuments and artefacts, as well as on-site assignments to enhance personal experience. Students are given either digital or, more commonly, physical maps, architectural plans, and illustrations to assist them in their exploration of a Mycenaean palace, an Archaic cemetery, or a Classical sanctuary. At the same time, cutting edge technologies—from simple databases to elaborate software for, say, network and least-cost path analysis—have been used for a number of years. And thus digital humanities became a reality.

AI can teach students through personalized on-site assignments and assistance

Based on this acquired knowledge, AI can offer an exciting new range of tools to teach students through personalized on-site assignments and assistance. Visual data such as maps and plans, together with textual documentation both from ancient sources and modern scholarship, can be used on portable devices to assist students during their field study. Tentative reconstructions, illustrations, and a variety of images can be checked, compared and contrasted simultaneously while walking around a museum or site. The accessibility of the information, the speed at which this can be accessed and used and the monitoring by the AI assistant will allow students to get the most out of their experience in the field. By uploading photos, notes and questions on a tailor-made platform (designed by AI), that meets students’ individual needs, students can benefit from immediate feedback and guidance. The learning outcomes of this practice, which can be used both systematically or ad hoc, have the potential to transform the experience of learning in situ.

Teaching history and archaeology frequently involves site and museum visits, personal examinations of monuments and artefacts, as well as on-site assignments to enhance personal experience. Students are given either digital or, more commonly, physical maps, architectural plans, and illustrations to assist them in their exploration of a Mycenaean palace, an Archaic cemetery, or a Classical sanctuary. At the same time, cutting edge technologies—from simple databases to elaborate software for, say, network and least-cost path analysis—have been used for a number of years. And thus digital humanities became a reality.

AI can teach students through personalized on-site assignments and assistance

Based on this acquired knowledge, AI can offer an exciting new range of tools to teach students through personalized on-site assignments and assistance. Visual data such as maps and plans, together with textual documentation both from ancient sources and modern scholarship, can be used on portable devices to assist students during their field study. Tentative reconstructions, illustrations, and a variety of images can be checked, compared and contrasted simultaneously while walking around a museum or site. The accessibility of the information, the speed at which this can be accessed and used and the monitoring by the AI assistant will allow students to get the most out of their experience in the field. By uploading photos, notes and questions on a tailor-made platform (designed by AI), that meets students’ individual needs, students can benefit from immediate feedback and