AI in Education
Has your child ever come to you to ask how to do a math problem, but you didn’t remember how? If so, you don’t need to relearn the math your student is learning in class. AI could help you do that. And, at the same time, you could take it as an opportunity to teach your child how to use AI responsibly.
GenAI can help everyone perform better in schools, from students to teachers. Students can use it to learn better, and teachers can use it to teach better. For both, it can help break down complicated concepts, find alternative ways to explain them on the fly, and identify where students need the most help. Many people have already written about this.
While genAI tools can be incredibly helpful for students at any level, it’s important to use them properly. A young student can quickly become reliant on genAI, eventually using it to automate all their work. This can be dangerous. Not only will it hinder their learning and development, it can also result in poor grades. Teachers have become wise to the fact that students are using genAI to complete assignments. They’ve incorporated tools and tricks to catch students who use genAI. Don’t just teach your child to circumvent these. Teach them why they matter, and tell them how they will benefit from using genAI properly.
AI’s writing is not yet better than ours. It’s important to understand what good writing looks like in order to be able to balance out its weaknesses and fully capitalize on its strengths. This doesn’t just come with reading good books. Working through the process time and time again, seeing what succeeds and what doesn’t, is essential to developing skill in writing. Real skill comes with lengthy and consistent practice. With real skill in writing, we can use GenAI effectively. But real skill is necessary, and that takes effort.
Becoming a proficient writer while also learning to maximize GenAI’s capabilities will position anyone to accomplish things that have previously been unimaginable. If we and our children learn how to think critically and do things on our own, while also learning how to maximize genAI, we will be able to push humanity’s frontiers, making revolutionary discoveries and advances.
Imagine Jerry, a savant mathematician before the calculator came out, learning how to find logarithms without pulling out a logarithmic table. But even after its creation, Jerry didn’t learn how to use a calculator. So, even the dimmest math student who had a faint idea how to use a calculator managed to accomplish much more than Jerry.
Now, imagine if Jerry had learned how to use the calculator. He could spend more of his time learning and understanding advanced concepts, and less time calculating logarithms by hand. This free time allowed him to push the frontiers of mathematics, making discoveries and advances just because he learned to use a calculator.
The next generation will grow up intimately familiar with genAI, just as mine grew up with a very tight connection to computers and smartphones. It’s important to foster this connection, so they can learn how to leverage these new tools to the greatest extent possible. But it’s essential they develop the fundamental skills – like good writing – required to critically think about what AI produces. We don’t want our children becoming conduits of these new tools, do we? We want them to be able to leverage these tools to do great things with their lives, using them to become the best at what they do, rather than being used by them. To prevent this, have a conversation with your child about how to and how not to use genAI tools. Tell them what the advantages are, and what we should guard against. Teach them how to use it effectively and what to do about its weaknesses.
The children who develop independent skills and also manage to leverage genAI will be those that succeed. Some children will, of course, succeed with one or neither of these things. But it is those who fully develop both who will become the world’s next class of leaders.
GenAI can help everyone perform better in schools, from students to teachers. Students can use it to learn better, and teachers can use it to teach better. For both, it can help break down complicated concepts, find alternative ways to explain them on the fly, and identify where students need the most help. Many people have already written about this.
While genAI tools can be incredibly helpful for students at any level, it’s important to use them properly. A young student can quickly become reliant on genAI, eventually using it to automate all their work. This can be dangerous. Not only will it hinder their learning and development, it can also result in poor grades. Teachers have become wise to the fact that students are using genAI to complete assignments. They’ve incorporated tools and tricks to catch students who use genAI. Don’t just teach your child to circumvent these. Teach them why they matter, and tell them how they will benefit from using genAI properly.
AI’s writing is not yet better than ours. It’s important to understand what good writing looks like in order to be able to balance out its weaknesses and fully capitalize on its strengths. This doesn’t just come with reading good books. Working through the process time and time again, seeing what succeeds and what doesn’t, is essential to developing skill in writing. Real skill comes with lengthy and consistent practice. With real skill in writing, we can use GenAI effectively. But real skill is necessary, and that takes effort.
Becoming a proficient writer while also learning to maximize GenAI’s capabilities will position anyone to accomplish things that have previously been unimaginable. If we and our children learn how to think critically and do things on our own, while also learning how to maximize genAI, we will be able to push humanity’s frontiers, making revolutionary discoveries and advances.
Imagine Jerry, a savant mathematician before the calculator came out, learning how to find logarithms without pulling out a logarithmic table. But even after its creation, Jerry didn’t learn how to use a calculator. So, even the dimmest math student who had a faint idea how to use a calculator managed to accomplish much more than Jerry.
Now, imagine if Jerry had learned how to use the calculator. He could spend more of his time learning and understanding advanced concepts, and less time calculating logarithms by hand. This free time allowed him to push the frontiers of mathematics, making discoveries and advances just because he learned to use a calculator.
The next generation will grow up intimately familiar with genAI, just as mine grew up with a very tight connection to computers and smartphones. It’s important to foster this connection, so they can learn how to leverage these new tools to the greatest extent possible. But it’s essential they develop the fundamental skills – like good writing – required to critically think about what AI produces. We don’t want our children becoming conduits of these new tools, do we? We want them to be able to leverage these tools to do great things with their lives, using them to become the best at what they do, rather than being used by them. To prevent this, have a conversation with your child about how to and how not to use genAI tools. Tell them what the advantages are, and what we should guard against. Teach them how to use it effectively and what to do about its weaknesses.
The children who develop independent skills and also manage to leverage genAI will be those that succeed. Some children will, of course, succeed with one or neither of these things. But it is those who fully develop both who will become the world’s next class of leaders.
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