The AI in the Classroom: How GenAI is Empowering Teachers & Learners

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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has captured significant interest in the consumer world, especially since the release of OpenAI’s free ChatGPT program last November, 2022.  However, when it comes to using GenAI in education, teachers and researchers are being careful. They worry about things like whether the GenAI might give wrong information, be unfair, or even create strange and incorrect answers.  Due to this syndrome, teachers are avoiding GenAI during teaching as they are not confident of using it as well as introducing it to the learners. First, Educators must stop pretending that GenAI doesn’t exist. Whether we like it or not, learners are already experimenting with GenAI tools like ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, Gemeni on their own. Therefore, teachers’ role is to guide them in using these technologies responsibly. But the big question is How and to scale are we going to integrate GenAI into learns.

GenAI Accuracy Challenges

Learners are in the belief that GenAI tools will provide you an perfect and correct answer. On the other side, educators are the belief that GenAI generate inaccurate and time variant answers due to the fact that they are probabilistic models. First thing, we need to bridge this gap. Yes, GenAI models do not generate 100% accurate details. But why they should be? If you ask a question from a human, those answers are not correct. It is our responsible to accept or reject the answer. As a very popular Sinhala proverb says, No matter what the speaker says, the listener should listen carefully. Students need to understand that the it is their responsibility to own what you get from GenAI tools. 

Developing critical thinking skills around AI tools is crucial for students. One way to achieve this is through small, classroom exercises. Teachers can introduce a scenario and ask students for their answer. Then, students can use GenAI to generate a response. By comparing their own answers with GenAI’s output and discussing it with peers, students can assess their knowledge and recognize that AI is not infallible. This fosters a deeper understanding of how to leverage GenAI effectively, encouraging them to add their own analysis and judgment to AI-generated responses.

Academic Integrity

Another worry that educators raise is that the using GenAI tools will create a platform for academic dishonesty, and this will lead to demotivation among students. This is true but only if there are students who are using GenAI tools without sense. However, how can we avoid this? We may have to go back to old school method of questions. Once a student comes with a report and presentation, as a teacher you should be better prepared to ask questions to verify what the student has done. Yes, this is time consuming, but it is the order of the era. Once a teacher starts this practice, students will be more responsible with the usage of tools. 

Personalized Teaching

Every student has a distinctive style of learning. Considering the number of students in the classroom, there can be situations where the teacher will not be able to pay attention to each student individually. Further, teachers may find difficulties in identifying the different styles of students. GenAI tools are great tools where each student can go on their own phase to acquire required knowledge.
However, students should have a better understanding of prompting (promptology) when using GenAI tools. To achieve this level, students should have better training in tools. In the student do not have the proper training, it will lead to many negative consequences. 

Enhanced Learning Environment

The pupil to teacher ratio in primary education in Sri Lanka was approximately 26.3 pupils for every teacher available in 2018. Due to the recent economic situation, this number may have increased. This means that teachers need more tools to handle many of the educational related tasks to reduce their workloads. GenAI tools might be good options for to enhance the learning environment. Further, to develop curriculum, to prepare model question papers and answers, GenAI tools can be used. However, it is important to stress that tools should be used by a teacher who has a good understanding about them and the domain knowledge. 

Challenges and Considerations

Even though there are great advantages by using GenAI tools, there are few challenges that policy makers need to focus on.  We already have a substantial digital divide among our population. This divide is higher in school education in Sri Lanka. Therefore, GenAI initiatives should not widen the digital gap, instead it should reduce the gap. 

Access to internet is key in this initiative. According to a study conducted by LearnAsia in 2021, 44% of Sri Lanka’s population aged 15 and above were internet users. 

As shown in the above figure this gap is significant depending on the urbanity and education level. This will be a huge challenge that needs to be considered to avoid any further digital divide.

As indicated in few times in this article, proper training should be provided to the teachers and teachers should be provide the training student. Considering the vast population of students, this is by no means an easy task. However, proper planning should be in place to achieve this.

Education is a sector where GenAI tools are not welcomed by many parties due to various valid reasons as well as for many myths. However, as educators we need to look at options of using the GenAI tools to enhance the learning environment for betterment of the society. Though there are many challenges of adopting GenAI, there are many avenues of options that can be used. Proper understanding and training is the key for both the learners as well as the student. 

By 
P P G Dinesh Asanka
Senior Lecturer, 
Department of Industrial Management, 
Faculty of Science, 
University of Kelaniya