Since ChatGPT’s release in 2022 and the subsequent boom in artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, an increase in AI use among students and teachers has illuminated both excitement and concerns.

The growing popularity of AI has educators, parents, students, and product creators asking themselves:  What exactly is AI’s place in education? And how can we ensure it is helpful, not harmful? 

One way to frame AI’s role in education is to analyze ways it can be used as a tool to extend learning instead of replace learning.

To do so, we’ve compiled desk research and conducted surveys of our own to identify how educators feel about AI in education and pinpoint the most effective ways it can be used. 

Our own research includes survey feedback from educators and administrators around the world working with students from preschool to higher education.

Research from institutions such as Forbes, The Pew Research Center, and RAND, to name a few, also informed our findings and recommendations. 

Overview: teacher sentiments toward AI in education

Overall, educators reported feeling open to the ways AI can impact their own teaching practices, but see it as a support tool for teachers, rather than a central fixture in learning.   

An interesting note: when the educators we surveyed were given the opportunity to identify possible benefits of AI in education, almost all of their responses focused on teacher use.

Conversely, when given the opportunity to identify concerns around AI in education, most responses focused on student use. 

Concerns around student use of AI in the classroom were consistently reported. Educators also repeatedly called for AI training and professional development for both teachers and students to encourage future AI use.

How can AI be used in the classroom?

Our respondents reported that support with administrative tasks and personalized learning plans are two of the most desired uses for AI in their classrooms. 

Using AI to automate administrative tasks would free up time for targeted student instruction. Educators we surveyed identified administrative tasks like generating homework and assessments, adapting supplemental learning materials, and automating grades and feedback as areas they envision AI benefitting their practice. 

“…in helping with some of the administrative duties, I can focus more time on actual lesson planning and devoting time to each student.” 

When considering our research alongside a 2023 report conducted by RAND on teachers’ job satisfaction, it’s clear that using AI to support administrative tasks could also improve job satisfaction and retention rates among educators. 

Survey results found that most teachers feel overworked and undercompensated. “On average, teachers reported working 15 hours per week longer than required by contract. One out of every four hours that teachers worked per week, on average, was uncompensated.” In comparison to other working adults, teachers worked more hours – “53 hours to 46 hours.” 

While the report revealed that low pay is also a contributing factor to low satisfaction rates, “Pay increases alone–without improvements in teachers’ working hours or conditions—are unlikely to induce large shifts in teachers’ well-being or intentions to leave.” 

AI has the ability to improve teachers’ working hours by saving time on the completion of rote tasks like logging data, updating digital gradebooks, generating routine emails, and more.

“I’m interested to see how AI could be used to systematize certain aspects of school and teacher functions to save time and energy…”

Using AI to support personalized learning is another desired use for AI in the classroom, one that can specifically support students struggling with classroom content and/or with learning disabilities. 

AI can help teachers create diversified supplemental materials that address specific student needs. Doing so by hand, when many teachers have over 100 students, would be nearly impossible. Instead, teachers can use AI to adapt learning materials in more ways than just with or without modifications. 

Concerns about AI in the classroom

While most of our Teacher Council found the idea of AI use to be safe for themselves, AI use amongst their students garnered a different reaction. 

A strong majority of our Teacher Council does not encourage student use of AI (70%), nor would they put their students in front of an AI tutor (60%). Half of our respondents specified that a decrease in creativity and critical thinking skills is at the root of their concern. 

“I think the biggest issue is children relying on it and not using their own imagination. With essay writing I also think students can become more dependent on it than is helpful. The process of really learning to write an essay and the rules that govern the process can be lost with dependence on AI.”

Our educators also identified plagiarism, cheating, inaccurate information, and a lack of student and teacher digital literacy around AI as additional concerns. Overall, our Teacher Council believes that AI has the potential to benefit teachers over students because of the above concerns. 

Additional research that we conducted outside of our Teacher Council illuminated similar concerns regarding AI in education: misuse/cheating (80%), a decrease in critical thinking skills (63%), and dependency on technology (60%) were reported as the top three concerns.

“Apart from cheating and dependency, AI might disrupt organic learning and lessen the effectiveness of students’ ability to outsource information themselves. They might not know where to look for certain information as they get used to [being fed] from AI.”

Additionally, worries around privacy and data security, inaccuracy of AI tools, ethical implications, and equity and access issues were also listed. 

On a larger scale, a recent Forbes report, which surveyed more than 500 teachers, echoed our findings around top concerns for AI in education. Plagiarism in essays/work was listed as the top concern (65%), followed by reduced human interaction in learning (62%) and data privacy and security (42%).

According to a report conducted by RAND and The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), AI has the potential to exacerbate educational inequities, a concern our own surveys also unearthed. 

Not only are more “advanced settings” quicker to adopt AI, but “Suburban, majority-white, and low-poverty school districts are [also] currently about twice as likely to provide AI-use training for their teachers than urban or rural or high-poverty districts.” 

The Education Trust, an organization dedicated to “dismantling racial and economic barriers in the American education system,” highlights that access and training are not the only ways in which AI can deepen educational inequities. 

“AI tools could inadvertently reinforce existing biases and stereotypes, if not properly designed and trained,” writes Nathan Kriha on the organization’s blog. “AI tools learn from data, and if the data used to train them is biased or lacks diversity, the tools will perpetuate discrimination.”

The consistency at which all of the concerns above were reported, both in our own research and that of larger institutions, suggests that steps must be taken to address these issues before AI is adopted more widely by educators. 

Current use of AI in classrooms

According to our research, the most popular AI tools currently used by teachers are visual and adaptive learning platforms, as well as chatbots. Respectively, examples include Google Classroom, iReady, Khan Academy, ChatGPT, and Gemini (formerly Google Bard). 

“I use it [ChatGPT] for lesson planning, to create HW questions or give me ideas on more interactive lesson plans.”

According to RAND and CRPE, “AI-using teachers most often used AI tools and products to adapt instruction and generate materials. For example, 51 percent of AI-using teachers said that they used AI products and tools to support students with learning differences…” 

Despite the AI tools listed above, our reports showed that the number of teachers using AI is still low. When surveying our Backpack Interactive Teacher Council, only 20% reported using AI to support their teaching practice (i.e. lesson planning, grading, etc.). 

In our broader survey involving educators outside of our Teacher Council, only 37% currently use AI tools in their classroom. ChatGPT was the most frequently mentioned service. 

Similarly, in a survey conducted by RAND and CRPE, only 18% of teachers reported using AI in their teaching, and 15% had tried AI tools at least once, “but do not intend to regularly use them in their teaching.” 

This data suggests that while teachers are open to using AI in their classrooms in the future, many are not comfortable using it right now. 

Future use and teacher motivation

When investigating the likelihood of teachers using AI in the future, 70% of our respondents felt positive (53%) or very positive (17%) about AI use in their classrooms. 83% are likely (60%) or very likely (23%) to use AI in their classrooms in the future.

A report conducted by RAND and CRPE identified similar findings: “Nearly three-quarters (73%) of current AI-using teachers said that they expect to use AI products and tools more next school year (2024– 2025) than they do this school year (2023–2024).” 

According to Rand and CRPE, “Teachers report that some of the greatest barriers to their using AI in classrooms is lack of school or district guidance and professional development.” 

Similarly, Forbes found that “98% of teachers believe education on AI is necessary to increase understanding and for use to be ethical.” Our own research also identified a lack of support and training as the biggest reason that teachers are not using AI in their classrooms. 73% shared that more training and professional development would motivate them to use AI more in their classrooms. 

“I think that training on AI abilities would be helpful. I would like to know how AI can benefit me and what tools are at my disposal when using AI.”

This data speaks to an important next step. Comprehensive training and professional development about how to use AI is needed for teachers to feel confident using it in the future.

When children and adolescents use AI

According to a study by Current Biology, children’s ability to learn a variety of new information both simultaneously and quickly is greater than that of adults and is a result of the way in which GABA’s function in their brains. 

This might be why it is not uncommon to see children navigating new technology or apps at impressive rates. Children’s brains are like sponges, primed to take in new information and technology in a way that adults cannot. A child’s ability to adapt and learn quickly can open new doors when it comes to the possibilities of AI in education. 

However, the age of student AI users presents an additional layer to the concerns already voiced by educators. Users in grades K-12 and even many users in higher education are younger than 25 years old, and their brains, specifically their frontal lobes, are still developing. 

Students might not consider the long-term impacts AI could have on their learning, critical thinking skills, and creativity because of their developmental age. The frontal lobe, including the prefrontal cortex, “controls planning and reasoning…problem solving, judgment, and emotional expression.” This explains why it is actually developmentally appropriate for children and adolescents to over-rely on AI, rather than use AI to bolster their ever-developing critical thinking skills.

“My kids are too young and are not digitally literate enough to fully understand how to use it [AI] in school. They know how to use Siri & Alexa to feed them information but they take everything that it tells them at face value. They don’t know where the information is sourced from.” 

It is not uncommon for children and adolescents to overlook the reliability of the information fed to them. The developmental age of student AI users in education calls for an increase in teaching and training around how to use it appropriately, safely, and effectively.

As someone who works with teenagers, I can also testify to their perceived need and preference for someone or something to, let’s say, write their paper for them. Despite talking with students about the importance of a productive struggle in their learning process, I have watched them choose, time and time again, to use AI tools as a shortcut. 

Again, considering their age, this is developmentally appropriate and expected. However, as educators and product creators, it is our responsibility to keep this in mind when introducing or developing new AI tools for the classroom.

It is imperative to center the developmental age of student users by asking if incorporating AI encourages or replaces critical thinking and creativity.

Recommendations for edTech product owners

1. Automate administrative tasks

Design AI products to reduce the number of steps teachers need to take in order to complete time-consuming administrative tasks like logging data, drafting routine emails, parent outreach, formatting handouts, entering grades, and more.

2. Remove or offer locks for features that replace a productive struggle

Do-it-for-you features like “accept all changes” are overused by students and do not support the growth of their critical thinking skills. Limit or offer the ability to lock AI features that override the productive struggle, a strategy that strengthens learning. 

3. Create boundaries when using AI as a thought-partner

During COVID, we saw how an over-reliance on learning through technology, rather than learning in person, not only negatively impacted students’ academic growth, but also their social-emotional development. Use caution when employing AI as a thought-partner and consider finding ways students can use AI collaboratively.

4. Modify supplemental materials and assessments

Incorporate features that level supplemental materials and assessments created by teachers. 

5. Incorporate adaptive learning

Support struggling learners by offering targeted instruction at times when teachers cannot conduct 1:1 or small group interventions. Adaptive learning also supports meaningful independent work. 

6. Increase integration with pre-existing edTech products

Many school districts require teachers to use specific edTech platforms. Offer cross-product integration to increase the likelihood of educators utilizing AI features within your product.

7. Build in tutorials

Incorporate tutorials around the AI capabilities of your product. This can take the form of video walkthroughs, interactive simulations, or even a list of possible uses.

8. Incorporate tech support

Provide a variety of ways to receive technical support. Chatbots, live chats, and call centers offer educators multiple ways to receive support while navigating busy schedules. 

9. Offer professional development opportunities

Offer ways for educators to learn more about the AI capabilities of your product by providing training opportunities, whether virtual or in-person.

10. Build community pages for educators to discuss AI use

Create a space where educators can share success stories and tips around using AI products and features in their classroom.

Conclusion

As the role of AI in education continues to evolve, our research calls for care when designing edTech products that use artificial intelligence.

In particular, edTech products can support the growth of students’ creativity and critical thinking skills, especially if AI is integrated into the product.

While many educators are worried about how AI will impact the learning and development of their students, they recognize that it is here to stay.

Educators also feel positively about the ways in which AI can support their teaching practices, especially when it comes to creating personalized and supplemental learning materials and reducing time spent on administrative tasks.

To increase the likelihood of educators adopting AI tools in the future, training and professional development is needed for both teachers and students. 

Curious what users think of the features in your edTech products? Learn more about our in-house Teacher Council, or reach out to us about user experience research and testing! 

Digital literacy can mean the difference between a student using your edTech product to fidelity or falsely categorizing it as boring and ineffective.

How so? 

“While people seem to think digital literacy is all about how to be safe on the internet—what to do and what not to do—for me it’s more about teaching my third, fourth, and fifth grade kids how to log in to a student-facing platform. It took all summer,” an educator working in a year-round, after school program in Virginia shared with us during a user experience research session.  

Think about this: if it takes kids continued practice to learn how to log in to your product, a class might be using your learning tool without demonstrating any efficacy. It might not be your product–it might be that you haven’t considered the digital literacy level of your users.

edTech products that center digital literacy help close digital divides.

In a world where we’re all inundated with screens, we often forget the startling impact tech inequity continues to have in classrooms. Not all students have regular access to technology at home or at school, and this access affects digital literacy.

edTech products that center digital literacy either implicitly (woven into content) or explicitly can help to close digital divides for those who do not have regular access to technology. Even small amounts of instruction or practice around these skills can minimize digital inequity while students are in school, as well as later in life when they explore career options. 

What is digital literacy and why does it matter for your edTech product? 

Digital Literacy is the ability to “use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information.” In the context of the digital world, the term “literacy” encompasses more than just technical skills, it involves “analysis, evaluation, and critical reflection.” 

When we fail to consider our user base’s level of digital literacy skill in edTech product design, we not only reduce our user base’s overall satisfaction with our product, but we also contribute to a growing accessibility gap.   

Teaching children ways to safely, confidently, and effectively engage in our digital world is more important now than ever, which brings up questions about if we’re explicitly teaching the skills kids need to be successful. Products that center these skills can help to grow digital literacy in both students and adults. 

Why is digital literacy important?

Like reading and writing skills, digital literacy skills require both teaching and practice to master.

According to Media Smarts, a Canadian digital literacy center, digital literacy aims to “…empower young people to ‘access… the cultural, economic and political structures of a society.’” Doing so will provide a foundation for young people to not only think critically about the media they consume, but to feel motivated to do so as well. 

For many young people, digital literacy does not always come naturally, despite growing up with technology. With the rise of smartphones and handheld devices, many students lack typing skills. Since a lot of students don’t regularly use a computer keyboard in their day-to-day tech experiences, when they have to, especially in an academic setting, many struggle. Writing an essay or even conducting research is drastically slowed as a result of this gap in digital literacy.  

Additionally, short-form media has changed the way in which people consume information. Young people tend to have shorter attention spans and unending algorithmic feeds reduce the need for self-driven curiosity. As a result, many students are passive participants in their digital experiences, consuming only what is fed to them.

Teaching digital literacy can give young people more ownership over their technology use and in turn, their learning. Teaching students the digital literacy skills they need to actively seek out quality information, varied perspectives on topics, and ways to verify sources will prepare them to be critical thinkers and active participants in their communities.

Digital literacy and technology inequity

Intentionally fostering students’ digital literacy is one way to address the growing impact of tech inequity. 

One educator we spoke to shared, “At the Title One schools that I’ve worked with, the majority of the kids don’t have devices at home. At most, one of those pay as we go cell phones that the family owns. So their exposure is primarily at school.”

The difference is clear when she works at an extracurricular program with students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. “I do see the difference in skills. And little things that people would take for granted for them. We’ve had students that don’t know how to do basics like open the Windows menu […]. Students who have more digital literacy can get out quite a lot done in 45 minutes, but, if not, it just really puts the student at a disadvantage.

When kids are given the opportunity to engage with tech through guided practice, they will build confidence and feel safe exploring digital tools.  They’ll need this confidence to be prepared for the workforce, but also to use technology to pursue their own interests. 

Digital literacy features in edTech product design

Digital literacy prepares students for the world beyond school. Centering edTech products around the cognitive skills needed to be digitally literate is one way to design with digital literacy in mind.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy,  which outlines a hierarchy of cognitive skills necessary to thrive in the digital age, is a great place to start, as it builds on the original Bloom’s Taxonomy for learning. The hierarchy outlines the following skills: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create, progressing from low-order skills (Remember) to high order skills (Create). 

• “Remember” involves “recalling facts and basic concepts” and calls on skills like defining, duplicating, memorizing, and repeating. Digital skills like bookmarking or linking fit into this category.
• “Understand” is an ability to “explain ideas or concepts” and skills like describing, discussing, and recognizing are some cognitive processes tied to this category. In the digital world, one might demonstrate knowledge of this skill by annotating, paraphrasing, or even tagging.
• “Apply” refers to using information in new situations and focuses on skills like solving or interpreting. Digitally, this can take shape in the form of uploading, presenting, or charting.
• “Analyze,” or drawing connections among ideas, connects to skills like organizing, comparing/contrasting, and examining, which can manifest in many ways digitally from comparing posts on discussion forums to interpreting various information on news or social media platforms.
• “Evaluate” requires an ability to “justify a stand or decision” which can look like defending, judging, critiquing, or supporting information. In the context of digital learning, activities like commenting, moderating, posting, or debating fit into this category.
• “Create,” or an ability to “produce new or original work,” requires skills like planning, designing, and developing. In the digital space, this takes the form of projects like blogs, films, podcasts, and other published works. 

When designing edTech products, creating opportunities that call on these skills, especially in a scaffolded progression, is just one way to help students grow their digital literacy, regardless of subject matter.

Giving young people the chance to learn about and practice tasks like bookmarking, hyperlinking, commenting, uploading, critiquing, and publishing are all experiences that call on the cognitive skills needed to be digitally literate. 

How edTech products can support teachers providing digital literacy instruction

Students’ growth in digital literacy relies largely on their teachers’ ability to support this learning. 

As explained by an educator who teaches middle school students to code, kids with a low level of digital literacy are “very negative when they start [using computers]. They keep saying, ‘I don’t know the program. I don’t know what you want me to do.’ They’re scared because it’s unknown. Some of them, as they’re facing a challenge, they want to gravitate towards calling me over.”

This exemplifies the need for teachers to be digitally literate. Rather than putting all of the responsibility on teachers to not only grow their own digital literacy but support their students’ as well, edTech product creators can lighten the load for teachers by designing products with them in mind.

Student-facing products that have clear, concise tutorials for both teachers and students make introducing a new product to a class less overwhelming and time consuming. 

Ensuring that student-facing products have clear and concise tutorials for both teachers and students can make introducing a new product to a class less overwhelming and time consuming. Short tutorials also support a primary user need, since teachers are alway short on time. 

Additionally, when designing, think about what skills teachers might have to frontload in order for students to successfully use an EdTech product. Doing so can save valuable planning and instructional time for teachers.

Tips for designing edTech products to support digital literacy skills

Want to support the digital literacy skills of teachers and students in your own learning products?

Here are some tips to consider when designing with digital literacy in mind: 

• If a product involves recalling new information (“Remember” on Bloom’s Taxonomy), consider including brief tutorials on digital strategies that support this skill, like bookmarking or hyperlinking. 
• If a product involves explaining ideas or concepts (“Understand” on Bloom’s Taxonomy), include opportunities that call on skills like gathering or classifying. For example, digitally annotating texts or grouping similar information together (i.e. shapes in Math or textual evidence in ELA). 
• If a product requires using information in new situations (“Apply” on Bloom’s Taxonomy) incorporate activities that require transfer work. Student-recorded and uploaded interviews are just one way to articulate previously learned concepts in new ways.  
• If a product involves drawing connections among ideas (“Analyze” on Bloom’s Taxonomy), include activities that require skills like comparing and contrasting, separating out irrelevant information, or explaining methods and procedures. 
• If a product requires justifying a stand or decision (“Evaluate” on Bloom’s Taxonomy), provide opportunities for users to defend, judge, or critique information through discussion boards or tests of knowledge (i.e. digital flash cards or quizzes). 
• If a product involves producing new or original work (“Create” on Bloom’s Taxonomy), create activities that call on skills like planning, designing, or developing. Supports like structured outlines, tips for creating visual intrigue, or guides for uploading different types of files can support digital creations like short films, podcasts, published writing, or self-coded projects.

Regardless of your edTech product’s learning content, centering these fundamental skills will support the growth of students’ digital literacy and overall learning, provide teachers with tools to support student needs, and begin to close the equity gaps we see in technology use.

Do you need more insights into the digital literacy baselines of the teachers and students who use your edTech products? Work with us to conduct user experience research, and we’ll use the resulting insights to improve the outcomes of your learning tool.