Education in the Age of AI

AI. A new tool is upon us, the ‘toolmakers.’ Potentially, it will come to touch, even reshape, much of what we do and think, perhaps even how we think about ourselves and others.

AI and education provide a case in point. Education matters in its own right  ̶  the preparation of one generation by another generation. It also exemplifies the challenge that we face when incorporating AI into any part of our lives.

Speaking generally, will AI help us to see more and better or will AI define what we see? As for education, will AI redefine education, perhaps literally define it? Or might AI fit within education, within the context and purpose of developing human beings? 

The authors have spent 95% of their respective lives receiving or dispensing education. We ask, and care very much, about the answer to this question: What should education be in the age of AI?

The classroom as early warning

AI provides valuable searching functions, including for references, and helpful editorial commentary. But it can also facilitate counterproductive behavior that minimizes learning. Specifically, consider these current AI challenges professors experience when students use AI:

• At a seminar, when Ph.D. students were officially permitted to use AI but must disclose it to the professor  ̶  most apparently used AI to produce written work but did NOT disclose it.
• College undergraduates were unwilling to read required course material even when pared down to essential content. Instead, they used AI to summarize the main points of assigned reading.
• Students could recite the main conceptual points but struggled to create original applied examples. They also struggled to integrate ideas from different parts of the course or with concepts and ideas from other courses. Students fared from ‘good to excellent’ when it came to following linear frameworks if the direction was clearly laid out for them, but struggled to incorporate ideas or solutions not directly in their path.
• When assigned to share their first or significant memory where they recognized economic class disparities – more than 10 students wrote essentially the same story of a boy being bullied in middle school because he wore cheap sneakers and how badly they felt for him. AI-generated ‘personal experience’? Most likely.
• When asked to write a short paragraph to reflect on the course material – “What do you think about the topic for this week? − 80% of students submitted structurally similar summaries with “I think” embedded in the paragraph. Apparently, students copied the prompt directly into an AI tool and submitted what came back instead of taking time to consider the readings and videos independently.
• Take-home economic exams led to error-riddled solutions – including simple math errors. Students probably did not do the work themselves but delegated it to AI and did not even check for mistakes. Consequently, the professor stopped giving take-home exams.

Clarifying the purpose of education

The challenge at hand comes down to how to use AI in a way that genuinely serves education. If we don’t clarify what education is for, AI will redefine it for us. Therefore, any meaningful response to AI begins with a clearer understanding of what education is meant to accomplish. With that in mind, the authors offer a concise working definition of education’s purpose. That definition becomes a lens through which we can evaluate AI’s role.

This brief consideration thereby models the potential value of clarifying a context for using AI. More broadly, any use of AI should include identification of the end to be served. Otherwise, AI, like any technology, not only can shape, but even become the end being served. The old adage applies: When you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

We’ve selected three highly regarded guides for this brief consideration: Socrates, Dewey and Twain. But let’s begin with Maria Montessori and her view of the collective stake we hold in educating the next generation:

“The children of today will make all the discoveries of tomorrow. All the discoveries of mankind will be known to them and they will improve what has been done and make fresh discoveries. They must make all the improvements. … The future generation must not only know how to do what we can teach them, they must be able to go a step further.”

Socrates, and his disciples, offer wide-ranging wisdom on numerous subjects. Two pieces of wisdom concern education broadly defined:

“Know thyself.”

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

Restated for our purpose:

1. Education concerns self-knowledge, the advancement and discovery of self as a human being uniquely formed.
2. Education should advance one’s quest to learn by advancing one’s curiosity.
3. Subject matter knowledge may, at best, come in third as the reason why education matters.

The American philosopher and educator John Dewey, he of massive and far-reaching influence on education starting a century ago, would agree: “The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education.” In other words, giving students knowledge is not the end goal of education. Rather, education should form habits of inquiry, curiosity, reflection, and adaptability. The true test of education? Whether a person continues to learn.

Dewey’s quote prompts citation of the old formula of P = S x M, where performance equals skill times motivation. The multiplicative relationship means that simultaneously enhancing skill in learning, together with motivation to learn, increases learning performance more than enhancing either alone. The way we educate matters, for the manner of education comprises a lesson at least as powerful as the content. Again, from Dewey:

“Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication.”

Dewey pointed out that transmission isn’t just what society does; it’s what makes society possible. That transmission includes learning about the world, namely learning about each other, our realities both shared and not, as well as our traditions, familial, tribal, and national.

Returning to the importance of education, to state it negatively, entertainingly, and provocatively, we turn to Twain.

“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.”

Education as formation

If education is about forming thoughtful, capable human beings, then universities should prioritize these three aspects:

1. Look inward. Students need structured opportunities for self-examination. The popularity of ‘happiness’ and ‘mindfulness’ courses bears witness to the intrinsic need and desire for self-reflection and introspection. It reaffirms Socrates’ maxim, “know thyself,” and follows Dewey’s counsel about learning how to learn.
2. Sample the world. Universities should offer exposure to different ideas, disciplines, and perspectives. Taking ‘intellectual tours’ facilitates choosing well, including where to land next in life, and, again, learning how to learn.
3. Be social, and whenever possible, physically social with others. Learning is not just individual cognition. Innovation generally flows from collaboration. Additionally, such interaction does more than advance understanding; it embodies a vision of society that respects our embodied and relational nature.

A return to traditional teaching

Applying it in the classroom:

Go back to go forward. Consider a classic British education model where students are responsible for mastering the coursework. The professor does not micromanage weekly output but remains available for conversations, office hours, and discussion. At the end of the term, the student must demonstrate real understanding and working facility with the material through either oral exams or written work − or both − delivered in person. The following hypothetical syllabus illustrates these principles and would likely require notable systemwide changes to many university policies and the redoing of staffing and class sizes.

Hypothetical syllabus

Below appears a list of topics and resources covered in this course and for which you have assumed responsibility to learn this material. Here are my office hours — physical and virtual (insert office hours and physical, virtual addresses). During this time, I will offer an unstructured opportunity for you to ask questions, share ideas and engage in impromptu discussion. At the end of the term, choose from the times listed for when I will sit with you and test your capacity to work with this material, in writing and orally.

As for AI,

1. Use it or not, but when you and I meet for the final evaluation, it is simply the two of us unaided by AI.
2. Learning content is but the first step. Next comes the facility with using the material, which includes questioning it, ideally of the quality that Socrates would term well-designed questioning. Finally comes the competency to express it. Content provides the opportunity to think and, more importantly, to advance your capacity to think.
3. Consequently, above all, use this course to learn to think better, and that includes thinking better about how best to use AI.
4. See you at your examination, if not before.

AI and human laziness

In closing, the biggest threat posed by AI to humans comes down to human laziness — both in students and teachers. The older generations need to do their longstanding job of preparing the next generation for what comes next.

Again, Montessori said it best:

“We must give him the means and encourage him. ‘Courage, my dear, courage! You are a new man that must adapt to this new world. Go on triumphantly. I am here to help you.’ This kind of encouragement is instinctive in those who love children.”

We either work to put AI in context, including one generation’s role in educating or learning from another, or AI will become our context.