Generative AI in Education: Benefits, Barriers, and Use Cases

Teachers, students, and experts have acclaimed the impact of Generative AI in education in reshaping teaching and learning approaches. The significant benefits of improving schoolwork productivity drive more investment in GenAI solutions for education. According to Vishwa Gaul’s reports, the size of Generative AI in the education market is expected to grow 39,5% from $299,8 million in 2023 to $7,701.9 million in 2033.

The Generative AI adoption trend in education shows positive signs, with various teachers, pupils, and students applying it to their work. The TeacherTapp survey, conducted in November, recorded 42% of primary and secondary teachers in the UK leveraging GenAI tools to support their work.

Meanwhile, Ofcom reports proved the ease of approaching GenAI uses among pupils and students, with 74% (16-24), 79% (13-17), and 40% (7-12) young learners using AI for study. The standard AI tools used for education include ChatGPT, Bing, DALL-E, and Midjourney.

However, implementing Generative AI in education raises concerns about overreliance, knowledge deficiency, and inadequate digital infrastructure during the integration journey.

The following sections will introduce the overall landscape of using Generative AI in education, including applications, implementing guides, future development, and policies to mitigate potential risks.

Popular Applications of Generative AI in Education

62% of teachers and leaders use Generative AI to create educational resources, while the most common use purpose of students is to support their homework with 61% of responses, according to the DfE survey.

GenAI Applications Among Teachers

Educators implement AI tools in the following use cases:

• Create personalized learning lessons: Personalize students’ learning experiences based on their skills, past performance, and constructive feedback. This application promotes students’ eagerness to learn and achieve better grades.
• Design and organize course materials: Shorten the preparation time for lesson plans, assessments, and syllabi appropriate to students’ skills and learning styles. GenAI’s ability to parse with other technologies allows it to create an engaging virtual learning environment for students to better understand and apply the course’s knowledge.
• Create new content for courses: Allow teachers to educate students with new content and materials, including reading lists, discussion questions, flashcards, and study guides.
• Support researching and writing: Help educators quickly gather and summarize content from books, articles, and videos.
• Support professional development: Integrate GenAI as a tutor on specific topics to help teachers upskill and upgrade their knowledge.
• Restore low-quality learning materials: Enhance the resolution of materials such as photographs, films, and historical documents. The image restoration features can help teachers provide students with a better understanding of the content, improving learning results.

GenAI Applications Among Students and Pupils

Students’ uses of Generative AI applications encompass the following practices:

• Search for inspirational ideas: GenAI outcome results suggest various inspirational ideas for students to be more creative in their schoolwork.
• Improve written work quality: GenAI can help modify the structure and quality of writing by correcting grammar and spelling.
• Clarify the meaning of complex concepts: GenAI can be a trustworthy virtual tutor who clarifies complex concepts and tests students’ knowledge through AI-generated quizzes.
• Generate images: GenAI can generate digital artworks and presentations based on input prompts.
• Solve math: Students use AI tools to verify the accuracy of their math solutions and explore alternative approaches.
• Learn new languages: The translation and transcription features of GenAI solutions support students improve their language skills.

GenAI Applications for School Administrators

School administrators can elevate managerial and administrative tasks when applying GenAI to:

• Automate administrative activities: School administrators use GenAI to recruit, manage facilities, process student practical applications, and establish HR procedures.
• Plan and distribute resources: AI solutions can help education institutes with resource planning tasks by calculating the necessary supplies to order and ensure on-time delivery. GenAI can calculate the amount of food, stationery, and learning materials needed to streamline school service quality.

Benefits of Generative AI in Education

Generative AI in education has redesigned and incentivized new teaching and learning methods with the following positive benefits:

• Automate various tasks: A Generative AI system frees up teachers’ time by automating repetitive tasks like grading papers, writing letters and emails, producing documents, and summarizing reports. Consequently, teachers can build a work-life balance lifestyle while maintaining the teaching quality.
• Provide engaging and creative courses: Educators can experiment with new ideas for course materials suggested by GenAI to change their repetitive teaching approaches.
• Deliver customized learning experience: Generative AI captures insightful data of students’ performance to strategize tailored learning programs for their needs. Consequently, students
• Enable one-to-one teaching: GenAI can represent teachers as personal tutors to consolidate students’ knowledge if they can not follow lectures at school.
• Support hyper-personalized marketing for school recruitment strategies: AI technology offers colleges and universities low-cost strategies to achieve student enrollment goals. Indeed, they help schools approach potential students with hyper-personalized advertisements to promote their learning programs, campus views, and other relevant student advocacy groups.
• Improve retention, persistence, and completion rates: School administrators can leverage AI in consulting and identifying at-risk students to intervene in their situations personally. This administrative tool can improve students’ retention and encourage them to complete the course.

Learn more: How Generative AI Is Shaping the Future of Finance

How to Implement Generative AI In Learning and Teaching Effectively

Implementing Generative AI in teaching and learning requires a strategic roadmap that includes assessing, planning, and monitoring the AI models to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Education institutions integrate Generative artificial intelligence into their operating system using the following steps:

1. Assessing

Schools and universities should examine the limits of AI-based solutions in adapting to the complicated requirements of education contexts. This practice requires educational institutions to evaluate the compatibility between Generative AI systems and the schools’ products and services to reach forward-looking results. Meanwhile, integrating machine learning, NLP, and deep learning technology into education must comply with legal and ethical implications to mitigate data privacy risks, transparency, safety, and negative long-term impacts of AI technologies.

2. Planning

The next step is clarifying the roadmap for integrating AI-based solutions into educational settings. The planning phase involves defining objectives, outlining the project’s timeline, and setting performance metrics to upskill and prepare relevant resources. Besides, a Generative AI consulting service list with an experienced portfolio in the education sector should be created to choose the right vendors based on the budget.

3. Monitoring

The education constitution must create protocols and guidelines to ensure the compliance of AI-driven solutions with regulations and applicable laws. Moreover, education service providers should standardize the AI-using process to protect data privacy and prevent other potential risks.

Learn more: Build a Winning Generative AI Strategy for Your Business

Generative AI in Education Case Studies

Various educational platforms have applied artificial technologies to design students’ learning curriculums, track their progress, and personalize instructions. Duolingo, Brainly, Bolton College, StepWise, Khanmigo, and EUDE are typical examples of successful AI-driven solutions that improve students’ productivity and learning outcomes.

Case Study 1: Duolingo

Duolingo has built a large learner community of over 500 million worldwide, with reported revenue reaching $126.8 million in 2023. The AI-based online learning platform uses a smart chatbot to motivate students and monitor their learning progress.

Duolingo provides personalized learner’s courses by analyzing their performance and results to deliver appropriate tests. Meanwhile, the points-based reward system encourages users to learn consistently without dropping out.

Case Study 2: Brainly

Due to recognizing the limited ability to look for homework support on mobile devices, Brainly has developed Vision AI technology to enhance student’s learning process. This Google Cloud collaborated product allows students to receive instant and relevant answers right after photographing their questions.

With language-recognizing features, this technology is accessible to the worldwide learning community, creating equitable learning experiences. Brainly has received significant results, with a 70% student satisfaction rate and more revenue from subscriptions.          

Case Study 3: Bolton College

Bolton College creates engaging online videos with AI support to compensate for the disadvantages of its inflexible and time-consuming traditional teaching methods. Indeed, Synthesia’s AI-powered platform enables Bolton College users to create videos effortlessly based on text and customized element inputs.

The innovative technology has reduced 80% of the video production time and contributes to the learning library with over 400 new videos annually. Additionally, the implementation process can be applicable to the whole team and does not require technical skills to use video creation tools.

Challenges of Implementing Generative AI in Education

Implementing Generative AI in education encounters significant challenges. Educational institutions may face high initial costs, ethical and privacy concerns, limited adoption ability, and inadequate digital infrastructure. School leaders and teachers need help with approaching genAI tools due to lacking knowledge (58%), technology barriers (19%), risk concerns (23%), and other objective reasons.

Tough challenges delaying the genAI application progress in education include:

• Implementation costs: Limited budgets prevent educational businesses from approaching AI solutions. They must spend on various investment categories, such as training AI models, infrastructure, and software development. The P&S Intelligence’s forecast in 2023 has stated the increase in Generative AI investment for education among schools, climbing from $2.13 billion in 2022 to $25.77 billion in 2030.
• Ethical and privacy concerns: The student data use can meet suspicions of regulatory compliance with ethical and privacy standards. With deep concerns about maintaining educational fairness and safeguarding learners’ information, AI implementation should undergo rigorous procedures to ensure the finest outcome.
• Lack of knowledge: The DfE survey has shown that social media and word-of-mouth are the primary sources for AI literacy. It allows teachers to update information about GenAI in an educational context. Indeed, little workplace training and technology deficiency lower their willingness to use AI to support their roles. Additionally, many staff members prioritize other urgent tasks without time to explore the potential of using AI.
• Limited digital infrastructure: Most educational institutions find it challenging to adapt to the digital infrastructure needed to empower generative AI models in computationally intensive tasks. In addition, educators need to pay a higher charge for EdTech’s paid versions to unlock advanced features.
• Academic misconduct and student over-reliance: 70% of AI-used students struggle to finish an exam without AI support. Meanwhile, most educators and experts experience difficulties detecting AI use when grading to identify academic malpractice.

Policies Regulate The Use of Generative AI in Education

“Generative AI and ChatGPT technology are brilliantly innovative. At the same time, it’s like opening Pandora’s box … We have to build in safeguards so that these technologies are adopted responsibly.” – said Edward Tian, a senior at Princeton University.

Indeed, implementing Generative AI in education requires human-centric approaches to mitigate the issues associated with legal framework, ethical use, and copyright laws. On account of enhancing equitable use of AI in the context of education, UNESCO recommended the following policies:

• Develop a legal framework for protecting data privacy: The data collecting and processing process should comply with a legal framework to mitigate data protection and privacy risks.
• Regulate the ethical use of AI: UNESCO has urged countries to articulate regulations to identify ethical issues when using AI.
• Enforce or revise Copyright laws: Copyrighted material for AI training should comply with the strict Copyright Laws to avoid using unconsented or non-licensed copyrighted works.

Learn more: Data For Generative AI: Considerations And Challenging Issues

Regarding the educational institutions’ efforts to regulate Generative AI use, the policymakers should address specific issues affecting the learning environment with the following practices:

• Encourage equity, inclusion, linguistic and cultural diversity: Create an inclusive approach that enables all people to access AI, regardless of socio-economic status, special education needs, gender, and ethnicity.
• Protect human agency: Policies must encourage social interaction, logical reasoning, and practical observations when addressing a problem without over-reliance on AI use.
• Provide teachers with well-structured AI training programs: The AI training framework should provide teachers with value-oriented practices to develop their professional work without violating ethical issues.
• Encourage diverse opinions and expressions: Evaluating GenAI as an authoritative and reliable information source will affect the development of human civilizations.

Future of Generative AI in Education

Generative AI in education provides dynamic and innovative methods of managing resources and improving learning productivity and outcomes. Additionally, students can nurture critical skills to adjust to future career markets and evolving technologies.

AI tools focus on equipping students with a comprehensive understanding and critical skills to prepare them for the intricate AI-driven world and contribute to shaping a digital society. Technologists, policymakers, and educators can support creating an educational framework based on effective collaboration to improve AI learning experiences.

With diverse portfolios of consulting AI-integration strategies for educational institutes, Neurond AI will provide a detailed guideline for global schools and universities to improve their core competencies in providing education services. Contact us for a thorough consultation about integrating GenAI technologies for the future growth of your education business.

FAQs

1. How can teachers and students leverage Generative AI in education effectively?

Teachers and students can leverage Generative AI effectively by committing to the following practices:

1. Use AI as a supportive tool to suggest different solutions, reinforce their knowledge, and develop an independent mindset.
2. Understand the limitations of AI tools and the consequences of over-reliance on them.
3. Improve decision-making, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills by leveraging AI to generate counter-arguments for various issues.

2. What are the considerations when using AI tools for teaching and learning?

Before implementing AI tools for teaching and learning, you should consider:

• The minimum age to access AI technology
• The proper way to use AI-generated content
• The importance of avoiding plagiarism and maintaining academic integrity
• The learning needs to identify an appropriate roadmap to apply GenAI 

3. What are the best Generative AI tools for education in 2024?

The best Generative AI tools for different learning purposes include:

• Automated video creation tools: Adobe, Synthesia, Murf AI
• Question-generated tools: Eklavvya, Quizizz
• AI virtual mentor tools: Kidaptive, Thinkster Math, Cognii, Knewton