Introduction
The meteoric rise of AI in the past few years has rocked numerous sectors in ways that weren't even fathomable just over five years ago. As AI continues to evolve at an incredibly fast pace, industries are scrambling, trying to find an answer on how to adapt to such a drastic change.
One of the industries most impacted by the AI revolution is the education industry, which has seen aspects such as academic integrity, teaching styles and lesson plans impacted in both a positive and negative manner. AI isn't something that is just being utilised as a helpful tool by some, in fact, a Digital Education Council survey found that 86% of students worldwide regularly use AI in their studies. AI isn't only being used by students however, as 2024's TALIS survey found that 66% of Lower Secondary Teachers were using AI in 2024, a number that has almost certainly gone up since. So, where are we seeing the biggest impacts in education?
Academic Integrity
Schools and Tertiary Education Institutions have definitely had their hands full when assessing students' academic integrity in the wake of the AI revolution, as AI algorithms are more than capable of assisting students produce high quality work or in some cases, do it entirely. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has labelled the emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a risk to academic integrity, however has urged institutions not to return to assessment mediums such as traditional exams due to their inability to provide many students with an opportunity to display a wider range of skills. This makes combating the negative impact of AI on Academic Integrity much more complicated, as seemingly obvious solutions aren't effective enough to be implemented, so, what can schools and institutions do to combat this effectively? In response to the rise of AI SACE (South Australian Certificate of Education) has recently implemented verbal interviews as a manner of assessing students after they submit a written assessment. This method's effectiveness has strong evidence, as Graham Perkins (an academic at the University Of Exeter) has highlighted that the verbal interview method makes it extremely hard for students to hide a lack of knowledge they may have on a subject, as it forces them to justify their work and demonstrate their understanding, something that would be extremely difficult for a student who had AI do most of their work for them.
Workload-Reduction
One of the positive impacts for teachers is that AI can help make often-exhausting tasks like lesson planning a lot faster due to having AI assist with generating ideas, generating pictures for resources and helping with scaffolding. This is a particularly important impact as heavy workloads in the teaching profession have been under scrutiny, especially in Victoria amongst some rather turbulent AEU negotiations with the state government. The positive impact that AI has on generating lesson plans has been acknowledged by many, including by those in the WA State Government, who have recently pledged $4.6 million dollars to further develop an AI platform specifically designed to reduce teacher's workloads, a decision that has drawn both admiration and criticism from many. However, many in the teaching profession see this as a great step towards reducing workloads for teachers.
Conclusion
Overall, the introduction of AI has been a challenge that education, along with many other industries has had to face head on. Whilst AI has had a negative impact on certain aspects of education like academic integrity, it is also providing teachers with a much needed reduction in their workload, giving teachers a very welcome break. The studies show that rather than over-policing the implementation of AI, the education industry must continue to implement new and creative ways to have students justify their work and demonstrate that they can understand a topic without extensive AI assistance.
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