Jennifer Huddleston and Christopher Gardner
The technologies used in classrooms are constantly evolving. Teachers have worked on chalkboards, whiteboards, and smartboards. They have gone from grading exams by hand to using Scantrons to now using entirely digital formats. This evolution has been occurring since the dawn of education, as has the concern about the potential impact of each technology on teachers and the quality of education. After all, Socrates expressed concern that the written word could tell without teaching. But wise teachers have adapted to these technologies, using them not as replacements but improvements that can allow them to use their skills more judiciously.
AI Will Help Teachers Spend More Time Actually Teaching
Teachers who smartly embrace technological advancement may find that AI is not replacing them but rather giving them the opportunity to focus on the reason they entered the field in the first place: to teach students. Prior to AI, a 2020 McKinsey report of teachers in Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States found that the median teacher spent only 49 percent of their time directly interacting with students. In reality, a significant amount of a teacher’s work time is spent on administration, lesson planning, and grading, not actually teaching or working with students. AI’s core selling point is that it will give teachers the time needed to maximize student outcomes, given the rising demands and tasks also required of teachers. The early data from vendors back this up: MagicSchool’s AI utilizes Claude to save 94 percent of teachers more than 7 hours per week; Microsoft’s Copilot was found to have saved teachers 9.5 hours per week in administrative tasks; and Google’s Gemini was reported to save teachers an average of 10 hours per week. Besides industry reports, the Education Endowment Foundation found that teachers’ use of ChatGPT reduced lesson-planning time by 31 percent with no noticeable difference in quality. This finding was independently verified by the UK’s National Foundation for Educational Research.
A teacher with greater bandwidth to focus on their students can also be paired with AI tools to provide more effective instruction. A study conducted on Harvard undergraduate physics students over a two-week period found that students with access to the AI tutor learned more than twice as much as students in an active-learning class session. Other research has been mixed, particularly when students lose access to the AI tool, unless it is combined with appropriate mastery assessments.
The reality is that many teachers are struggling, facing a growing number of demands beyond basic classroom instruction. AI and other technologies can help improve both their quality of life and instruction. Whether by relieving the burdens of additional tasks that prevent great teachers from teaching or providing tools that can improve instructional quality when a teacher is struggling, AI can have a positive impact on both great and struggling teachers.
AI will almost certainly replace much of the administrative work of teachers. But great teachers—the ones who know how to inspire, motivate, and guide their students—aren’t going anywhere.
Great Teachers Will Still Matter in a World of AI
If anything, AI may make these elements of a great teacher more important. A teacher’s role is far bigger than merely the rote recitation of information. In the age of AI, there are still many skills involving critical thinking, media, and digital literacy that require at a minimum a “human in the loop.”
A great teacher will be able to use AI in ways that expand students’ opportunities for information or their inclusion in the classroom, rather than developing a reliance due to a lack of actual understanding or skill. This can include customizing a lesson or activity to fit more students’ needs and more clearly identify gaps. For example, a great teacher might allow a student to use AI tools that correct grammar or translate to help them better participate in a class they would have otherwise struggled with.
Still, teachers will know when AI does not match a student’s reality or isn’t the right fit for a task. There are times when a teacher might find that relying on more traditional methods is the best way to assess the underlying skill. A great teacher knows the difference between a student who can merely recite an answer and one who can practically use that skill. In this way, AI might be viewed as similar to a calculator or a textbook. Students may need to gain an underlying understanding of a concept or engage practically with it, but once they have demonstrated a general level of mastery, they should be able to use technology to further their education as they encounter more advanced concepts.
Great teachers care about their students well beyond the year they spend in the classroom, preparing students for the world they will encounter in college or in their careers. For many professions, this means knowing how to use AI tools, but it also means knowing how to perform certain tasks without them. This is where the adaptability of a great teacher often shines. Just because something was done a certain way in the past does not mean it must always be taught that way. Creative and inspiring teachers seek to both meet students where they are and prepare them for where they are going. For a 21st-century workforce, this often means proficiency with AI tools, much as past generations needed to know how to use an encyclopedia, type, or send an email. The best teachers, in hindsight, will be the ones who could see how the world is changing and who taught for the workplace and further education of their students into adulthood.
Conclusion
Teachers, like many professionals, have expressed concerns about how AI might change or replace their jobs. AI can certainly help students in ways we traditionally associate with teachers, but it can also expand the reach of a good teacher. Education has evolved with many technologies, and the best teachers have evolved with it. Great teachers won’t be replaced by AI; they’ll be the ones who carefully adapt to it.
To see previous posts in the “AI in Education” series, click here for Monday’s overview and here for Tuesday’s look at who should decide.
And please join us for our special “space” on X—a live conversation featuring an expert panel with diverse views about AI in education. Just click this link to join tomorrow, August 20, at 1 p.m. EDT. You don’t need an X account to listen, but you do need one to comment or ask a question.
