Why Artificial Intelligence Should Be Utilized in Education

By: Mahlan Dircksen

[This image was created by Artificial Intelligence (OpenAI 2025)]

Artificial Intelligence. You hear this about 20 times a day, but what is it and how are students and teachers using generative AI in their education? Put simply by IBM, “Generative AI refers to deep-learning models that can generate high-quality text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on.” (Martineau, 2023). We can’t deny that this tool is becoming more and more powerful. This begs the question, should students be allowed to utilize Artificial Intelligence in classrooms to assist their learning? I believe that Artificial Intelligence should be allowed to be utilized by students to assist with their learning because of its ability to teach thoroughly, its continuing potential for special abilities, and its ability to be confined.

According to Tyton Partners, “roughly 30% of students report being regular users of generative AI writing tools like ChatGPT” (Tyton 2023). This number is increasing, and for good reason. Artificial Intelligence is getting integrated more and more into learning and teaching environments, and is becoming a more and more useful tool for assisting learning. Holcombe and Wozniak state, “We believe that artificial intelligence (machine learning) powered by large language models and prompted by actual intelligence (the human brain) can significantly increase engagement for students” (Holcombe and Wozniak 2024). Everyone knows that you can use Chat GPT to write your English paper, but AI is becoming a much more useful tool than cheating. Creating flashcards, study guides, diagrams, or even just walking you through a complicated concept, are all examples of helpful ways that AI is already helping millions of students learn more efficiently. AI is trained off of billions of ones and zeros that are found on the internet. It effectively processes, packs, and explains this information to us. All of this data leads to produce correct and impressive responses. I have personally started to notice my peers, and a few teachers, using Chat GPT to do basic research. Things that they could have just Googled, but they understand (and are taking advantage) of AI scouring multiple webpages instead of a web browser just showing the top result. Google recently introduced Gemini. This tool creates an AI summary whenever you do a simple Google search. Google sees the benefits of using AI in research, do you? The benefits of using these tools range further than one paragraph can illustrate. Let us move onto the special abilities that AI is bringing into the classroom.

Artificial Intelligence used to be used in the classroom for simple things, like basic research, essay writing, and grammar checking. These have evolved into a wide spectrum of abilities. Visual diagrams, interactive podcasts, test prep, and even video creation are all things that are currently out there and available in the AI world. I think the most notable of these tools are the ones that can help you study. Google Notebook is one of the most remarkable of these study tools. You start by uploading your notes, learning material, or questions. Notebook analyzes these, and then gives you a study guide, briefing doc, FAQ, and a timeline. Pretty standard for modern AI tools. Where it blows your mind and really starts becoming useful is that it can create an “Audio Overview” of your lesson, which is an entertaining podcast (Notebook 2024). “Wow” you might be thinking, I know I am. You are even able to give YouTube videos, or websites, and it will create a realistic, fun, and extremely informative podcast for you. You can actually “Join” the podcast and talk directly to the AI voices. I've focused a lot on this incredible tool, but let's move onto the next one. Chat GPT’s image generation just got a massive update. I have tested it out and it's becoming a much more viable tool for education. The podcast was a great tool for people who learn auditorily, but this is perfect for people that learn visually. Being able to create images or videos to aid your learning is a massive help. How do we know that students are going to use these tools for learning, and not for doing the work? 

When asked how his students were allowed to use artificial intelligence, Adam Dirckesen replied with the following, “In my classes, they're always allowed to use it for idea generation. They're always allowed to use it for checking grammar and everything in between. But not for the creativity of developing a project or or the writing process they should be doing on their own” (Dircksen 2025). I think that this stance is an excellent one to have as an instructor. Students are able to use AI for the busy work, but not for learning. Unfortunately the line between this is hard to define. It becomes even harder to define when you don’t know what AI is capable of. Earlier I mentioned that 30% of students say that they regularly use AI. This statistic means a lot more when you throw in the fact that only 9% of teachers use the same tools (Tyton 2023). To combat the use of cheating, many schools and teachers have implemented AI checkers. These are helpful in pointing out when a piece of writing may have been generated by AI. Adam mentions how sometimes these are only 80ish% accurate and often result in false positives. This is a sad point, but here is good news. “I teach one course a year and this year I have had zero instances where it was indicated that something may have been AI generated. Last year, I had two instances. When those happened, I emailed the students, let them know that our AI checker or I have, reason to believe that something may have been generated and asked them to sit down and meet with me and talk through that”. He then goes on to talk about how he resolved the issue. “And again, the goal is always to help them learn how to use these tools in a way to increase their learning and doesn’t allow them to skip the learning.

In conclusion, Artificial Intelligence offers powerful tools that, when used responsibly, can greatly enhance education. AI’s personalised study plans, visual, and auditory tools are becoming an excellent tool for students to learn more efficiently and effectively. While misuse is going to occur, with clear guidelines and well thought out integration, AI can support, rather than replace, learning. 

Sources: 

Dircksen, Adam. Interview with Adam Dircksen Focusing on Artificial Intelligence. Director of the Center of Learning and Teaching at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Interview by Mahlan Dircksen, 11 Apr. 2025.

Holcombe, Amy, and Steve Wozniak. “Using AI to Fuel Engagement and Active Learning: Used in Combination with Creative Human Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Can Transform the Way Students Experience School.” Inspire, research.ebsco.com, June 2024, research.ebsco.com/c/6fal5v/viewer/pdf/f7jcyai4e5?modal=cite. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.

Martineau, K. (2023, April 20). What is generative AI? IBM Research Blog; IBM. https://research.ibm.com/blog/what-is-generative-AI

NotebookLM | Note Taking & Research Assistant Powered by AI. (2024). Notebooklm.google. https://notebooklm.google 

Office of Online Programs. “AI in Schools: Pros and Cons.” College of Education, College of Education at Illinois, 24 Oct. 2024, education.illinois.edu/about/news-events/news/article/2024/10/24/ai-in-schools--pros-and-cons.

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT. Chatgpt.com; OpenAI. https://chatgpt.com 

Ross, Elizabeth. “Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 20 July 2023, www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/23/07/embracing-artificial-intelligence-classroom.

tyton_press. (2023, June 21). Time for Class 2023 Study finds students are earlier adopters of generative AI tools than faculty...Tyton Partners. https://tytonpartners.com/time-for-class-2023-study-finds-students-are-earlier-adopters-of-generative-ai-tools-than-faculty/