The effects of artificial intelligence on learning are still largely unclear. But a new NPR/Ipsos poll of K-12 teachers found that nearly 3-in-4 believe AI has bigger implications for education than past innovations like the internet or computers.

The nationally representative poll surveyed 545 respondents and paints a complex picture of teachers' views on AI: Many are using it to save time and improve their teaching materials, but a majority of teachers are worried AI is making it harder for students to learn to think for themselves.

"We're in an environment where teachers feel like this is going to fundamentally reshape the future of education moving forward," says Mallory Newall, a senior vice president at Ipsos. "They have serious concerns about AI's impact on how they relate to their students and how students relate to each other."

And schools have a role to play: A resounding majority of polled teachers — nearly 8-in-10 — think schools should teach responsible use of AI.

"To me, that sends a very clear message that teachers are acknowledging that AI is having humongous implications on education as we know it," says Newall. "It's not going away. And so now is the time to act."

More of a teacher's helper than a classroom tool

The poll shows students aren't widely using AI in the classroom – at least not yet. A little more than half of teachers say the technology isn't being used in class by students at all, while about 2-in-5 teachers say students are using it in class at least once a week.

Meanwhile, a majority of teachers polled — 6-in-10 — say they've used AI themselves to help with work tasks.

Loading...

Michele Naber, a veteran biology teacher at El Toro High School in Orange County, Calif., says she allows her students to use AI during certain lessons to teach them how to properly prompt chatbots and verify their accuracy.

For example, she says she'll tell her students to ask ChatGPT to describe a particular animal's physical characteristics and habitat, then verify what the chatbot generated with reliable sources. She says the lesson shows students that AI still gets it wrong sometimes.

"That's one of the things that has to be taught: You can't take it literally," Naber says.

She says she's also had success using AI to generate multiple choice questions for assessments.

"That's something that normally, as a teacher, would have taken you probably upwards of an hour … and it minimized the entire task to five minutes. That's helpful."

A majority of surveyed teachers who report using AI on work-related tasks say it saves them time, but most — 63% — say that time savings equates to two hours or less per week.

Joann Purcell, a math teacher and instructional coach at Downers Grove North High School, in the Chicago suburbs, says she's found AI useful for coming up with professional development activities for her fellow educators.

But she doesn't use AI with her students. And Purcell says it isn't reliable enough to generate math questions.

"It's a pain in the butt to go through and see where the mistakes are, and I feel like if I have to do that, I might as well just write the question myself," Purcell says.

Are students learning to think for themselves?

More than half, 54%, of polled teachers say AI makes it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills.

Christa Corricelli, a special education teacher at Saugus Middle/High School outside Boston, says AI could be a valuable technology for learning, but too often students are using it as an answer machine — not a tool to bolster their thinking.

"I think students who aren't already intrinsically self-motivated to be critical thinkers, like that top 1% of the class … I think people who are not already that personality type, we're going to see those critical thinking skills atrophy over time," Corricelli says.

Loading...

Naber, in California, feels a deep responsibility to teach her students that humans must always interrogate and verify what AI generates.

"I care about [my students]. I want them to be able to look at the world and figure out things for themselves, not rely on a piece of software," she says. "If we stop questioning what it says, we can be led to believe anything. And that's what really scares me."

More than half of teachers polled — 55% — think AI is mostly just a shortcut for students to avoid doing more work.

However, Ellie Rodriguez, a special education teacher at Royal Palm Beach Community High School near Palm Beach, Fla., says AI can be especially helpful for students with disabilities. She explains that one of her students, who is on the autism spectrum, recently used AI to get help with an assignment.

"I praised him," Rodriguez says, because he wouldn't have been able to complete the assignment without the help AI provided.

"It got him to do the work, but hopefully, too, it helped him to apply using resources – like you would use an encyclopedia, like you would use a library book – to find your answers," she says.

But Rodriguez does worry the technology could hamper learning for students who don't have disabilities or who are capable of doing assignments without the assistance of AI.

And she says she and her colleagues, including some English teachers, are deeply concerned about the impact AI is having on students' ability to think for themselves.

AI is eroding student-teacher trust

Nearly 6-in-10 surveyed educators say AI is eroding the level of trust between students and teachers. About 4-in-10 say they've required more assignments to be done by hand, and 4-in-10 also say they've required more assignments to be done in class as a result of AI.

Newall, with Ipsos, says the erosion of trust caused by AI is "one of the biggest red flags in the data."

She says that issue is compounded by another survey finding: 70% of teachers believe the public's perception of them has gotten worse.

"What that tells me is that they are trying to navigate some very complex challenges in an environment that is already rife with mistrust," Newall says.

Naber, in California, has had to adapt to how easy it is now for students to fake assignments. She says for years she offered extra credit to students who participated in beach cleanups and habitat restorations outside of school. All they had to do was show her a picture to prove they were there, she says. But then Naber's son showed her how easy it is to use AI to create a fake image of a registration table for such an event.

"I had to stop doing that because I can't verify it. That was sad," she says.

Naber says she's also modified her curriculum so that all lab work is done in class in front of her, and homework matters far less for students' grades.

"Teachers are much more suspect of things that students do outside the classroom and I hear a lot of comments like, 'Well, we can't do it this way because they're just going to use AI,'" says Corricelli, near Boston.

Josh Kauffman teaches seventh-grade English at Alabama Destinations Career Academy, a virtual public school that serves students across the state. He says he's noticed a substantial uptick in the number of AI-generated assignments his students submit – and because it's a virtual school, he can't do things like require more in-class work. Instead, he says he tries to persuade his students that there's value in their own writing.

Loading...

"I tell them I would rather deal with all of your typos and know that they're yours than to wonder how much you're standing on other people's shoulders to do your work for you," Kauffman says.

Purcell, in Illinois, doesn't necessarily think AI has eroded trust. She says students found ways to cheat on assignments long before AI came along.

"I think teachers need to be creative in how they use it and force kids to think with it just like they would with any other tool," she says.

Schools aren't providing teachers with much guidance

Many educators are having to adapt to AI with little guidance from their school or district, according to the survey results. Among teachers whose school provides AI software, only 35% say they have a formal policy on teacher use of AI — meaning schools are more often providing the tools without a formal policy for their use.

About half of all polled teachers say their school hasn't offered any guidance on AI, or they're not sure what the guidance is.

"I think teachers are looking for additional guidance from their district and from their students, frankly, on what AI is going to mean for the future of education," Newall says.

Only about 4-in-10 teachers say their school offers professional development or training related to AI, according to the poll.

Rodriguez, in Florida, says she hasn't received any training on the technology, and she wishes she could.

"They need to teach us how to apply that information to what we do and most importantly to how we teach to be able to utilize [AI] in a positive way," Rodriguez says.

Kauffman agrees. He says there isn't enough attention being paid to "how to teach what we are teaching differently to account for the flexibility and the resources that AI can make available."

Corricelli isn't totally surprised by the lack of training. She says schools are often slow to adapt to change, and that's been a challenge for educators.

"I think we're all just kind of trying not to drown with the whole thing," she says.

This reporting was supported by the Omidyar Network's Reporters in Residence program.

Edited by: Nicole Cohen
Audio story produced by: Lauren Migaki