Should the use of Gen AI among younger students be banned?

What artificial intelligence tools do you use and how do they benefit primary school children?

Avalanche Jaswani: We use a range of AI-enabled tools to explain concepts to children; offer personalized training; and help teachers create resources, from stories and worksheets to different types of assessments and quizzes. We use different applications, such as Kahoot! and Quizlets to offer playful, interactive and sensory learning experiences that keep children interested rather than the traditional method of rote learning.

However, the teacher still has to ask himself: What is my learning goal? What does a child need to understand? Where can technology be useful and is it really useful and important for a child? Considering such questions, AI tools can be used effectively in the classroom.

Deepa Jacob: At our school, technology is seamlessly integrated into our teaching and learning experience. Every child from kindergarten onwards has access to an iPad, which is kept at school; they don’t take them home. They have apps that can help them with their learning, such as Seesaw, which is a log of their learning that they can use to keep a record of what they do, such as published written work, videos of science experiments, their reflections on learning, etc. You can even assign tasks to them.

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Just recently I discovered that Seesaw itself has an artificial intelligence component. For example, we do a lot of work on reading fluency. Children are given a passing class. On the first day they read it cold and over the course of a week they reread the passage with the teacher and learn how to pronounce the words, their meanings, and then finally on the fifth day they record their reading again and find that their fluency and accuracy have improved. Recently, one of my colleagues learned that the recording feature has an artificial intelligence component that transcribes what you say and scores you based on your accuracy. This is really cool because instead of the teacher having to listen to each child read, if the app can score your reading and tell you which words you’re reading incorrectly, then you can practice those words alone. But it’s an AI, not a human, so it has its drawbacks. For example, one of my students was reading a word with an Indian accent, but the app marked it incorrectly. The same thing happened with students speaking some other Asian accents. So I think the human component is important. We need to be careful not to let AI take over our lives.

I also don’t allow generative AI in my classroom. When I ask my kids a question or if they have a question, I would never ask them to Google it. Because the easiest way to kill your love of learning is to find a ready-made answer.

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Educators and educational philosophers have talked about existing in a liminal space, that is, that space where you struggle with a concept, that threshold between not knowing something and struggling with it and then finally learning it. I think it’s a wonderful space to be in, and we as people need that. We need this time and space to readjust; time for ideas to incubate and grow. Relying on technology at this stage would be terrible. While technology should be used as a tool, it is easy to become too reliant on it and use it as a crutch. If you want to create people who contribute to the world, I think there should be serious limits on the amount of AI use among children.

One concern is that AI could harm students’ ability to think and learn for themselves—for example, if they simply type homework into a ChatGPT prompt, the AI ​​will do the homework for them. Is this a reasonable fear?

Avalanche Jaswani: Yes, this is where we need to take a balanced position. AI can influence children’s thinking abilities, but it depends on how we use it. There are two possibilities: the first is when the child uses the AI, the AI ​​gives an answer, the child copies it, sends it and moves on. Then we have a problem: the child is not using his brain. Instead, we need to teach the child how to use it, and this is where we need to introduce a limitation.

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Let’s say you’re trying to teach fractions or some problem-solving lesson. If the AI ​​provides the answer, the child misses out on the struggle, the trial and error, the logical thinking, and the satisfaction of finally getting the answer.

So the rule in my class is that first the child must think, then write and finally ask the AI ​​to check the answer. They should try to solve this problem on their own, but if they are unable to do so, just like they can ask their parents or teacher for help, they can ask the AI ​​to provide help in the same way.

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Deepa Jacob: The problem is overconfidence. If you drove a manual car and then switched to an automatic car, it will be very difficult for you to go back to a manual transmission, right? Likewise, I think you can become overly dependent on someone else to think for you or even synthesize ideas by simply inputting them into an AI tool like Notebook LLM. The capabilities of the human brain are immeasurable. There has been a lot of research into how the brain functions and its neuroplasticity. It would be a shame if we let him die. Especially in the elementary and elementary grades where so much growth occurs.

So while AI is a great tool, I think we need to be very careful how we use it.

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At the same time, I don’t think a blanket ban is the answer, and a one-year moratorium may not be enough to think through, plan for, and set some barriers around how AI should be used in education.

AI is now an integral part of basic search, Google, email, and even gaming. Thus, students use AI whenever they use the Internet at home. So why keep it out of class?

Deepa Jacob: As educators, we really can’t control what children are exposed to at home, but the only place we can still teach critical thinking skills is in the classroom. I think we should preserve this as much as possible. Also, I think kids these days are really good at distinguishing between what’s made by artificial intelligence versus what’s real, and for a lot of them that’s not cool anymore.

I think us older generations are easier to fool when it comes to AI.

Avalanche Jaswani: Children are much more tech-savvy and even savvy about artificial intelligence than they were a few years ago. Therefore, I do not think that bans and restrictions are the solution. Better understand AI and teach our children about the pros and cons.

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Central and state governments are starting to pilot projects using artificial intelligence tools in government schools and rural areas where there is a shortage of qualified teachers, in the hope that artificial intelligence can fill the gap. Could AI complement or even replace teachers in some of these schools?

Avalanche Jaswani: AI should not replace the teacher; it should empower the teacher. Especially in primary education, where children learn best through stories, activities and conversations – moments that are very important for human relationships. This connection with the teacher is very important. So I would never want AI to become a teacher sitting in front of children. I see AI as a learning assistant.

Deepa Jacob: My first job was in a rural school, and at times I wished I had more resources and tools, especially to translate more content and make it accessible. But I agree that teachers cannot be completely abandoned just because knowledge can be found anywhere. But if you think of schools not just as centers of knowledge, but as centers of wisdom, where you learn from other people how to become a good person, then you need teachers who will find resources for the child.

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How useful do you think AI is for teacher training and education?

Deepa Jacob: Preparation time is very limited, so AI tools really help. If I enter what I need to teach into Gemini, it helps me create slides that I can then present to the class, but again, we need to be careful because we have learned the hard way that AI can hallucinate and give out incorrect information, so teachers need to double check.

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Avalanche Jaswani: This can help teachers use different methods in the classroom. Let’s say I’m teaching fractions in class and one child immediately understands the concept, but another child is still confused; Traditionally, a second child might just hear the same explanation again, but an AI tool can help a teacher teach fractions in a more visual and engaging way by using chocolate and sharing it.

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