Artificial intelligence is a widely discussed topic in education, often prompting questions and at times debate about cheating, screen time, and the future of learning itself. Yet conversations with teachers suggest that AI’s role in classrooms is more nuanced than many of the headlines imply.
Across a range of grade levels and subject areas, educators describe using AI in ways that extend beyond content generation. They are experimenting with tools that provide feedback, support formative assessment, facilitate classroom activities, and help students engage with complex ideas. At the same time, teachers continue to navigate concerns about accuracy, academic integrity, and student reservations.
Their experiences offer a glimpse into a rapidly evolving educational landscape, one where AI is neither a simple solution nor a singular problem, but a tool that is being tested, questioned, and adapted in real time.
Teachers Are Using AI To Save Time, But That’s Not All
Rather than serving as a substitute for learning, many teachers described AI as a tool that supports parts of the instructional process. Educators reported using AI to organize lesson plans, generate classroom activities, create differentiated materials, and break down complex concepts into more accessible explanations.
For example, Brooklyn Brambley, a teacher at Navarre Middle School in South Bend, Indiana, told me about her use of AI in the classroom. She stated that she used it to identify different activity options or materials as a supplement to what is provided by her district. Kim Sixta, a teacher at Ruskin High School outside of Kansas City, said that she uses AI to create engaging and differentiated lesson plans, generate higher-order Depth of Knowledge tasks, and develop stronger discussion prompts that push students into deeper critical thinking.
Rather than serving as a substitute for learning, many teachers described AI as a tool that supports parts of the instructional process.
In an email exchange, Sixta said that she uses AI to brainstorm real-world connections, create immersive student-centered activities, and adapt materials more efficiently for different learners. It has been especially helpful for her English Language Learner students. AI can simplify text, reword directions into more student-friendly language, translate key concepts when needed, and provide additional scaffolds that help students access content without lowering the rigor of the lesson. She added that this has been incredibly valuable in making instruction more inclusive and accessible.
This type of use appears to be effective for teachers. A 2025 Gallup and Walton Family Foundation report found that teachers who use AI save time across a range of tasks. Eighty percent of teachers who used AI to prepare for teaching said it helped them save time. Similarly, 74% of teachers who used it to modify materials to meet student needs and 84% who used it to create worksheets, assignments, projects, or activities reported time savings.
But this isn’t the full story.
The more interesting shift may be what teachers are doing with the time they gain. Rather than simply creating content faster, AI is allowing some teachers to spend more time interpreting student thinking, monitoring understanding, and providing support where it is needed most.
Feedback And Assessment At Scale
One of the most important components of helping students grow is providing feedback on their work. Feedback allows students to understand what they are doing correctly and incorrectly, helping them improve while preventing misconceptions from taking root.
The challenge is that providing timely feedback is difficult. Teachers face high student-to-teacher ratios, diverse learning needs, and limited time. A 2024 Pew report on the experiences of teachers found that 70% say their schools are understaffed and 68% report feeling overwhelmed.
Teachers are doing the best they can to provide students with immediate, frequent, and individualized feedback. AI appears to be helping them do that.
Sally Hubbard, a teacher at Westlake Charter School in Sacramento, described her use of the platform Snorkl, a multimodal AI-powered tool that provides students with instant feedback on verbal and visual explanations across a range of subjects. Hubbard told me that she used the platform during a classroom experiment, allowing students to receive immediate feedback and revise their work in real time.
Through this tool, she is able to provide all 28 students with feedback within 10 minutes.
“For me to do that it would take an hour or more,” Hubbard said, “and that would be spread over two to three days because I don’t have a solid hour in the day to devote to one focused task.”
Sometimes providing immediate feedback also means assessing students more frequently. Teachers are using AI to create formative assessments, exit tickets, and quick checks for understanding.
“AI has been especially useful in assessment and formative feedback,” she added. “It is excellent for quick checks for understanding, creating multi-tiered formative assessments, and developing secondary questioning that helps me gauge student comprehension at multiple levels.”
Her school has Gemini attached to Google Classroom, making it easier to integrate AI tools directly into instruction and student support.
Historically, teachers often received snapshots of student learning through occasional assignments, tests, and classroom discussions. AI may allow them to gather more continuous signals about student understanding throughout the learning process.
AI is helping make feedback cycles faster, giving students more opportunities to revise their work, refine their thinking, and take ownership of their learning.
Interestingly, AI is also helping some students develop a skill that many critics argue may weaken.
“[AI] is excellent for quick checks for understanding, creating multi-tiered formative assessments, and developing secondary questioning that helps me gauge student comprehension at multiple levels.”
AI Isn't Fully Replacing Critical Thinking—Teachers Are Using It To Teach Critical Thinking
Although AI does have the potential to impact critical thinking if students rely on outputs without questioning them, some teachers are intentionally using AI to strengthen critical thinking skills.
For example, Luke Sundermeier, a Social Studies teacher at Marysville High School in Ohio, uses a tool called Short Answer to support writing activities and feedback. He noted that one particularly effective activity involves students engaging in conversations with AI-generated “pen pal” characters, submitting written responses, and then reflecting on the interaction afterward.
According to Sundermeier, the activity encourages students to think critically about AI as a “thought partner” because part of the learning process involves evaluating and analyzing the AI-generated responses themselves.
Sixta also mentioned seeing AI enhance student learning during research and argumentative writing activities. Students often struggle to move beyond surface-level answers, and she finds that AI can help model deeper questioning and stronger analysis.
When teaching CER writing—Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning—AI helps generate secondary and follow-up questions that push students to explain their thinking more clearly and connect evidence back to their claims. She has also used it during research projects to help students understand concepts such as quantitative versus qualitative surveys, refine research questions, and think more intentionally about data collection.
In these classrooms, AI is not functioning simply as a machine that provides answers. Instead, it is being used as a tool that encourages students to think more deeply about the work they are doing.
Rather than reducing cognitive effort, some teachers believe it can help extend it.
In these classrooms, AI is not functioning simply as a machine that provides answers. Instead, it is being used as a tool that encourages students to think more deeply about the work they are doing.
Students Aren't Necessarily AI's Biggest Fans
It is easy to assume that students universally embrace AI. However, recent polling suggests that negative feelings toward AI have increased, and teachers report seeing similar attitudes among their students.
Sundermeier said that he observed that several of his students are concerned about the environmental implications associated with AI technologies.
“Many of my students care passionately about protecting the environment and are concerned about the ethics of AI usage,” he said. “As such, we have discussed offering alternatives to students who voice their concerns and continuing to look into ways to engage in constructive conversations about the environmental impact of AI.”
Hubbard similarly noted that some students are hesitant to trust AI-generated feedback because they worry about incorrect responses or misunderstandings.
After asking students about her use of AI in the classroom, several noted that AI does not understand them as well as she does. Others worried that AI could misread handwriting, misunderstand accents, or make mistakes when interpreting student responses.
At the same time, many acknowledged that the technology helps reduce the workload on their teacher.
Students are thinking carefully about AI and its implications, perhaps more than many adults assume. While some students certainly use AI to complete work more quickly, others are actively questioning its role, limitations, and broader consequences.
Teachers are listening to those concerns.
Hubbard noted that student reservations have made her cautious about expanding AI use too quickly. And just as students have concerns, teachers do as well.
Students are thinking carefully about AI and its implications, perhaps more than many adults assume. While some students certainly use AI to complete work more quickly, others are actively questioning its role, limitations, and broader consequences.
The Challenges Teachers Still Can't Ignore
Despite the benefits, teachers continue to express concerns about the limitations of AI in education.
Accuracy remains a significant issue. Educators often need to spend additional time verifying AI-generated responses and ensuring that students critically evaluate the information they receive. Academic integrity also remains an ongoing concern as schools try to balance the use of AI tools with authentic student learning and independent thinking.
These questions are still being worked through in schools across the country. Teachers are experimenting with the technology while simultaneously trying to understand its risks and limitations.
The Real Question Isn't Whether AI Belongs In Schools
AI is clearly becoming an important part of the future of learning. In many ways, it is already transforming it.
The conversation around AI’s place in education, therefore, should not simply be about whether the technology belongs in schools. It should also be about helping parents understand what is actually happening inside classrooms, listening to the concerns of both teachers and students, and providing clearer guidance on how these tools can be used responsibly and effectively.
This column first appeared in Forbes.
