Insights

The state of education has reached a pivotal moment as artificial intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly visible role in the classroom. To better understand how AI is being used by educators today, its impact and opportunity, and what this means for the future of education, we recently surveyed K-12 teachers and district administrators across the U.S. who are actively using AI in classroom settings. The findings from our 2024 K-12 Educator + AI Survey reveal that while challenges remain, educators are using AI to innovate student learning, classroom, school and district efficiency, and the teacher experience.

With the use of AI in schools trending up – according to an EdWeek Research Center survey, 56% of educators expect to use AI tools more compared to last year – what new wonders does the 2024-2025 school year have in store?

Now that the new school year is underway, we asked some of our brightest minds across the Cambium Family for their predictions for the full school year. Read on for their insights.

Automated scoring and AI will help even more teachers take personalized action in the moment

According to our 2024 K-12 Educator + AI Survey, 52% of teachers who use AI do so to provide real-time performance tracking and feedback and 56% of administrators are using AI to analyze and interpret student data.

Heather Hayes, VP of AST programs and client services at Cambium Assessment, anticipates greater adoption of automated scoring in the new academic year so that educators are better equipped with highly reliable information about students’ strengths and weaknesses. 

Additionally, our survey found that teachers are using AI to create new efficiencies in the classroom including to help with proofreading and lesson planning. When it comes to formative testing, Heather believes more educators will leverage AI to free up their time to focus more on instructional activities. 

Teachers and administrators already see AI as a path to more personalized experiences and improved learning for students. With 56% of surveyed respondents confirming teachers are using AI to create personalized learning experiences. In the new school year ahead, Heather  expects to see tools that can turn student results and information into actionable next steps for educators to individualize in their teachings and interventions. 

Heather also believes AI will improve educators’ ability to provide accessibility support for all students through the use of AI-leveraged ASL avatars and other assistive technologies. 

AI will come closer to serving as a teacher's assistant

David Kanter, Ph.D., head of science solutions and strategy at ExploreLearning, believes technology that can improve the educational quality of learning materials will offer a big opportunity to better support teachers in the coming years. This includes utilizing AI as a specialized teacher’s assistant. These AI models can be built and tuned to pre-analyze complex student responses and look for evidence of students’ authentic understanding of the material, while also providing suggested scores for teachers to give. 

One way David suggests creating this tool is by training custom AI on large amounts of teacher hand-scored data for each question or task in their products. This can be especially useful in STEM classrooms, as it provides teachers with a way to foster deeper and more complex learning experiences for their students without requiring more time to grade. 

As an example, the ExploreLearning Data and Analytics team, in collaboration with Cambium Assessment, has been doing this to support deeper questions or tasks in the science products. While the original proof-of-concept required a large amount of hand-scoring, the team is working on two new kinds of AI models that are expected to reduce the amount of hand-scoring required by tenfold. Due to this success, David hopes to weave many more AI-powered questions and tasks into ExploreLearning’s science products in the years to come. 

AI will make student feedback even more individualized

Laura Fischer, VP of learning design and content development at Learning A-Z, believes the focus on AI and digital learning tools will evolve to providers looking at ways to use AI capabilities to improve the learning experience, not just because it’s available or new but because it delivers real value. This includes providing individualized student feedback and capitalizing on teachable moments, whether by correcting a student’s misconception based on an incorrect response or by looking for patterns in student inputs. 

Additionally, Laura is hoping that digital learning tools will be developed further to provide a stronger focus on metacognition and self-reflection to help students reflect on their performance in meaningful ways. 

Gen Z will continue to accelerate AI and technology adoption to connect in creative ways

Roya Salehi, SVP of customer success at Lexia, has seen a generational shift in teachers as more members of Gen Z enter the teaching profession. She’s noticed that they bring with them fresh perspectives and approaches to the classroom, especially regarding the use of technology and AI, which comes from growing up with continuously evolving technology. With 80% of administrators believing that a candidate’s technical skills are highly important to the hiring process, these new perspectives and learned skills are and will continue to be crucial for classroom success. 

Roya has also noticed that Gen Z brings different preferences and expectations when it comes to using edtech support. For example, they show a stronger preference for self-service and on-demand support as they seek to find answers quickly and independently. They also value peer support through online communities of practice. These emerging trends among newer teachers provide new opportunities for edtech providers to develop collaborative networks, providing teachers with new ways to connect and learn from one another about the platform. 

Looking Ahead 

As we look ahead, it’s important to remember that the way we do things – including how we learn and teach – is constantly changing. Finding ways to utilize new technologies, new perspectives, and even new generations of teachers will be paramount to keeping up with the changes and accepting new opportunities. 

If you're interested in learning more about the evolving role AI and other technologies are playing in classrooms, check out our K-12 Educator + AI Survey. And discover how Cambium and its brands are leveraging AI and machine learning (ML) to serve students and educators in our Expanding Impact with AI + ML video.