Chad Bishop

by Chad Bishop

Teaching science and math long enough gives you a front row seat to every trend that sweeps through education. Some arrive gently like a new graphing calculator update that only breaks half your workflows. Others show up with all the subtlety of a fire alarm during finals week. And that is exactly how AI entered the classroom.

Depending on who you ask AI is either the greatest educational tool ever invented or the reason teachers will soon be living inside a cautionary tale. As usual the truth sits in between these extremes.

The Dream: A Future With Personalized Learning for Everyone

Every teacher has secretly wished for a duplicate of themselves during peak grading season. AI is the closest we have come to that wish coming true. When used intentionally it can serve as a patient tutor for students who need extra support or more challenge.

Recent reviews of AI enabled adaptive learning platforms show that these systems can adjust content and pathways in real time to provide individualized learning experiences. Researchers have found measurable improvement in outcomes especially in mathematics and science when teachers integrate these systems with actual instruction.

One large meta analysis published across studies from twenty nineteen to twenty four found that students using these platforms gained learning growth equivalent to several additional months of progress even when other conditions were held constant.
Source sciencedirect dot com

Other studies focusing on students with special education needs found similar benefits. User centered adaptive systems improved engagement and retention more consistently than one size fits all approaches.
Source researchgate dot net

What this means for a teacher is that AI can give instant feedback support struggling learners and enrich the work of students who are already ahead. It extends the reach of strong instruction rather than replacing the teacher.

The Nightmare: Shortcut Culture, Data Problems and Ethical Concerns

Of course every dream has a shadow. For teachers that shadow looks a lot like the suspiciously perfect lab report or an essay that suddenly reads as if written by a polite committee of robots.

Some recent reviews raise serious concerns. A twenty twenty five survey of AI use in higher education found that while personalized learning was promising there were widespread worries about academic integrity uneven access and the rapid spread of unverified information.
Source researchgate dot net

Even studies that highlight benefits emphasize that results are consistently smaller in real classrooms than in controlled settings. Gains diminish when AI is used without oversight.
Source pmc dot ncbi dot nlm dot nih dot gov

Then there are the ethical issues such as privacy algorithmic bias and AI hallucinations where a system invents information with great confidence. UNESCO warns that schools must adopt careful policies and emphasize teacher literacy in AI use if they want to avoid inequities and misinformation.
Source unesco dot org

In practice this means students may rely too heavily on AI skip critical thinking or submit answers they cannot explain. Without structure the shortcut culture grows quickly.

The Middle Ground: What the Data Suggests and What Teachers Can Do

Here is the hypothesis I keep returning to
AI is not a dream or a nightmare. AI is a tool. Tools cause problems only when we hand them out without guidance.

Studies repeatedly show the same pattern
When teachers oversee AI use and integrate it as part of instruction students improve their understanding and engagement.
When students use AI without guidance outcomes weaken and equity gaps widen.

Several recent reviews recommend the same solution. We must teach students to question evaluate compare and verify. AI should prompt them to ask Where does this information come from Does this answer make sense What assumptions is the system making
Source researchgate dot net

These habits are exactly the ones we want in science and mathematics classrooms anyway.

Dream or Nightmare: The Evidence Based Answer

AI in the classroom is both the tutoring angel and the temptation to skip the hardest thinking. It can deepen learning or flatten it. Everything depends on how we frame it and how we teach students to use it.

Pretending AI does not exist is the real nightmare. Students are already walking into a world filled with AI systems. Our job is to help them navigate that world with clarity skepticism and confidence.

And as any teacher in San Diego can tell you preparing students for complexity is why we walked into a classroom in the first place.