Teachers’ daily use of AI has risen significantly in the past year, a major survey shows.
Some 76 per cent of teachers are now using AI tools for day-to-day work, up from 53 per cent last year, according to a survey by the NEU teaching union.
This is despite half of teachers in the survey reporting that their school has no policy for the use of AI by either staff or students.
Teachers also expressed concern about the government’s introduction of AI tutors, which Vlog first revealed that the Department for Education was considering last year.
AI mostly used for resources
The NEU polled 9,408 teacher members in English state schools, asking their views on the current uses of AI within education.
Teachers are most likely to use AI to support resource creation (cited by 61 per cent of respondents), followed by lesson planning (41 per cent) and administrative tasks (38 per cent).
Just 7 per cent of teacher respondents said they use AI tools for marking.
Members of school leadership are significantly more likely to turn to AI for admin tasks: 55 per cent of those surveyed said they do this compared with 35 per cent of classroom teachers.
‘Negative effect’ on critical thinking
The NEU poll asked if teachers had seen a decline in critical thinking skills as a result of AI use by their students.
Among secondary teachers, 66 per cent agreed that students’ critical thinking has declined due to AI use. This is more than double the proportion of primary teachers (28 per cent).
The findings come after a report by a former DfE adviser warned that pupils’ ability to learn could be damaged by them becoming too reliant on generative AI tools.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said the survey showed that “a reliance on AI is having an effect on students’ ability to think critically”.
“AI should be there to enhance rather than diminish student learning. Teaching students about acceptable AI uses requires time in the school week, and that time is in short supply. AI must be regulated so that schools have appropriate tools which don’t undermine learning,” Mr Kebede said.
Half of teachers have no AI policy
Despite the survey showing that a growing number of teachers are using AI, school policies on the technology remain inconsistent.
Some 49 per cent of teachers said that their school has no policy on AI for staff or students.
Secondary schools were more likely to have a policy in place than primary schools.
The proportion of teachers reporting that their school has no policy specifically on students’ use of AI was unchanged from 66 per cent last year.
One teacher said: “Staff are not trained to use AI properly, but are using it and it’s producing sub-standard slop. Students are clearly using it for homework.”
Opposition to AI tutors
The government announced in January that it will trial AI tutoring tools to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds, which Vlog first revealed last year.
Just 14 per cent of survey respondents agreed with the government’s proposal, with nearly half opposed to the plan.
One teacher said it was “just another cost-cutting tool”, while another raised concerns that AI tutoring “completely undermines the value of teaching skills and the value of teacher relationships”.
Mr Kebede said that the government is “taking a risk in rolling out AI tutoring before its impacts are properly understood”.
“The profession is far from convinced that AI tutors are a magic bullet for closing opportunity gaps for disadvantaged students,” the NEU leader added.
