Ever since students started using ChatGPT to write their homework, AI in education has sparked equal measures of excitement and trepidation. The concern is certainly understandable: if a language model can be trained on the curriculum, what’s left for the teacher to do?
Quite a lot, as it turns out. Teaching consistently ranks among the professions least likely to be automated – and for good reason. But, that doesn’t mean AI has nothing to offer schools facing rising costs, growing class sizes and a staffing crisis that shows no sign of easing up.
AI tools like Google AI Pro (Gemini) aren’t designed to replace educators, but to rebalance workloads. To automate the tasks that drain teacher time without adding anything to the classroom experience, so that teachers can get back to doing what only humans can do.
What makes human teachers irreplaceable?
The pandemic settled this question better than any research paper could. When schools closed, students lost out most on social connection, routine, mentorship and the kind of low-stakes human interaction that builds communication skills over years.
Empathy, compromise, encouragement, reading the room – These are what happens when a teacher notices someone is struggling before the student has words for it. No LLM is trying to replicate that.
So, what can AI replace in education?
Modern teachers are much more than just a teacher. They’re lesson planners, assessors, administrators, communicators, pastoral carers and CPD attendees, and often all in the same day. That’s a recipe for the burnout and attrition the education sector has been struggling with for years.
AI doesn’t fix the structural problems in education, but it can meaningfully reduce the friction of repetitive tasks. The ones that eat hours without moving the needle of student outcomes.
How can AI help educators and other school staff?
Google AI Pro, built into Google Workspace for Education (the productivity suite your school probably already uses), is emerging as a valuable tool for tackling many issues faced across the education ecosystem today, like staff retention and closing the attainment gap.
Here are just a few ways that will leave you feeling like you’ve found a cheat code for teaching:
- Automated lesson planning: Generate curriculum-aligned lesson plans on any topic, then instantly customise them to support students with particular needs or extension activities to challenge advanced learners, then wrap up with an appropriate differentiated assessment rubric.
- Career guidance: Help students uncover their dream job by asking Gemini to collect information about different industries, then make it real by connecting classroom activities to career pathways and foster students’ commitment to learning.
- Creating a comms plan: Draft emails, newsletters and outreach templates inside Gmail to improve the flow of communication between school stakeholders.
- Chatting with historical figures: Bring lessons to life by inviting students to ask famous people from history their questions, promoting engaging conversation and interaction in the classroom.
- Marking tests with tailored feedback: Open completed assignments in Docs, specify objectives, course level and a supportive tone of voice, then watch Gemini grade work and draft feedback for you quicker than ever!
- Putting note-taking on autopilot: Gemini in Meet can capture notes in minutes, then summarise actions for attendees so you can focus on driving discussions that move your school forward.
- Developing project plans and schedules: Plan like a pro in a fraction of the time by getting Gemini to outline tasks and milestones in Sheets with smart chips and formulas.
- Being more presentable: Use Gemini in Sheets to create presentations with AI-generated images that make you look like a graphic designer.
The bottom line
By using AI tools like Google AI Pro effectively, teachers can become even more effective educators and shape not only the future of learning, but the futures of every student through more engaging and personalised learning opportunities.
Ethical use of AI means keeping the human in the loop. It requires expert oversight from educators to ensure that results pass the proverbial smell test, but that’s a short task compared to the time savings these powerful tools unlock.
