Generative AI use cases in education

The UK Department for Education has published a report on GenAI use cases in education, building on the insights from hackathons, proof of concept developments and user research.

The project explored potential applications for Generative AI (GenAI) in the education sector as part of a wider effort to:

‘transform a teacher’s day to day work’ – reducing workload and improving educational outcomes by automating routine tasks.

The central aims of this project were to: 

• put teachers’ voices at the heart of the future of AI in education, 
• broaden the evidence base on the existing strengths and limitations of GenAI tools within educational contexts, 
• understand teachers’ requirements for AI to meet their needs and effectively enhance their role in improving students’ learning, 
• disseminate these learnings for the sector, and 
• investigate the potential to improve the performance of generative AI models using education-specific datasets.

Of note, the report includes details on the project's hackathons - which may be of interest for those developing hackathons outside the education context) - including use cases identified, their structure and cohorts, and assessment framework. It also includes a lessons learned section about hackathon delivery, including about the role of user consultation, use case selection, engineering work required pre-hackathon, team composition, and size of events.

Future focus

In summary, findings from the user research and engagement were varied - there is optimism about the opportunities across multiple parts of teachers' and students' lives, but concerns about the risks and barriers across multiple areas. Areas for future focus include:

• understanding perceptions of the impact of AI on the role of teachers, and the expectations regarding its use;
• how to integrate AI with existing systems, and overcome disparities in access to technology;
• access to reliable information on AI tools' costs, effectiveness, accuracy and safety.

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