Doha, Qatar: Artificial intelligence can help teachers save time and give students a more personalised learning experience, but it should remain an assistant rather than replace teachers or students' own thinking, Fatma Al-Shurouqi, a master's researcher in STEM education and technical and vocational education and training at the University of Doha for Science and Technology (UDST), and an AI trainer said in an interview with Al Raayan TV.
Al-Shurouqi said the growing use of AI in education should not be understood simply as students and teachers using chatbots to obtain answers.
"When I talk about artificial intelligence in education, I am not talking about just a programme for chatting or simply asking a question and getting a direct answer," she said.
Instead, she said, AI encompasses tools that can assist teachers in preparing lesson plans, simplifying information, generating ideas, providing feedback and tailoring learning to students with different needs and abilities.
"Artificial intelligence is a smart assistant to the teacher, not a replacement," Al-Shurouqi said.
The distinction is important, she explained, because teachers continue to perform functions technology cannot simply take over.
Teachers understand individual students' needs, motivate them and build the human relationship between teacher and student.
One of AI's most useful applications, according to Al-Shurouqi, is its ability to act as a "personal assistant" for teachers facing significant workloads.
A teacher may be responsible for different grades and several classes, each containing students with different levels and learning needs.
Preparing separate activities for all those groups can consume considerable time.
AI tools, she said, can help teachers prepare activities at different levels, create mind maps and presentations, simplify information and provide feedback.
Teachers can also provide samples of students' answers to an AI system to help identify areas of weakness and use those findings to develop remedial plans for students requiring additional support.
For students, Al-Shurouqi said one of AI's greatest potential benefits is personalised learning.
In a conventional classroom, a teacher may explain a concept several times but still has to complete specific learning objectives within a lesson of around 45 or 50 minutes.
A student who has not fully understood a concept can use AI outside that constraint to ask for another explanation, request a simpler version of the material or ask for an example connected to everyday life.
More importantly, Al-Shurouqi said students can use the technology interactively rather than merely asking it for an answer.
A student could ask an AI tool to generate questions based on what they have studied, evaluate their answers and provide feedback.
In this way, she said, learning becomes "personalised and gradual" rather than a process in which a student asks a question and immediately receives the final answer.
Al-Shurouqi also advised teachers against trying to master every AI platform available.
Instead, they should identify where they are spending the most time and learn to use a suitable tool effectively.
A teacher struggling with lesson planning, for example, may benefit from planning tools, while another spending significant time preparing presentations or classroom activities may need a different application.
She cited tools available through Microsoft Copilot, including functions designed for teaching and studying, as well as Eduaide.
AI for educational planning and Gamma for presentations.
Generative AI platforms can also increasingly create complete presentations within seconds when given sufficiently clear instructions, she said.
However, Al-Shurouqi warned that introducing AI into education also creates risks.
Among the main challenges she identified were inaccurate information, "blind trust" in AI-generated responses, excessive dependence on the technology and academic cheating.
Rather than prohibiting students from using AI altogether, she argued that educators should teach them how to use it critically.
"We cannot prevent students from using artificial intelligence," she said, adding that students should instead be asked whether they have verified the information and checked its source.
She summarised the approach as asking, thinking, verifying and then developing the information further.
The same principle could be applied to assignments, she said.
A straightforward question that can simply be entered into an AI system may produce an immediate answer without requiring meaningful thought from the student.
Teachers can instead design tasks requiring students to compare information, verify an AI-generated answer, identify its sources and connect it with examples from their own lives.
Such an approach changes AI from a shortcut for completing assignments into material students must evaluate and think about.
Al-Shurouqi said developing a sense of digital and intellectual responsibility among students will therefore be essential as the technology becomes increasingly embedded in education.
Her remarks point to a shift in the debate over AI in classrooms: the question is increasingly not whether students will use the technology, but how schools and teachers can ensure that it strengthens learning without weakening independent thinking, source verification and academic responsibility.
