ATLANTA — Georgia’s Performance Audit Division released a report to provide insight about how K-12 public schools’ teachers feel about GenAI use in the classroom by students and teachers.
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GenAI is an advanced system trained to respond to user prompts to generate text, images, audio using large amounts of data.
Almost 60% of surveyed teachers say they use GenAI in their teaching, often describing it as a productivity tool for lesson plans, classroom activities and support for creating new materials adapted for students with different learning styles.
Elementary school teachers said very few, if any, students use the software. However, 52% of high school teachers and almost 30% of middle school teachers reported over half their students using GenAI for class assignments.
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While teachers acknowledged the perceived benefits, like increased confidence and conceptual understanding, the concerns outweigh these.
Teachers who reported higher student use were much more likely to view GenAI as negative for learning leading to lower engagement and over-reliance.
Many teachers reported fears of data privacy breaches, reduced critical thinking by students, reduced skill development and increased academic dishonesty, while saying it is also harder to assess genuine learning.
Most teachers reported receiving training or guidance on GenAI, but generally teachers agreed that student use needs to be closely monitored.
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