By: S.O.L.V.E.D.
I just read a quote the other day that if teachers don’t get on board with AI, their job will become obsolete. I thought, hmmm… that couldn’t be further from the truth. Then I started going down a rabbit hole wondering how many educators have embraced AI and what they use it for. According to a Gallup poll (2025), 60% of teachers use AI to help save time, plan lessons, and develop activities. What about the other 39%? Are they not ready for a world of AI, or are they not familiar with how to use it? Many educators are told to begin implementing AI, but they truly don’t know how.
What AI tool do they use? How can they do good prompt engineering? When do they use their judgement whether AI is hallucinating and providing bad data? In what situations is it appropriate to use AI? How do they teach students to use AI? And the list goes on and on…….
In the Adult Education world, it seems we have a lot of catching up to do! While K-12 teachers have had some PD’s on implementing Generative AI, adult education seems to be left behind. The problem with this is that we are not preparing students for the modern workforce. Many jobs now require AI skills, and I believe in the future AI will be embedded in all streams of the workforce.
But where do we begin? Think of a student who is NRS 1, or on a kindergarten reading level; they never got appropriate schooling and have a goal of getting an education to obtain a better job. Do we start those students with AI? Arguments can be made on both sides, but generally I believe skills such as analyzing, synthesizing, judging, and evaluating are necessary before students even think about touching AI. AI learns from many data sets even if the data is wrong. Just think: how will students know that AI is incorrect if they don’t have those necessary skills?
In addition, I believe that foundational skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, phonological awareness, and fluency should be taught by a human. Yes, AI can probably teach those things, but AI is missing a few factors. AI cannot motivate on the spot or make a quick adjustment (without, of course, someone prompting it) and cannot engage students in the way a teacher can. AI cannot properly diagnose student learning abilities and create specific modifications in a way an educator and a team would. Remember, AI is being fed data that largely comes from online, aka Reddit……..this means it is only teaching a student what it is generating from the data it has been fed. It can be missing sooooooooo many strategies and innovations to help low-literacy students!
So, what can we teach to low-literacy students then, if AI isn’t recommended? I thought the whole goal was to embed AI in adult education so students are ready for the workforce….and we will….but differently. I believe we start teaching students who are NRS 1 and 2 vocabulary words they will come across and start introducing them to AI concepts, independent of a chatbot….so the notion of AI isn’t completely foreign to them as they continue to increase their literacy. Only when we feel students have inherited some of those higher-order thinking skills do I feel Generative AI should be utilized.
Now I did think of utilizing AI to help me write this, but don’t worry I didn’t. I wanted this blog post to be authentic and utilize the skills I learned in school, rather than depending on a chatbot. See, I still need to use my brain and my judgment. This is what low-literacy students need. Skills they can use without AI, without technology (because, as we know, technology can fail), so they can become independent thinkers and move around the world applying skills and strategies they have developed, which can result in long-term success and economic mobility.
