How Much AI is Too Much AI? Rethinking Assessment, Feedback, and the Role of Educators

The increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) in education has sparked both enthusiasm and concern. Many educators see AI as a powerful tool to enhance efficiency, while some parents worry about its impact on student learning and assessment.

A recent conversation with a fellow educator and parent of an MYP student brought this dichotomy to light. Despite her experience in education, she expressed unease about AI's role in grading and feedback, questioning whether it truly supports student development. This prompted me to reflect on the broader implications of AI in education, particularly in fostering personalized learning and easing teachers' workloads, while ensuring that students receive meaningful feedback.

AI in Education: Efficiency and Personalization Without Compromise

AI has revolutionized various aspects of education, offering tailored solutions to both students and educators. In classrooms with large student numbers, personalized learning can be challenging, yet AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT, Grammarly, QuillBot, and adaptive learning systems such as Khan Academy (https://www.khanmigo.ai/) and Carnegie Learning (https://www.carnegielearning.com/solutions/world-languages/) provide individualized feedback, helping students learn at their own pace. AI-powered analytics identify learning gaps, enabling teachers to intervene where necessary and personalize instruction.

For educators, AI significantly enhances efficiency by automating time-consuming tasks such as grading, lesson planning, and assessment analysis. Turnitin, Gradescope, and Google Classroom’s AI-assisted feedback allow teachers to focus more on instruction rather than administrative work. In higher education, AI is already widely used for grading, providing predictive analytics on student success, and even filtering college applications, as seen in institutions like Georgia Tech and Harvard. These applications demonstrate that AI, when used responsibly, can complement human judgment rather than replace it.

Striking the Right Balance: AI in Assessment and Learning

While AI can assist in grading, a human-AI hybrid model remains crucial. AI ensures consistency and efficiency, but teachers must provide qualitative feedback, especially in subjects requiring critical thinking and creativity. Educators should integrate AI tools without losing sight of student individuality—balancing automation with human insight ensures that assessments remain fair and contextually relevant.

AI can also serve as a time-efficient companion for teachers, particularly in creative writing tasks within MYP Language & Literature and Language Acquisition. For instance, AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Grammarly can help students refine their writing by offering real-time grammar and structure suggestions, while teachers focus on deeper aspects such as theme development, tone, and originality. By analyzing patterns in student writing, AI tools can highlight recurring strengths and weaknesses, enabling teachers to tailor their feedback accordingly.

Furthermore, AI-generated prompts can stimulate creativity by providing adaptive writing challenges based on a student’s proficiency level. Teachers can incorporate AI in formative assessments, using it to suggest vocabulary enhancements or provide scaffolding for multilingual students, ensuring that AI assists rather than replaces the educator’s role. This blended approach allows students to benefit from instant feedback while still receiving personalized, in-depth teacher intervention, ensuring that feedback remains meaningful and not superficial.

While AI can assist in grading, a human-AI hybrid model remains crucial. AI ensures consistency and efficiency, but teachers must provide qualitative feedback, especially in subjects requiring critical thinking and creativity. Educators should integrate AI tools without losing sight of student individuality—balancing automation with human insight ensures that assessments remain fair and contextually relevant.

The Evolving Landscape of Student Work and Parental Expectations

In an era where AI-generated content is becoming indistinguishable from human work, educators now approach student submissions with a degree of caution. AI assistance can blur the lines between genuine effort and automated output, making it imperative for assessments to evolve. Open-ended tasks, oral examinations, and AI-aware assessment rubrics are necessary to ensure authentic student engagement.

For parents, this shift requires a change in perspective. Instead of viewing AI-graded feedback as impersonal, they should consider how these tools enhance learning insights. AI-driven assessment does not replace teacher judgment but rather supports a more data-driven approach to student progress. A collaborative effort between parents, educators, and AI systems can ensure that student learning remains rigorous, personalized, and future-ready.

Empowering Educators and Parents in an AI-Driven World

1. Professional Development for Teachers – Institutions should offer structured AI training to help educators integrate AI ethically and effectively into classrooms. Understanding AI’s strengths and limitations allows teachers to use it as an assistant rather than a replacement.
2. Transparency in AI Usage – Schools should openly communicate how AI tools are used in grading and feedback to reassure parents that AI is augmenting, not replacing, their child’s learning experience.
3. Guiding Students on Ethical AI Use – Instead of banning AI, schools should teach students how to use it responsibly, emphasizing AI as a learning aid rather than a shortcut.

A Call to Action for Educators and Parents

The conversation around AI in education should shift from skepticism to practical and ethical integration. AI is not inherently a threat to learning; rather, it is a tool that, when used judiciously, can enhance both efficiency for educators and personalized learning for students.

For example, an MYP Language & Literature teacher can use AI-powered tools like ChatGPT or QuillBot to:

• generate differentiated prompts based on students’ proficiency levels and
• helping to scaffold tasks for struggling writers while challenging advanced students.

Additionally, AI-assisted grading tools like Grammarly or Google Classroom’s feedback suggestions can expedite the evaluation process, allowing teachers to focus more on in-depth, personalized feedback regarding creativity, coherence, and structure rather than just mechanics.

However, AI should not replace the teacher’s role in providing constructive feedback on narrative structure, coherence, and originality. Instead, AI can highlight recurring grammatical issues while the teacher focuses on evaluating the depth of storytelling and character development, ensuring a well-rounded learning experience.. Teachers must embrace AI while maintaining academic integrity, and parents should see AI-driven feedback as an opportunity to better understand their child’s progress.

The conversation around AI in education should shift from skepticism to practical and ethical integration. AI is not inherently a threat to learning; rather, it is a tool that, when used judiciously, can enhance both efficiency for educators and personalized learning for students. Teachers must embrace AI while maintaining academic integrity, and parents should see AI-driven feedback as an opportunity to better understand their child’s progress.

By working together, educators, parents, and students can ensure that AI serves as a bridge to deeper learning, rather than a barrier to meaningful education.