Learning with, rather than through, AI: co-designing science education for critical AI literacy
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The New Classroom Reality: AI at Students' Fingertips Classrooms have entered an era where generative AI tools like ChatGPT are ubiquitous knowledge brokers. In a recent cross-national survey spanning seven countries, researchers found that the use of AI for science-related information searches is widespread and growing (Greussing et al., 2025;Kessler et al., 2025). Young people are especially quick to adopt such tools. Anecdotal evidence and early studies confirm that many students are already using ChatGPT for schoolwork, sometimes extensively (Chow, 2025;Gecker, 2025). This means that beyond textbooks and teachers, students now have a third player in the learning process: a conversational AI that can explain concepts, solve problems, and even write essays on demand. Science communication -by which one means the exchange and discussion of especially scientific ideas and information between educators and learners in a classroom setting -is no longer a one-way flow from teacher to student; it has become a more complex network, with AI as a new node connecting learners to information.From the student's perspective, this seems empowering. AI provides instant answers and personalised explanations at any time. For example, a biology student stuck on a homework question about plant cell organelles can ask ChatGPT for help and receive a tailored explanation within seconds. Indeed, AI's powerful knowledge base and rapid feedback have huge potential for supporting student learning. Studies have begun to document benefits: a recent meta-analysis of 51 research studies concluded that using ChatGPT can significantly improve students' learning performance on average, and even bolster higher-order thinking skills when used with proper guidance (Chow, 2025;Fang et al., 2025 [preprint]). Such findings suggest that, used well, ChatGPT might act as a kind of virtual teaching assistant, providing scaffolding and practice for learners. It is no wonder that many educators see promise in integrating AI into education (Küçükuncular & Ertugan, 2025).Yet this new reality is also disorienting for teachers. Historically, a science teacher was the primary source of expert knowledge in the classroom. Now, that monopoly on information is gone. The challenge is clear: How do teachers maintain their educational impact when ' Google on steroids' is sitting in every student's pocket? Some teachers fear that if answers are always available on-demand, students may stop paying attention in class or doing the hard thinking themselves. In one striking MIT Media Lab study, college-aged participants who used ChatGPT to write essays showed markedly lower brain engagement than those who wrote without AI assistance (Fang et al., 2025 [preprint]). The AI-assisted essays tended to be uniform and characterless, and by the third assignment many students had resorted to simple copy-and-paste usage of ChatGPT (ibid.). Brainwave measurements indicated these students were engaging far less in critical thought, suggesting that overreliance on AI can make learning disturbingly passive (Bennet & Royce, 2025). Although that study focused on older students and is still preliminary, its implications resonate in high school settings as well. If students outsource too much thinking to AI, they risk bypassing the very cognitive processes by which deep learning and scientific reasoning develop.The rise of AI helpers poses several challenges to science communication and teaching. Firstly, educators worry that easy answers from AI could short-circuit students' critical thinking and curiosity. Roughly half of teachers surveyed in the U.S. suspect that student use of AI might decrease teens' ability to think independently and persist through difficult problems (Gecker, 2025). The concern is that if a chemistry student can ask ChatGPT to balance a chemical equation or explain a concept, they might not bother grappling with it themselves. Over time, this 'use it or lose it' effect could weaken their problem-solving muscles. As one report noted, heavy reliance on AI tools can have unintended cognitive consequences for developing brains, potentially weakening memory and reasoning skills if not checked (Zhai, 2022). Science educators thus face the task of ensuring that AI becomes a springboard for thinking, not a replacement for it.Secondly, despite their fluency, AI models are not infallible. ChatGPT can produce answers that sound authoritative but are partially incorrect or even completely fabricated (Chelli et al., 2024). For instance, it might confidently mix real scientific facts with a few wrong details, or generate plausible-sounding references to studies that do not exist. Such hallucinations are a known weakness of large language models (ibid.). Science educators, who prioritise evidence-based explanations, may find this aspect of ChatGPT particularly problematic. A student might receive an answer that is superficially convincing yet subtly wrong, and without guidance, they may not catch the error. The difficulty of science communication now includes an extra layer of fact-checking AIprovided information. Teachers must often play the role of AI misinformation detectors, helping students learn to verify answers against reliable sources (textbooks, scientific articles) instead of taking the AI's word as final.Thirdly, another challenge is the potential bias in AI-generated content. These models are trained on vast datasets from the internet, and they can inadvertently reflect the biases present in those data. OpenAI itself has acknowledged that ChatGPT may produce content that perpetuates harmful biases and stereotypes and is generally skewed toward Western perspectives (Cooper, 2023). This raises important questions for inclusive science communication. If students from historically marginalised communities or non-Western cultures turn to AI for science knowledge, will they see their perspectives reflected? Or will the information subtly prioritise Western examples and viewpoints? Would these voices be amplified or silenced by the algorithm? (ibid.). High school teachers, especially those committed to equity, must be vigilant. They need to help students recognise bias in AI outputs and seek out diverse sources of scientific information. In practice, this might mean discussing why an AI's answer about the history of a discovery only mentioned Western male scientists, or why its explanation of an environmental issue omitted indigenous knowledge. Science communication in the AI era must actively counteract bias to remain inclusive.The ease with which generative AI can produce essays, homework answers, or lab reports creates a cheating dilemma. Teachers are finding that they now have to distinguish a student's original work from AI-generated work (Bennet & Royce, 2025). Although some clues might help, since AI-written text may be surprisingly polished, generic in tone, and devoid of personal voice or errors, detection is not always straightforward. This puts stress on the traditional modes of assessment. If a student can get a perfectly formatted lab summary from ChatGPT, teachers must rethink assignments to emphasise process and understanding over flawless output. It is also important to acknowledge that the growing prevalence of digital and online assessments may further increase students' access to, and dependence on, AI tools; however, an in-depth analysis of this issue lies beyond the scope of this piece. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to design assessments that reward genuine engagement and cannot be completed by a bot. Many schools responded initially by banning AI tools outright, but outright bans are often unenforceable and may deprive students of learning how to use AI ethically. The trend now is toward finding ways to incorporate AI smartly rather than ignore it, which requires careful thought from educators (Küçükuncular & Ertugan, 2025).These challenges highlight that teaching science has, in some ways, become harder. The presence of an all-knowing bot in the room means teachers must constantly reinforce why learning science matters beyond just getting answers. It also calls for involving students more directly in shaping classroom norms for ethical AI use, ensuring they are not only consumers but also co-designers of responsible learning practices. Likewise, it forces educators to emphasise process, skills, and context -areas where human guidance is still essential -while managing the new pitfalls AI introduces.Even with these difficulties, many educators are cautiously optimistic. The key is to redefine the teacher's role in light of what AI can do. Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a competitor, savvy teachers treat it as a tool, and as such, one that needs a skilled human operator. A recent report found that among U.S. teachers who do use AI, about 80% said it saves them time on tasks like preparing worksheets, quizzes, and lesson plans (Gecker, 2025). Freed from some routine chores, teachers can devote more energy to interacting with students or designing creative activities. In the same report, about 60% of these teachers felt AI tools actually improved the quality of their work when adapting materials or providing feedback to students (ibid.). In other words, AI can augment teacher effectiveness if used properly. For example, a science teacher might use ChatGPT to generate a draft of a quiz, then refine the questions to better suit her class. Or an educator might quickly get a few alternative explanations for a tricky concept and then decide which one best fits their students' level. These uses of AI treat it as an assistant, not a replacement.More importantly, teachers are now tasked with a new pedagogical mission: teaching AI literacy. Just as past generations of educators taught students how to use search engines or discern credible sources online, today's teachers must show students how to interact intelligently with AI. "If I'm on the soapbox of 'AI is bad and kids are going to get dumb,' well yeah, that'll happen if we don't teach them how to use the tool", remarked Mary McCarthy, a high school teacher, emphasising that it is "the responsibility of the adult in the room to help [students] navigate this future" (as quoted in Gecker, 2025) Rather than forbid AI, she models proper use in her classroom, demonstrating, for instance, how to ask the right questions of ChatGPT and how to cross-check its answers. This perspective is increasingly echoed by educators around the world. Such modelling not only shapes responsible AI but also invites students to co-design classrooms norms for ethical AI use, reinforcing their agency in learning with, rather than though, AI.So, what does critical AI education look like in practice for a science class? It involves pulling back the curtain on tools like ChatGPT and guiding students in their use. A teacher might start by openly discussing how large language models work at an appropriate level of detail, explaining that these AIs predict answers based on patterns in data, and therefore do not know facts in the way humans do (Wang & Fan, 2025). From there, teachers can integrate AI into assignments in a structured way. For example, a high school biology teacher could have students use ChatGPT to get a quick explanation of a concept before a lesson, then spend class time dissecting that AI-generated explanation: Was it accurate? What details were missing? Did use any questionable sources? This kind of exercise turns AI from a shortcut into a subject of critical analysis (Greussing et al., 2025). In one science education study, an educator described modelling this approach, having students prompt ChatGPT for a brief overview of a topic to overcome knowledge gaps, but then critically evaluating the response together (Cooper, 2023). Such practices actually reinforce scientific thinking: students must evaluate evidence, identify errors, and consider alternative explanations, just as a scientist would. Using AI becomes a means to make students' thinking visible and hone their analytical skills, rather than a crutch to avoid thinking. Indeed, many experts assert that using AI is not necessarily about replacing teachers or making the learning of science easier for students. When employed intentionally in the classroom, AI tools can prompt students to ask better questions, consider multiple perspectives, and reflect on their reasoning. For instance, a chemistry teacher might use ChatGPT to generate an incorrect explanation of a concept and ask students to find the flaws in it, a twist on the traditional misconception-based teaching strategy (Henke, 2025). Alternatively, teachers might engage AI as a debate partner: one class activity described by educators is to have students debate an AI on a controversial science topic, forcing the student to fact-check the AI's arguments and respond with evidence (Bennet & Royce, 2025). Such an exercise can make learning interactive and sharpen critical thinking, as students must counter an AI's claims and, in the process, deepen their own understanding. In these ways, the teacher orchestrates learning experiences where AI is a means to an end, the end being engaged, thoughtful students.Crucially, teachers remain the mentors and curators of the learning process. They provide what AI cannot: context, ethical guidance, emotional support, and personalization grounded in genuine understanding of their students (Küçükuncular & Ertugan, 2025). Students consistently report valuing this human empathy, the sense that their teachers can understand, encourage, and relate to their experiences -a dimension that no algorithm (at least for now) can replicate (Ampofo et al., 2025). A chatbot might give a correct formula or definition, but it takes a teacher to observe that Johnny is still confused about why it matters, or that Aisha, who speaks English as a second language, might be taking the AI's text too literally. Educators bring professional judgment to decide when to trust an AI-generated resource and when to override it. "We want to make sure that AI isn't replacing the judgment of a teacher", as Maya Israel, a professor of education technology, aptly put it (as quoted in Gecker, 2025). This means, for example, that if a teacher uses an AI to help grade or give feedback, they must review the output, especially for nuanced student work, and make the final call themselves. In a world flooded with automated information, the teacher's role as a wise guide and facilitator is arguably more important than ever. That is, not merely a 'guide on the side', but a reflective mentor who helps students cultivate discernment, curiosity, and critical reasoning in dialogue with technology.And despite the fears, teachers are not obsolete -not even close. "AI does not replace the expertise of the science teacher (yet)," writes Cooper (2023, p. 450), reminding colleagues that a teacher's experience and understanding of their students remain key to sound pedagogy. In fact, teachers who embrace AI often find themselves re-energised in their practice. By handing off some tedious tasks to AI and focusing on higher-order skills, they can transform their classrooms into vibrant workshops of inquiry. Some early-career teachers report that AI tools have improved their work-life balance and reduced burnout by cutting on time (Gecker, 2025). 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Source: Frontiers in Education
Author: Ahmet Küçükuncular
Institution: Near East University
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,353
OpenAlex ID: W4415685327