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| Students during a class hour at Vinh Ninh Primary School (Thuan Hoa Ward) |
AI enters classrooms
In a 7th-grade Natural Sciences lesson on “Pitch - Loudness of sound”, Mr. Nguyen Van Can, a Physics teacher at Thuy Phuong Secondary School (Thanh Thuy Ward), used AI to create a virtual oscilloscope because the school does not have a real one. As students spoke, sang, or played the guitar,… a graph of amplitude and frequency immediately appeared on the screen. Thanks to AI, students became more interactive, boldly making predictions and verifying them right in class. The lesson became vibrant, visual, and effective, truly embodying the spirit of “sound speaks, knowledge reaches the heart”. With this AI-integrated lesson, Mr. Can won the First Prize at the (formerly) Huong Thuy Town Excellent Teacher Competition for the academic year 2024 - 2025.
In English classes, Ms. Nguyen Thi Y Anh, Head of the Foreign Languages Department at Gia Hoi High School, has used AI tools to help students practice pronunciation before class, create sample dialogues, illustrative images, and assessment rubrics. AI can also provide feedback on students' pronunciation errors, allowing teachers to have more time to observe and support those in need. Ms. Y Anh expressed her satisfaction: “English teachers at Gia Hoi High School use AI quite frequently in three main tasks: rapid lesson planning and differentiation; creating assignments via worksheets; and supporting the quick assessment of skills. AI assists teachers in quickly generating reading passages, listening tasks, podcasts, questions, and suggesting new activities.”
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| Mr. Nguyen Van Can, the Physics teacher at Thuy Phuong Secondary School, guided students in using AI to create oscilloscopes |
Artificial intelligence is truly an “extended arm” for teachers, helping them organize more vivid lessons while saving time. Over the past three years, Mr. Can has used the virtual assistant ChatGPT to help write over 3,000 multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. Many of these exercises have been published in three books titled Basic and Advanced Exercises for 7th, 8th, and 9th Grade Natural Sciences, published by the University of Education Publishing House.
Mr. Can shared: “Thanks to ChatGPT, I have shortened the time spent creating questions, as well as checking spelling and content... Designing lesson plans for different student groups has become more flexible and specific. AI-powered physics simulations allow students to see things they could previously only imagine, making the process of understanding the core nature of a subject easier and more enjoyable. Thuy Phuong Secondary School is one of the first secondary schools in Hue City to apply grading via scanners. This is one of the concrete applications of AI that saves grading time while ensuring accuracy and transparency”.
Interaction, guidance, and inspiration
Currently, AI has become one of the breakthrough solutions, contributing to the innovation of teaching and the improvement of educational quality. AI helps teachers design lessons faster and more visually, generating multiple versions of tests more quickly, and providing accurate feedback on learning outcomes… Consequently, teachers spend less time processing information, and more time on experiential activities and guiding students. The teaching culture is shifting positively toward effectiveness, accuracy, and personalization. For students, AI helps them take ownership of their self-study process by quickly searching for and synthesizing information, building learning structures for each topic, and designing tests tailored to their abilities…
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| Students applying AI in class |
Compared to a few years ago, the teaching and learning environment today seems to have undergone a “spectacular transformation” thanks to AI. Whereas teachers previously had to do almost everything themselves, and classrooms relied mainly on chalk and blackboards, students are now accustomed to virtual simulations, digital classrooms, and even digital teachers. Assessment and evaluation have also become more flexible and personalized. Teachers can easily analyze the progress of each student through smart data dashboards.
Mr. Nguyen Van Can believed that AI frees teachers from administrative tasks so that they can focus on the core mission: interacting with, guiding, and inspiring students in learning. It also helps teachers analyze learning data to adjust methods promptly, rather than teaching based on intuition as before. “It can be said that in the past, teaching and learning relied on physical effort; now, they rely on the power of technology. AI does not replace teachers, but it helps them become more effective and happier versions of themselves,” said Mr. Can.
For students, if they use AI properly, it can help them learn effectively on their own. Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Thy, a student of class 12/7 at Gia Hoi High School, shared that when teachers use AI in class, she finds the lessons more vivid and easier to understand due to the illustrative images and examples. AI also helps teachers differentiate exercise levels for each student, enabling better progress. She herself often uses AI to quickly summarize long lessons, re-explain knowledge in a more accessible way, practice exercises, check answers, or plan her study schedule.
Using AI properly to preserve creativity
In recent times, the Department of Education and Training has oriented and implemented AI applications in educational institutions by issuing instructions and organizing conferences, training programs, and professional development sessions for teachers. Since the beginning of the academic year, numerous training topics on AI applications in teaching, testing, and assessment have been deployed; simultaneously, a digital competency framework for students, including AI literacy… has also been disseminated. Thanks to this synchronized approach, the application of AI have spread strongly across schools in Hue.
According to Mr. Nguyen Vinh Hung, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, the proficient and appropriate use of AI will provide teachers with a true “professional assistant” to innovate teaching methods, and move toward a smart education system. If they are slow to approach this technology, teachers will spend significant time on manual tasks, and limit their ability to create engaging learning environment. This also reduces professional competitiveness, and makes it difficult for teachers to adapt to modern educational trends. Therefore, approaching and using AI is no longer just an option, but has become a requirement for teachers in the digital age.
Regarding the concern that “AI saves time, but reduces the creativity of teachers and students”, Mr. Hung believed that this concern is well-founded; however, the issue lies not in AI itself, but in how it is used. If teachers are proactive, and know how to select and leverage AI properly, this technology will become a tool to stimulate ideas and expand creative space. Conversely, overuse and blindly copying will narrow the creativity. Therefore, training in AI usage skills based on the principle of “AI supports - humans control” is an essential requirement.
The more AI develops, the more important the guiding role of the teacher becomes. Technology can suggest ideas, simulate data, or support information processing, but it is the teachers who transform those suggestions into lessons suitable for each class and each student. According to Mr. Nguyen Van Can, creativity, emotion, and ethics are things that AI cannot do on behalf of humans, especially in education - a field that demands humanistic values, empathy, experience, and responsibility. The future of education will be a harmonious combination of modern technology and the personal qualities of teachers.