The school equips itself and faces the challenge of artificial intelligence. Having overcome initial resistance and prejudices, experimentation on the use of AI in teaching begins with the new school year. For now only in 15 middle school and first and fourth grade classes in the Lazio, Calabria, Tuscany and Lombardy regions. There is the intention, however, to extend the experience to make it structural from 2026, provided the experimentation works.
The head of the Department of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, explains: “The cell phone is addictive, distracting and has no educational effectiveness.” Instead, AI virtual assistants, via PCs and tablets, facilitate learning.
The idea is to experiment for a two-year period with the use of artificial intelligence in the processes of personalizing learning paths to reduce the gap between male and female students, but also male and female students. In the classroom, to support the teacher, there will be integrated virtual assistants – first in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and in foreign languages - who will support the students in their studies to encourage personalized learning and simplify the teachers’ work. Specific software will analyze the students’ performances to detect any difficulties and report problems to the teachers who will personalize the lesson to the students’ needs.
We start with the training of teachers while the participation of the class group is subject to parental consent to guarantee the protection of privacy. For now, school leaders are selecting pupils and classes, ensuring the participation of teachers and students.
In Calabria the national experimentation starts with two fourth IT classes of the Technological Technician “Malafarina” of Soverato and two classes of the Comprehensive Institute of Platì (RC). In one of the classes, with the teacher, the virtual assistant enters, while the other class, with traditional teaching, will be a control one. The pilot project will be monitored by Invalsi, the National Institute for the Evaluation of the Educational System, which will compare the performance of the students in the trial with those in traditional classes. The results of the research will allow us to evaluate whether this new application works in improving learning and can be a useful prerequisite for implementing the method.
The inspiration for the new experiment was a 1984 study by Bloom, who parameterized the impact of classroom assistants on student results. A further step for AI that fully enters the classroom.
Indire’s research
In the panorama of national education, AI, in reality, already has significant studies, research and experiments under its belt starting from the working group of the European Digital Education Hub (EDEH Hub) “AI in Education” of the European Commission which analyzed various aspects of the use and impact of artificial intelligence on education, producing fundamental informative reports.
«The next work topics will include explainable AI (XAI) and the development of evaluation criteria for the suitability of AI technologies in the classroom», explains Jessica Niewint, responsible research contact of INDIRE (National Institute for Educational Research Documentation) for the area. With the spread of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, basic skills used consciously and responsibly remain more important than ever. «Although artificial intelligence can help carry out tasks such as generating essays or answering questions – underlines Jessica Niewint – young people still need solid reading and writing skills to use these tools in a conscious and responsible way. Knowing how to read and write to evaluate the quality of content generated by AI and understand its limits.”
Among the various projects being tested by INDIRE, we start from “PATHS and philosophy with AI” to “Public history” for the interdisciplinary and laboratory approach to philosophy and history. It then ranges from “Text to image” to innovate learning methodologies in primary and middle schools, with particular attention to students with special needs (Bes), to “Neurosciences and technologies” where the teacher can adapt in real time educational contents, offering suggestions or alternative materials based on the student’s strengths and areas for improvement, personalizing learning paths, up to the use of AI in school processes and training. Since March 2023, Indire has made an ad hoc environment available for all schools with articles, videos and training materials.
Furthermore, some significant experiments in the use of AI in teaching had already been started by school authorities. Among these is that of the network of 54 institutes in Friuli Venezia Giulia, which published the document “Building the future. Guidelines on the use of AI in schools” and the National High School Network for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, led by the “Michelangelo Buonarroti” high school of Monfalcone, which has built a curriculum that connects Artificial Intelligence with high school skills. Among the schools of the National High School Network that have started the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence curricular curvature there is also the “Alessandro Volta” Scientific High School of Reggio Calabria.
A virtual assistant to report difficulties: the enthusiasm of the ITT Malafarina of Soverato
“At the dawn of the 2024-2025 school year, the ITT “G. Malafarina” of Soverato confirms itself as an excellent and cutting-edge educational institution, with an important innovation that projects it into the elite of the national school panorama” . This was written in the latest issue of the Noi Magazine insert by the ITT “G. Malafarina” Soverato (CZ).
The Institute led by the head teacher prof. Saverio Candelieri, in fact, has been identified by the Ministry of Education and Merit among the fifteen schools, of which four in Calabria, which, in Italy, will lead a real digital revolution in terms of teaching, with reference to experimentation regarding the the use of artificial intelligence. The project, which will last two years, is aimed at allowing the use of software which, as a virtual assistant, will support teachers, helping them to identify and report the learning difficulties of each individual student.
The new technology, obviously, will not replace the teacher, but will represent an effective support for them, useful for allowing an even more timely, targeted and decisive intervention. Subjected to preventive and adequate training, the teacher will be able to guide and orient the activity of the artificial intelligence, to obtain tools for strengthening the activity of differentiating learning paths.
Ultimately, the student will be able to benefit from the offer of an educational experience that is even more centered on his or her very personal peculiarities and needs, gaining in terms of quality and learning times.
In the Soverato Institute, two parallel classes were selected within the “Informatics and Telecommunications” curriculum, with professor Claudio Cherubino as coordinator of the project. While the first will actively take part in the national experimentation, the second will maintain the previous methodologies: INVALSI will compare the results at the end of the two-year experimental period, cross-referencing the data provided by Malafarina and the other selected schools.
In the case of positive feedback, the Ministry intends to pursue the ambitious objective of bringing artificial intelligence into the classroom in all schools in Italy from 2026. Proud and, at the same time, determined, the director Candelieri underlines how the experimentation aims to relaunch the social lift, offering students the opportunity to improve their level of education regardless of their starting conditions, and, at the same time, to combat the phenomenon of school dropout.