No sooner did we hear about the power of ChatGPT than we started hearing about students submitting essays using generative AI.

Educational institutions, educators, learners, and concerned parents are still trying to figure out how to think about all of this. That’s why I sat down with Zach Pendleton, Chief Architect of Instructure, the maker of Canvas learning management system.

"Education is in a hard place because it was one of the industries that was hit first and hardest by AI," Pendleton acknowledges.

I bring up the idea that this upending of education is driven by the fact that AI has revealed that the multiple choice exam and the essay are no longer viable methods of assessing student accomplishment. Pendleton adds his own observation, "I don't know any professor who uses multiple choice because they think that it is the best thing, that it is the most immersive, engaging, and challenging format," he says. "It was the format that was easiest to scale."

While headlines have pointed to studies suggesting that students using AI learn less than their traditional counterparts, a deeper look at the data reveals a more complex picture. “A paper from MIT found that when students use AI, they're willing to spend more time learning because they expend less effort on cognition,” Pendleton explains.

AI tools can personalize learning at scale, offering students instant feedback and adaptive support that keeps them motivated. By automating routine tasks and simplifying complex concepts, AI gives learners more time to explore, create, and apply knowledge. “When students use AI to understand rather than just to complete,” he says, “we see improvements in confidence, curiosity, and persistence.”

At this point, it's clear that AI isn't going away. But that doesn't mean we don't still have choices about its use. To this Pendleton says, "AI does not have an opinion. We do," he insists. "I think the challenge I see right now with that line of thinking is that if we look at who's using AI, students are using a lot of AI obviously. I'm starting to see school staff... people who are managing the LMS or who are working in IT, they're starting to use AI almost as much as students."

But among those who have the most impact in the classroom there are still some that are not engaging as much. Pendleton continues, "It's the teachers that are slow to the conversation because they're afraid of it… What I'm more afraid of is a future where those teachers aren't in the conversation, because then we lose that really powerful voice that can help us decide how to use this thing in the right way."

Pendleton's vision for AI-enabled education extends beyond efficiency gains. "I'm very excited about a future where education is less about just presenting content to as many students as possible and is instead about asking how we can reach each student where they are and deliver that content in a way that makes a difference for them," he says. "The last 100 years of education was just about saying, ‘how many students can we get a textbook to?’ The next 100 years is going to be, I hope, about saying, ‘how many students can we really transform and really reach individually and personally?’"

Despite his two decades in educational technology, Pendleton maintains a refreshing humility about his role in this transformation. "I'm a software engineer by training. Nobody wants me telling them what to do in the classroom," he admits. "I think my job is to figure out the most exciting things happening in technology and then to make those available to teachers through Canvas and the Instructure learning ecosystem. Really, I see myself as a partner. Every classroom should have its own AI journey."

This partnership model becomes crucial as education grapples with existential questions. "We're at a moment in education, thanks to AI, where we have to really strip down a lot of the things that we thought were sacred or were forever and ask ourselves what education is really about," Pendleton reflects.

With AI as such a transformative technology, I say maybe this is an invitation to question everything about education from the ground up.

Pendleton agrees, "Let's not hold too tightly to systems that didn't work very well in the first place," he urges. "Just because we've done it for a long time, we should ask, 'Is this really education or is this just the way things were?'"

The technology sector has a responsibility too. "There is a real responsibility for software companies like Instructure to show up to this conversation in a way that is responsible, that aligns with what educators want and aligns with what students need."