The Class of 40 Students and One Teacher: An Outdated Model?
You're sitting in a classroom. The teacher is explaining a complex math concept, but you lost track five minutes ago when they referenced something you never really understood from last semester. Looking around, you see half the class diligently taking notes while others appear bored, clearly grasping the concept immediately.
This scenario unfolds in classrooms worldwide every day. It's not the teacher's fault—it's the inherent limitation of the classroom model, a system that hasn't fundamentally changed. As Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, points out, our traditional classroom setup was groundbreaking when first introduced. Before that, education occurred through apprenticeship—one teacher and one or two students. The classroom enabled a single teacher to instruct 30-40 students at once, drastically increasing access to education. However, this solution created a new issue: how can one teacher possibly monitor and adapt to 40 different learning paces?
The Accumulating Gap Problem
The most critical issue in traditional education isn't about engagement or curriculum—it's about accumulating knowledge gaps. Imagine this learning journey: first grade, second grade, third grade, and so on. To understand functions in algebra, you need certain prerequisite knowledge. If you don't fully grasp these fundamentals, you will struggle with more advanced concepts. These gaps accumulate over time. A student who missed a key concept in third grade might spend twice as much time studying in fifth grade but still fall behind. Ultimately, many students simply give up, believing they're "not good at math," when the real issue is just a few foundational gaps that were never addressed.
Research supports this claim. Education researcher Benjamin Bloom discovered that students with personal tutors exhibited improvements of two standard deviations—equivalent to moving from the 50th percentile to the 96th. That's a leap from average to exceptional. Bloom referred to this phenomenon as the "2 Sigma Problem"—personal tutoring significantly enhances outcomes, yet providing one-on-one instruction to every student has seemed economically unfeasible. Until now.
AI: The One-on-One Tutor for Everyone
This is where AI comes into the classroom. Not to replace teachers, but to tackle the "impossible math problem" of education: providing personalized instruction at scale. Khan Academy's AI tutor, Khanmigo, is specifically designed to address these learning gaps. Unlike traditional teaching models, which progress regardless of individual understanding, AI can:
- Identify knowledge gaps through dialogue and targeted inquiries.
- Adapt explanations to align with each student's learning style.
- Encourage unlimited questions without judgment or impatience.
- Provide immediate feedback on assignments, emphasizing misunderstandings.
- Proceed at the student's pace, ensuring understanding before moving forward.
Consider your own educational experience. Do you remember struggling to understand something but feeling too embarrassed to ask? Or when you finally gathered the courage to inquire, only to still not grasp the explanation? AI tutors remove these obstacles.
Beyond Explanation: AI as a Learning Partner
Khan Academy's AI offers features that showcase the unique potential of AI in education:
Historical Figures Come to Life
Imagine studying George Washington as if you were actually "interviewing" him. Khanmigo develops AI personas grounded in historical research, enabling students to pose questions directly: "President Washington, did you ever doubt yourself?" This shifts passive reading into an engaging conversation.
Writing Coaches that Write With You
Writing often causes students to freeze up as they stare at blank pages. Khanmigo's writing coach provides prompts and follows a collaborative writing process—first, the AI writes a sentence, then the student contributes one, fostering a writing partnership that gradually builds both skill and confidence. This approach mirrors ancient educational traditions, where masters and apprentices would co-create poetry, with the master writing one line and the student replying with another. AI makes this cherished teaching method accessible to everyone.
Reinventing Assessment
If AI can teach, it can also transform how we evaluate learning. Our current multiple-choice tests were created because they are easy to grade at scale—not because they are the best way to assess understanding. With AI, we can move beyond "select the correct answer" to "explain your thinking." An AI can evaluate:
- The reasoning behind an answer
- Various solution approaches
- Innovative uses of knowledge
- Conceptual understanding versus rote memorization
Top companies like Google and McKinsey have long used comprehensive evaluation methods that involve days of observation, conversation, and problem-solving to choose candidates. Now, schools can adopt similar holistic assessments using AI to evaluate student responses and reasoning. Imagine a math test where the question isn't just whether you got the right answer, but how you approached the problem— with AI evaluating your process and providing targeted feedback.
Building Confidence Through Private Learning
One unexpected benefit reported from early AI tutor implementations is increased student confidence. In Indiana's Hobart School City, administrators observed significant improvements in student self-assurance after six months with AI tutors.
Why? For struggling students, admitting confusion to a teacher or peers can be humiliating. With AI, there is no judgment. Students can ask the same question in multiple ways until they fully understand. When they finally grasp a concept, they return to class more confident and prepared. This alone could transform learning outcomes for countless students who are currently falling through the cracks.
The Technology Gap: Widening or Narrowing?
Every technological advance in education creates both opportunities and potential divides. Consider language learning: students today with access to YouTube and Netflix develop natural fluency that was nearly impossible for previous generations, limited to textbooks and occasional interactions with native speakers. AI could similarly create divides between those who use it effectively and those who do not. As Khan notes, "Students who learn to use AI ethically and efficiently will study faster and gain a competitive advantage throughout their educational journey." The key is not to restrict access but to ensure equitable distribution and teach effective use of these tools. Just as we've transitioned from banning calculators to teaching their appropriate use, education must embrace AI while instructing on its responsible application.
AI and Digital Wellbeing
Beyond academics, AI can help address broader educational concerns. Properly trained AI can:
- Counter misinformation by referencing trustworthy sources
- Balance extreme viewpoints with mainstream scientific consensus.
- Assist in managing screen time and social media usage
- Cultivate safer digital spaces for students.
AI can be trained to amplify our best intentions rather than our worst impulses—helping students build healthier relationships with technology.
The Teacher's New Role
In this new educational landscape, teachers won't disappear—they'll transform. AI handles knowledge transmission and gap-filling, freeing teachers to focus on:
- Fostering meaningful human connections
- Enhancing social and emotional skills
- Facilitating project-based learning
- Igniting curiosity and passion
- Cultivating a classroom community
The best AI tutor lacks what great teachers provide: human connection, emotional intelligence, and the ability to inspire. Together, AI and human teachers create an educational experience greater than either could provide alone.
Preparing for an AI-Enhanced Future
As we adapt to this educational revolution, students who thrive will be those who:
- Learn to use AI as an enhancement of creativity
- Develop skills in prompt engineering and collaboration
- Connect ideas across disciplines with AI support.
- Understand when to depend on AI and when to foster personal knowledge.
The goal isn't education in which AI does the thinking, but rather education where AI manages routine tasks so human minds can concentrate on deeper understanding, creativity, and innovation. The classroom of the 1700s transformed education by enabling knowledge to scale. The AI tutor of 2025 may achieve the next significant breakthrough—merging scale with personalization, and finally addressing Bloom's 2 Sigma Problem.
Based on: "미래의 교육은 어떻게될까? | 살만 칸 [📚나는 AI와 공부한다] 라이브 북토크" - Salman Khan's live book talk discussing the future of education with AI.