What Does AI Mean for Education? A Math Coach's Perspective

There’s no question, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming education. And as someone who works every day with high school students preparing for the SAT, ACT, and AP math exams, I see both the promise and the pitfalls of this new technology.

Used wisely, AI can be a game-changer for students. I have started coaching my SAT and ACT prep students that when they hit a wall trying to solve a challenging problem, I encourage them to use my custom ChatGPT bot to find a concept or a first step in solving the problem. It’s a tool I’ve built into my tutoring program to help guide them through the problem-solving process, step by step. It’s not about shortcuts; it’s about getting unstuck, gaining insight, and reinforcing the concepts we’re learning together. I want students to use AI as a tool to learn better, not to avoid learning altogether.

But we also have to be clear-eyed: AI can be misused. English teachers, college professors, are rightly concerned about students using it to write entire essays. My brother is a professor at a state university in Michigan, and he tells me he knows his students use AI to generate papers and he has guidelines he gives to his students for its use as a tool. For math students, it can be tempting to simply plug in a problem into an AI large language model and grab an answer without doing any of the thinking. Obviously that is not learning. That’s outsourcing. And that’s exactly why rigorous, standardized assessments still matter.

As educators and parents, we need to maintain spaces where students are objectively measured without access to AI. Tests like the SAT, ACT, and AP exams serve that purpose. In Florida, we have standarized state exams in algebra and geometry. These exams give students the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and reasoning independently, and they remain one of the fairest ways to assess aptitude across diverse educational backgrounds.

Serious STEM students, the ones who are headed to college to become doctors, scientists, engineers, and future leaders, want to be challenged. They want to know that they’ve truly mastered the material. And when they know they’ll be assessed without AI in the room, it motivates them to use these tools for learning, not for shortcuts.

AI is here to stay. It’s already helping students learn in new and exciting ways. But if we want to raise a generation of thinkers and problem-solvers, not just AI users, we have to pair those tools with meaningful assessments that reward real understanding. Let’s give our students both: the tools to grow and the standards to aim for. Parents, teachers, and coaches should be emphasizing this to our students at every opportunity.

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Mr. Rich is a University of Florida graduate in engineering and former high school math teacher and engineer who now coaches students full-time in all levels of high school math, including Algebra 2, AP Precalculus, AP Calculus, and AP Statistics. He specializes in ACT and SAT math prep, helping students build both skill and confidence for classroom success and college admissions. He is owner and founder of T3R Tutoring, LLC, and can be reached at tom@t3rtutoring.org.