Edited by Hanna Klingbeil Canale
All students log onto Chromebooks to answer math problems. But not every student — even in the same grade and class — gets the same questions.
That’s because students at East Rock Community & Cultural Magnet School are using artificial intelligence, or “AI,” to learn math.
Many students don’t even realize it. But when you open your computer and a dull, bored, and uncanny voice says, “Great job! Let’s move on to the next question,” that’s AI.
According to the East Rock Record Fall/Winter 2025 Survey, nearly half of students did not know they were using AI. But at East Rock and across New Haven Public Schools, AI applications such as i-Ready, XtraMath, and Waggle are now part of learning math and reading.
The idea is to let students learn at their own pace. AI gives different students different problems according to the level they’re at. But is it really so perfect?
Some kids love it. Some kids hate it. And some kids are in the middle. According to the East Rock Record Survey, 60 percent of students said they like using i-Ready but only 26 percent said they liked using XtraMath.
i-Ready is a learning site where kids where students who complete a math lesson and get more than 75 percent correct, get 20 points to use in games, which some teachers let kids play. At the start, middle, and end of the year, students take a test to see what level they are at. Teachers compare the scores to see how much a student has grown.
On the XtraMath site you answer as many math questions as you can in a set time. You then move onto harder questions. For example, if you start with addition and subtraction problems, and you master those, you move onto multiplication and division.
Many students say XtraMath is boring compared to i-Ready because it doesn’t have a point system or offer games. Waggle is a reading program with a point system; you read stories and answer questions. You can customize your own avatar, picking faces and clothes. You can also choose the city your character is in. The more correct answers you get, the more gems and coins you collect. If you move up a lesson, you can customize your avatar even more.
Students think Waggle is similar to Minecraft. Some classes use Waggle for 15 minutes a day.
These AI programs are part of learning at East Rock for students across grades. “I’ve gotten directives from my supervisors that we really want kids practicing every single day, even if it’s for 10 minutes,” said John Kennedy who teaches 7th and 8th grade math.
But are teachers relying too much on AI to teach? Is AI a good thing or a bad thing in schools?
Natalie O’Neill, a 6th-grade math teacher said that i-Ready is “important as a teaching tool” but is not the only way students should learn. It is useful in teaching students individually. “We as teachers don’t have 27 different bodies to help all 27 different students,” she said.
Some students like when teachers use AI tools because it can make lessons fun. But some debate whether it actually helps them to learn. Serelle Barsalou, a 6th grader, does not enjoy using AI, but said it gives her a “boost” on what she’s learning.
However, she told the East Rock Record that, “AI just can’t help you in the ways you need…the program that we use in AI, it only teaches you one way or maybe two ways to do something, and sometimes kids don’t understand that, and they need more information.”
Students are also concerned that AI is taking away creativity and coming too close to giving away answers. In i-Ready, if you get something wrong three times, the voice says the answer.
Ms. O’Neil said that some students use AI outside of the classroom. “I have a lot of students that it is quite obvious they use AI on their homework. And that means that they’re not actually understanding the material.”
If students use AI for homework, they are not actually applying what they learned in school.
Ben Glaser, Yale’s Director of AI Initiatives in the Humanities who is at the Poorvu Center at Yale Library, said AI is a useful tool, but that it’s important to use it in the right way to help you learn — and not to do the work for you.
“Like if you are doing a maze or something you don’t want to see the answer right away, right? It’s boring if you just see the answer right away. You want to try,” he said.
AI can be useful for tasks like asking it to make a list of “every single name that rhymes with your name,” he said. But AI is not always reliable and makes mistakes because it is still learning, even if it does it quickly. “It can get a billion answers wrong and learn every single time how to do a little bit better,” he said.
You can ask AI questions that involve emotions or hard or painful feelings, but Dr. Glaser said “it’s a mistake to just talk to AI about that, because AI can’t feel that. So, it’s good to talk to your friends, your parents, trusted doctors, that sort of thing. That’s really important.”
Some kids do worry that AI is getting “too smart” or that “AI will take over the world.” The East Rock Record Fall/Winter 2025 Survey found that 22 percent of students are “scared of AI.”
Ms. Hebert, an elementary school teacher, does not use AI in kindergarten and does warn about over-using AI. “We need to make sure that we balance everything out,” she said. “AI shouldn’t be your teacher; it should be your supporter.”
