Artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly integrated into classrooms at various levels of education all over China, as the country enters the third year of implementing its National Education Digitalization Strategy.
China has made remarkable strides in leveraging AI to transform teaching and learning, with innovative applications spanning classrooms, teacher training, and lifelong learning ecosystems.
The initiative, aimed at fostering educational equity and quality, has created a nationwide digital infrastructure that empowers educators and students alike, from urban centers of Shanghai in developed east China to rural schools in the remote northwestern province of Qinghai.
At a Shanghai high school, an AI-powered teaching assistant dissects trigonometry concepts into adaptive question chains, analyzing students' weaknesses in real-time and generating targeted exercises.
"The system helps us constantly review the knowledge points on which we often make mistakes. It is of significant help to the overall mastery of knowledge points and is very helpful for improving our grades," said Sheng Yi, a high school student.
Beyond support for students, the AI assistant serves as a professional coach for teachers as well. By converting teaching behaviors into visualized data, it provides actionable insights on classroom engagement and time management.
"Through the analysis of the rationality of classroom question setting, the balance of student participation, and the allocation of teaching time, the AI teaching assistant helps to improve and optimize the direction of teaching. Currently, nearly 80 percent of the teachers in Changning District use intelligent tools and have developed nearly 1,000 applications in total," said Ying Xi, director of the Shanghai Changning District Education Information Center.
In Qinghai Province, the Xining Yangguang Primary School is bridging rural-urban educational divides through the National Smart Education Platform for Primary and Secondary Schools.
Students can now access over 50 digital courses in traditional arts like paper-cutting and embroidery during after-school hours, providing previously unavailable opportunities.
"Massive, high-quality digital resources can effectively solve the problem of insufficient learning resources and limited learning opportunities for our children in rural areas, and provide our students with greater learner spaces for independent choice," said Shan Youqing, principal of the Xining Yangguang Primary School.
In south China's tech hub of Shenzhen, junior high students are exploring the AI robotic hand through brainwave-controlled robotic experiments.
At the Nanshan Second Foreign Language School (Group) Hyde School in Shenzhen, six AI-focused courses cater to the students' varied interests, fostering innovation and problem-solving skills.
"We hope to use AI to inspire the students' enthusiasm for science and technology, and cultivate their innovative thinking, ability of practice, and comprehensive quality in solving complex problems, in efforts to develop compound talents with comprehensive innovative capabilities for future society," said He Chuanjie, vice-principal of the school.
Over the past three years, 184 primary and secondary schools have been designated across China as AI education bases.
The digitalization strategy's impact extends beyond K-12 (kindergarten through the 12th Grade). At the recent World Digital Education Conference held from May 14-16, immersive virtual classrooms "transported" students to global landmarks, and vocational colleges showcased cutting-edge applications.
In cooperation with the relevant enterprises, the Hubei Three Gorges Polytechnic has developed a 5G (fifth-generation telecommunication) drone system which monitors agricultural fields and forests for production, disaster prevention and relief.
At the Guangdong Polytechnic of Science and Technology, students leverage the Zhixing Large Model to optimize smart manufacturing lines.
"Leveraging the Zhixing Large Model, we have completed data analysis of the smart manufacturing production line, completed the training and tuning of the industrial vision model, solved problems such as intelligent recognition of irregular objects, and improved our production efficiency," said Huang Kengqiao, a junior majoring in big data technology at the college.
In Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province, the Hangzhou Open University's "Hangxuetong" mini program -- a lifelong learning service platform -- offers the 2.3 million registered users access to 3,000 community education providers.
Retiree Yao Xiaoyuan, currently enrolled in African drum classes, said that the course-matching function of the mini program is very useful.
"After I click to enter the 'Hangxuetong' applet, the training institutions sponsored by the government or the communities nearby will pop up. There are modules for various musical instruments. I like this so much that I signed up quickly," she said.
China's lifelong education platform has recorded 6.8 million registered users from 200 countries and regions since its establishment in May 2022, according to the Ministry of Education.
The Seniors University of China (SUC) has opened 55,000 grassroots learning centers since it was established in March last year, serving approximately 22.14 million seniors, the ministry said.
AI empowers digital teaching, learning across China
