What school and university leaders should be asking about AI

Assessment, learning and what education should deliberately protect when the answer is free.

Of the 284 questions on the questions map, these 54 are the ones school and university leaders have a specific reason to ask. 20 have a dedicated answer; the rest are partly answered or openly on the roadmap, and are marked as such rather than quietly dropped. Last reviewed 29 August 2026.

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The 12 that matter most, with what the research says in one line.

• AnsweredHow do you assess students when AI can do the assignment?

  Not by detection. Sydney concedes prohibition is unenforceable; Denmark now requires oral defence of home-written exams.

• AnsweredDoes AI detection work?

  Not well enough to accuse anyone, and the errors fall hardest on second-language writers.

• AnsweredShould children use AI?

  How they use it matters far more than whether they do. Age-banded, and declining to advise on under-8s because the evidence does not exist.

• PartialDoes AI help or harm learning?

  Both, and the interface decides which. The same model produced the best and the worst outcome in the same experiment.

• AnsweredWhat is desirable difficulty?

  Bjork. Conditions that make study feel harder improve long-term retention. The mechanism underneath half of this research.

• PartialShould students still write essays?

  The essay was never the point. What it certified, and whether anything else certifies it, is the real question.

• OpenWhat should schools teach now?

  Open. Tools change faster than any curriculum can be rewritten, so the durable question is which capabilities a school still builds deliberately once drafting, summarising and first-pass analysis are available to every pupil.

• OpenHow should teachers use AI?

  The workload case and the modelling case pull in different directions. Open.

• PartialWhat happens to the viva and the oral exam?

  Denmark mandated oral defence from August 2026. It solves authorship and imports a fairness problem nobody has solved.

• OpenWhat should education protect from AI?

  The design question, in the form that makes it answerable.

• AnsweredDoes AI weaken critical thinking?

  The evidence is emerging rather than settled: three studies agree, and all three have design weaknesses. Agreement between weak designs is suggestive, not strong.

• OpenHow should medical and law students use AI?

  The two professions where deskilling evidence is furthest advanced.

Everything else school and university leaders ask

Grouped the way the map is grouped. Each links to its answer, or to its place on the map if it is still open.

Same questions, different reader: Boards and directors CHROs and HR leaders Early career and graduates Managers and team leads Regulated and expert professions Parents The full map, all 284