In the city of Shenyang, northeast China’s Liaoning province, a sixth-grade student grappling with a tricky math question can now turn to an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot instead of just waiting for her teacher.
Mo Ziqing, a student at the No. 9 Primary School in Shenyang’s Hunnan District, uses Doubao, a popular Chinese AI application, to help her work through some of the tougher questions.
“I haven’t completely relied on AI,” she said. “I mainly do it myself. But if I make a mistake, I will use AI to check it and make corrections if needed.”
Mo is part of a rising wave of Chinese students experiencing major changes in their classrooms, as education authorities have called for broad integration of AI into teaching and learning, and schools across the country are experimenting with different approaches to push forward education digitalisation and AI literacy.
At Liaoshen Street No. 2 Primary School in Shenyang’s Dadong District, AI-assisted applications are increasingly being used.
On the athletics track, computer vision systems record sprint times and analyse students’ movements.
In physical education classes, heart-rate monitors track exercise intensity and provide safety alerts.
In calligraphy lessons, students upload their brushwork to an AI evaluation system that can provide them with instant feedback.
“Smart classrooms, intelligent displays, AI calligraphy tools and smart PE systems have all become part of everyday learning for our teachers and students,” said principal Yuan Weiqi.
As schools find different ways to bring AI into classrooms, educators are paying closer attention to how students use AI responsibly.
At Hunnan District’s No. 9 Primary School, where classrooms share only a handful of tablets, teachers encourage students to use AI tools as learning assistants rather than answer machines.
English teacher Lu Yuxiao has used AI to support writing assessment and spoken-language practice. Students can receive automated feedback on essays and interact with AI-generated English-speaking characters.
But Lu also makes a point of showing students where AI can go wrong. When an AI image generator interpreted a character named “Kitty” as a cat rather than a person, she used the mistake to explain the limits of machine understanding.
In Beijing, experiments with AI have expanded beyond classrooms to larger education systems.
The city requires that primary and secondary school students receive at least eight class hours of AI education each academic year.
Meanwhile, schools are testing AI applications for lesson preparation, learning assessment and personalised instruction.
In Xicheng District, local authorities have worked with universities and technology companies to deploy scenario-specific AI agents across dozens of pilot schools.
At Beijing No. 35 High School, a code-review agent can identify programming errors within minutes. At Beijing No. 13 High School, AI draws on students’ error records and classroom performance data to generate differentiated assignments based on learning needs.
“In the past, it was very difficult to meet each student’s individual needs,” said Liu Zihan, a teacher at Beijing No. 13 High School.
“Now the system can give us an individual diagnostic profile for each student.”
Supporters say such tools could help address a longstanding challenge in education: balancing large-scale instruction with personalised learning. Yet, educators and researchers caution against allowing AI to replace human thinking.
Yu Shengquan, a professor at Beijing Normal University, warned that if AI takes over tasks designed to develop children’s thinking abilities, it could create what he called a “cognitive short- circuit” during a critical stage of development. At the same time, he said, human-machine collaboration is becoming increasingly important.
Ma Zhanyu, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, drew a distinction between AI assistance and AI substitution.
When AI helps organise information or provide feedback, he said, it functions as a tool.
Problems arise if students surrender their own creative and analytical roles to machines.
For many educators, the rise of AI has not diminished the importance of teachers.
“AI is an auxiliary tool,” said Wu Chunhui, vice-principal of Beijing No. 13 High School. “It cannot replace teachers in value guidance, intellectual inspiration or empathetic interaction in complex situations.”
“Don’t be led by AI – you need to walk ahead of it,” teacher Lu told her students. — Xinhua
