Measuring the impact of AI on teaching and learning
We believe AI has the potential to transform education by creating more opportunities for effective teaching and learning. To ensure these tools are truly helpful, we need to rigorously measure their impact in the classroom — and then ensure educators have the right training to lead the way.
Today, we’re sharing the results of two new impact studies that demonstrate the positive profound effect AI can have on learning, alongside new initiatives to help teachers and faculty around the world build their AI literacy.
Measuring student and teacher success
To understand how our Gemini models — grounded in learning science — impact student outcomes, we conducted an eight-week pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Sierra Leone. Working with Fab AI and local teachers, we randomly assigned 48 math classrooms – nearly 1800 junior secondary math students in Grades 7 and 8 — to either use Guided Learning or continue with their regular classwork. Students who used the tool significantly improved their mastery of topics like fractions, exponents and prime numbers, increasing their scores on externally validated assessments by +0.26 standard deviations. This is equivalent to roughly 1.2 to 1.7 years of typical learning progress in low-and-middle-income countries.
EdTech often struggles with adoption, but engagement in this trial was incredibly high. Sixty-nine percent of Guided Learning students reached an intended 12-hour threshold while the average across schools was 15 hours of Gemini use among students. Students who reached the recommended amount of usage saw even bigger gains of +0.38 standard deviations, effectively moving an average student from the middle of their class to the top third. The technical report includes more details.
Empowering educators in Italy
We are seeing similar benefits for educators. In Northern Italy, we conducted a study across the Don Bosco school network using surveys, focus groups and over 560 detailed teaching activities with 700 educators and 9,000 students. The study spanned primary to upper secondary to vocational college training.
By using Gemini for Education to assist in content creation and scaffolding, educators successfully personalized their learning materials. As a result, teachers found that 80-99% of students in each class successfully mastered their planned lesson skills, which ranged from calculating the geometry of a parabola to writing Java code. Additionally, teachers reported an impressive 70% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks, which they directly reallocated to 1:1 student mentorship, motivational and emotional support.
Bringing AI tools and fluency to faculty and teachers globally
While teachers are eager to use these tools, it can be overwhelming to master new technology at the level required to guide their students. Today, we're announcing new initiatives supporting India and the African Union Commission to help millions of teachers and students around the world build their AI literacy.
- Expanding the Google AI Educator Series to India: In collaboration with the governments of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Assam, the Union Territory of Ladakh, and Punjab School Education Board, we’re offering practical, mobile-first training customized to the unique needs of Indian educators in schools. To ensure broad accessibility, the training will be fully localized into six languages in its first year — Assamese, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia and Punjabi — starting with select state pilots. As we look to scale this initiative, we are actively seeking to expand our collaboration to more states, higher education institutions, and regulatory bodies to support every K-12 teacher and higher education faculty member throughout India.
- Partnering with the African Union Commission: Our partnership with the African Union Commission will support AI literacy across all 55 Member States. We’re starting by bringing Gemini for Education and NotebookLM to university students and faculty at institutions like the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Ghana and Universities South Africa. By providing administrators and faculty with no-cost product onboarding and training playbooks, we’re helping university faculty manage administrative tasks so they can focus on high-level instruction.
In the coming months, we'll continue to expand our research and training globally — using insights from the classroom to design even more helpful products for teachers and students everywhere.
