Can AI Condense Two Years of Learning Into Six Weeks?

And how I recently answered that question

In the AI for Teachers FB group (which has nearly half a million members), Harry Pickens, an educator I deeply respect, recently shared a thought-provoking Psychology Today article titled “Can AI Condense Two Years of Learning Into Six Weeks?”

The article, written by John Nosta, highlights a pilot program in Edo State, Nigeria, where AI dramatically transformed education by condensing two years of learning into six weeks.

Supported by the World Bank, AI acted as a virtual tutor, enabling significant progress in English, digital literacy, and foundational AI concepts while bridging gender gaps and benefiting all students, especially girls.

Here’s how I responded to Harry’s posting:

Great post, Harry!! Thanks for the share, but two years of learning in six weeks? I don’t know about that.

That said, I have come to believe that most students probably don’t need anywhere close to College Board’s prescribed number of classroom instructional minutes to learn what they need to earn a score of 3 or better on the various AP Social Studies and ELA exams if AI is introduced into the mix.

I certainly found this to be true over the past 2.5 years in my APUSH classroom, where I used AI extensively to teach both the content and the necessary writing skills, help students learn what they needed to learn, and assess their progress. From that experience, I saw firsthand how students could achieve excellent results in far less time than traditionally allotted when they were allowed and shown how to make ample use of AI both in the classroom and at home.

This realization was further reinforced the past two years through my tutoring of AP Human Geography (APHG) and AP Psychology (AP Psych) students who attend schools that don’t offer these classes. I meet with them for just 1–2 hours per week for the entire school year. I assign no homework, no projects, and no additional activities, but I incorporate AI into every session. Yet they too did very well on their respective exams in May.

As a result, the parents and students I’ve worked with have shared their positive experiences with so many others that I no longer need to spend money on advertising — they find me.

This is especially true for the parents of students with language barriers, who seem particularly impressed by the fact that when a student I tutor doesn’t appear to understand what I’m teaching, I use ChatGPT to translate the lesson into the student’s native language and from there employ an AI-infused process to turn that learning into the ability to answer MCQs and FRQs in English.