Every so often, I have the same dream. I'm back in high school, and I have to take an exam, usually math or history. The problem is, I've either forgotten to study for it, forgotten where the exam hall is, or forgotten when the exam is. Regardless of the problem, I end up bumbling around the school, trying to figure out how I'm going to fix this mess.

I figured the problem may be due to the anxieties I had over exams when I was a teen. I figured that I could put those worries to bed if I went back and studied high school math and history again; at the very least, if I had to take an exam in a dream, I'd be better equipped to sit it. That's when I remembered that Gemini, the LLM that broke my 'not paying for AI' streak, has a Guided Learning mode to teach people topics. So, I sat down with it, told it to give me the worst high school had to offer, and here's how it went.

Guided Learning automatically generates a quiz on whatever you like

You don't have to revisit your nightmares if you don't want to

While I was going through the trenches re-living my toughest math classes, I do want to emphasise that Guided Learning can be used for pretty much anything you want to learn and be quizzed about. For instance, I used Guided Learning to learn key phrases and words when ordering food in Paris, which was a lot more fun and a lot less nightmarish than going back to high school.

Here's how Guided Learning works. You open up Gemini, click the little drop-down at the bottom-left, and pick Guided Learning. It's available for free users, so you won't need to pay a cent to give it a go. Once you have Guided Learning turned on, you tell Gemini what you want to learn about. Sometimes, Gemini will launch right into the lesson, but sometimes it'll give you a choice of three options on what you want to study.

Once you've picked a topic, Gemini helps you learn. If you said you just want to be taught on a subject, Gemini will do that. If you said you want to be quizzed, Gemini can do that, too. It boots up Canvas and presents you with a 10-question multiple-choice quiz about what you asked for. So, it's as chill or intense as you want it to be.

For the sake of my returning to high school, I asked Gemini to give me a quiz based on the math subject matter at the time. Of course, I haven't sat in high school for two decades, so I was rusty in some points. Fortunately, you can talk to Gemini on the side and even refer to specific question numbers, and Gemini can help talk you through how to solve each one. It feels like cheating, but honestly, given the cobwebs in my brain, I needed the pointers. If you get a question wrong, it'll explain why it's wrong and show the right answer.

Study guides help you hone in on what you're weak at

It doesn't have to be just a quiz

At the end of the quiz, you get a final score. You can then pass the details over to Gemini with the click of a button, which will go over what you did well and what you struggled with. You can then talk about why you got the question wrong and discuss how to get it right next time.

There's also a study guide you can generate at the end of each session. This is a little document full of all the details you have to hit to perform well in your target topic. You can either take this document away and work on it by yourself, or you can highlight something, click "Ask Gemini," and then type your question. Gemini will then tell you more about what you highlighted and help you get an idea as to what you're weakest at. I personally enjoyed connecting Gemini to my workspace and telling it to create a Google Docs listing out everything I need to work on, which was a nice point of reference for when I wanted to study on my weak points.

It's definitely not a replacement for a real teacher

But it makes for an excellent aide

So, Gemini managed to find my weak spots in math and history, and after a few sessions, I had managed to build back my old bank of knowledge, ready for the next time I have one of those nightmares (if I ever do). This then posed a question to me: would apps like Gemini eventually make teachers and courses redundant?

Honestly, I don't think so. I think it's easy for me, who has never taught a class in my life, to sit there and say, "Yes, AI will take over teaching jobs soon." It reminds me of something I read online once, where people will say AI will never replace their job because they understand the complexities and nuances of said job that AI cannot replicate. Meanwhile, they're quick to say it will replace other people's jobs because they don't understand how complex those are.

But even with no personal teaching experience, I don't feel like I'd use Gemini to replace a teacher. Teachers construct curricula, build upon known past knowledge, and help introduce the foundation on which these tests are built. Gemini works best if you tell it what you want to specifically learn about, and a teacher gives you the knowledge on the topics you should be learning about.

I see Gemini best as a supplement instead of a replacement for teachers and teaching courses. If you're studying, say, a foreign language, a teacher will help guide you through what to learn next, building upon what you've already been taught, and giving you important 1-to-1 guidance. Then you can go home, set Gemini to Guided Learning, say "Hey, I learned about how to purchase items at a store in Japanese using XYZ nouns and verbs, can you give me a quiz and a roleplay based on them?" and use it to hone what your teacher taught you. You could even take the weak points Gemini identifies in your skills and tell your teacher about them for better learning.

Gemini's Guided Learning is a great tool

Will Guided Learning replace teachers? I don't think so. Will it help people learn about topics they're curious about or currently studying? I think so. At any rate, I hope it's good enough to solve high school nightmares, because it felt like it did the trick.