An education in AI 🤖
It might replace some ways of learning, but it won't replace our desire for human connection
Hello!
I am always late to a party and especially to an AI-party, if there is such a thing. I hope not. But this post is my take on AI in education. You may argue that I am naive in my thinking, probably true, or that I need to ‘get with the times’, also probably true. Plus, I am returning to teaching this summer, so my views may change/evolve — who knows, I could become an AI convert. Unlikely.
What are your experiences of AI in your job/industry? I’d love to know your thoughts, please get in touch in the comments.
Recently, I attended an event for psychology teachers. Sounds fun, right? Get a bunch of educators together, and psychologists no less, and we probably just start analysing the shit out of one another. Sorry to burst that bubble, but there’s a new course coming that we will be teaching and it requires extensive planning, and so getting together with some other teachers had practical intentions.
Unlike many other professional/training days that I have attended over the 16+ years working as an educator, this planning day was useful. It was an opportunity to sit with peers and discuss the new course, have a good bitch and moan about complex it was, and then once that was out of our systems we could stuff our faces with the free pastries. I came away feeling positive. Tired and bloated, but positive.
Aside from some stints of supply/substitute teaching, I have been out of the classroom for two years and I am rusty. Rusty in terms of my subject knowledge, and with the general lay of the land when it comes to schools and dealing with children for prolonged periods of time. Just a few questions swimming around in my head include: Can I still teach? How will I coax some students to actually do some work? How will I manage my resting bitch face during meetings? And how shall I deal with a difficult/rude colleague? (More common than you may think).
But the most pressing concern that I discovered from listening to my peers was — how best do we prepare students for the future, especially with AI coming for their jobs and minds?
One of my first encounters with AI and specifically, large language models was in late 2022 with the arrival of ChatGPT. A colleague in my faculty said that one of her students had submitted an essay that was clearly not their own work. You might be wondering, how did my colleague know this? Well, it was relatively straightforward when the student’s response did not address the essay question, nor did it include appropriate research studies/theory, and when said student was questioned about their work, they were unable to provide any credible responses related to the course content.
Finally, we asked the student directly: “Did you receive any help with this essay?” And they responded with disbelief and a flat denial — so what could we do? Call them a liar? Probably not a good idea.
In the end, I contacted the student’s parents. Fortunately, I had a decent relationship with them and they said that they had noticed their child was using ChatGPT at home. This was the first of many conversations during that academic year with parents/caregivers and students about the use of AI.
However, at the recent psychology event I was left dumbfound by some of the stories shared related to the advances of AI, and how students were using the software. It reflected how out of the loop I was. Besides the concerns about academic integrity and cheating, many of the teachers expressed frustration about the additional burden of policing students in their use of AI because many school administrators and exam boards had adopted a hands-off approach.
As I said earlier, I am late to the AI-party and thus the least qualified person to consult about how we can best prepare students for a future with AI. It is already here. But after some thinking, I have realised that there are a few things in my arsenal that I can utilise for when I return to the classroom, and much of this relates to being an older colleague with some existing old-school teaching experience.
1. The dark age advantage
When I first started teaching student report cards were written by hand, and some classrooms just had blackboards so we were required to teach without technological aids unless you counted whiteboard pens (or chalk) and a textbook. Those were fondly called the dark ages. Since then, I have worked with several younger student teachers who didn’t seem to be able to function without the use of a slideshow and online software in lessons, or who were afraid to plan resources without these. I am not advocating we throw away tech and return to handwriting report cards, it’s bloody useful and who doesn’t love playing Kahoot, or better yet a Blooket?1 And I have learned a great deal about useful AI can be in schools mostly from my younger and more tech-savvy peers, including how AI bots can support revision, brainstorm ideas for essays, and help to condense academic research papers.
Yet I believe that creating opportunities to not use tech in lessons is equally valuable. Here is a pen, a piece of paper and a textbook - let’s go! The horror that this evokes. But arguably, demonstrating to students (and student teachers) that they can learn and exist without technology could be one of the most helpful lessons to impart in the future. Worst case scenario, I’ll flip back to the dark ages and bring everyone with me. They’ll love it.
2. Distinguishing the fads from something useful
Another consequence of having worked in education for several years is that you will have inevitably come across many educational fads that are often regurgitated and rebranded policies/initiatives. And I can smell BS from a mile away. Now, I am not saying that AI is a fad, but there is whiff of BS in the marketing. Whenever I read about how tech companies want to promote the use of AI in education, it is presented as a fix for some of the sectors woes, especially when there are growing concerns about student attainment post-pandemic, and when many educational institutions face financial challenges. Save money by sacking some teaching and administrative staff and get AI to do the job! Students can learn everything from AI!
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that there are serious questions and concerns about the existing structures of education, such as whether we should continue to assess students through coursework and essays when they could just use AI to help them (many already do), whether examinations are appropriate for all students (they aren’t), and how the model of mass education can fail to support students, especially those with complex learning or mental health needs (it doesn’t), but I don’t believe that outsourcing everything to AI is the right approach. The hard work in thinking about these sorts of questions/concerns has to begin with us, the educators, and not with the tech companies and their AI auxiliary offshoots.
3. Never underestimate humans
Students are using AI to help with their school-work, but also to seek answers to questions that they don’t feel comfortable asking adults. AI-therapy is on the rise, partly as a consequence of a limited supply of qualified specialists. Then there is the world of AI-companions that go beyond homework and therapy, where users can create virtual characters to befriend, and fall in love with, amongst other things.
Phew! That’s a lot of AI and I am barely scratching the surface of how and where the technology is already being used. It makes me wonder if humans are really needed for anything anymore. Okay, that’s me being dramatic. But when I see stories and research like this and then I look around, I still see a strong desire for IRL human connection, especially in schools.
Therefore, the final piece from my arsenal is actually something that isn’t age or experience-related, because I firmly believe that nothing will replace the human capacity/desire for kindness and connection.
If you will permit me to return to the recent past of the pandemic years. When students came back into school the vast majority said something like: We missed being in school and hated being online all day. They missed seeing their friends IRL. They missed weird school routines. Heck! Some of them even missed learning and their teachers! I don’t mean to diminish the experiences of anyone during what was a traumatic and confusing time for young people (and adults), but hearing responses like these gave me hope. The tech was a necessity during online learning but after sustained periods of using it, students recognised that being around people was far more nourishing.
And this kindness and connection thing in schools can also come from the most surprising of sources. The student I mentioned earlier? The one who submitted an allegedly AI-produced essay? In the summer term before I left the school the same student sought me out and said that they had enjoyed my lessons. I wasn’t teaching the student that year, but I had taught them an elective Intro to Psych course previously. I was surprised by the act because more often than not, I was lucky if I could get them to stay awake during our lessons. That said, somehow and somewhere along the line, this student had connected with me as a teacher, or at least with the lesson content. And I take that as a win for human connection.
Since the psychologists get-together, I haven’t really done as much planning on the new course as I would have liked. Why? I am not yet under contract for the school, so I am not getting paid. Plus, I have been enjoying the final vestiges of freedom from academic calendars and timetables. But when I finally make a start on the planning, what do you think, should I use AI to do it for me? 🧐
These are online educational games that can be a lot of fun, but have questionable educational value.
As you can imagine, I have a lot to say about this as an English teacher in Cambodia. First, students using AI has become a VERY big deal. They're cheating like never before. This term was so bad, in fact, that I've decided I'm going to change the way I teach IELTS test prep from here on out. Also, phone use is a dividing issue among the teachers.
Students also have told me that they use it for math.
Some teachers argue we should lean into the technology and that the phones in the classroom are here to stay. I'd argue otherwise. Like you, I taught in low/no tech classrooms and I believe it is a useful tool, but students I'd argue, don't see it as a tool, they see it as an easy way out. The pandemic pushed students towards their phone as comfort, friend, and endless source of entertainment.
Now, AI for lesson planning is a GODSEND. It makes mistakes, so you have to check it, but it's been a valuable tool, one that is giving me the freedom to do more under less time. But I still want to use my brain.
I want to believe that my job isn't going to end soon, that human connections are not only important but a recognizable commodity worth fighting for, but change is moving very fast, and the consequences are unknown. Welcome to the jungle, baby.
I want to hope that human creativity will become more valuable as AI becomes more commonplace, drawing the line and verifying it will be probably impossible. Like professional and amateur sports, there are rules for drugs and enhancements, but how can anyone take the enforcement and testing seriously?