Will new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, solve educational problems? Or is the application of AI in the classroom limited? Even if so, Professor Garry Falloon, from the Department of Educational Studies, thinks the support of AI technologies will at least take the admin and marking pressure off teachers so that they can focus on enriching what is largely a human-to-human learning experience.
Dating from the 1920s when universities in Utah and Wisconsin began radio broadcasting curriculum to local schools, technology has been heralded as “a powerful means through which to support and modify education”.
However, one only has to take a not-so-distant look at education history – such as the failed and very costly educational television experiments in American Western Samoa in the 1960s and ’70s, to see that technology is far from an educational silver bullet. This is known as a ‘pendulum syndrome’ where successive cycles of technology are introduced to schools amidst much expectation, hype and fanfare, only to be abandoned in a cloud of disillusionment when they fail to meet expectations.
In the past few years, we’ve seen the emergence of a new technological kid on the education block, Artificial Intelligence or AI. Stanford Professor John McCarthy, considered the ‘father of AI’, first coined the term Artificial Intelligence in the mid 1950s, which he defined as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”. It’s largely thanks to the early work of McCarthy and his team that we have personal assistants programmed into our smartphones, or we can go along to the toy shop and buy the latest Hello Barbie smart doll for our kids.
But what does this AI revolution mean for teachers in our classrooms, and above all, for the students they teach? Is AI simply another ‘techno-fad’ – a good technological idea looking for an educational problem to solve? At this point in time, the answer to this question is really unknown, but is likely to be found in identifying what educational problem or problems AI is the answer to. Rose Luckin, in her essay on the implications of AI for teachers and schooling, says that “in current discussion of AI in the media, we tend to focus on the AI technology itself rather than the problem and design process that has informed the implementation of the AI technology”. If there is a lesson from history, it is that we must resist being seduced by AI, and think very carefully about which educational problems are best served by it.
There’s no doubt AI has the potential to transform our classrooms - but this does not mean machine learning will replace teachers. For example, AI assistants in classrooms could make the process of teaching more efficient and precise by taking over some of the mundane administrative, record-keeping and assessment tasks that consume so much teacher attention, and which take time and energy away from the core business of educating.
For example, huge potential exists for combining big data with AI and applying it to the problem of learning assessment. Using AI algorithms and models to analyse data about individual students’ learning preferences and performance, can not only assist teachers to better target teaching, but may eventually do away with outdated examination systems by providing more detailed and holistic evidence of student achievement over time.
Using AI in this way could improve educational equity – challenging the current fixation on examination results as the principal measure of educational success. But achieving this scenario is going to take a sea change in how authorities, parents, teachers and students understand the purpose of assessment, and what and how capabilities and achievement are valued, measured, and reported in the era of AI.
Like its technological predecessors, the real value of AI in education will not be determined by its latent potential, but rather the ability of education systems to identify problems it can solve, and adapt sufficiently to allow its full potential to be realised.
Perhaps unlike any technological innovations before it, AI has the capacity to improve education by supporting teachers to work more efficiently and effectively, and to better target the needs of students across every realm of educational endeavour. But it will not replace teachers. Quoting John McCarthy from his book What is Artificial Intelligence?: “AI programs haven't yet reached the level of being able to learn much of what a child learns from physical experience”. Ultimately, it is up to educators to work out which educational problems AI can help with, and which are best left to human intelligence.
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