Absolution vs. Augmentation.
What do you think about AI-based adaptive learning? AI based adaptive learning is poised to close gaps in education. Notice I dont say close “the” gap, I don’t think that will ever be possible- their will always be those with more resources. However, the gap it does close is the access to real-time feedback- what a private tutor may provide for a student with means. Everyday, we are becoming more and more aware of just how diverse learners are. Education, for most of modern society, has been a one-size fits all affair- out of necessity for the most part. This approach has left countless students behind due to the ignorance of the nuanced learner. Adaptive learning is what every “good” teacher has been trying to accomplish for decades. We pull our students back to the round table and try to give them 5-minutes of our time teaching at their zone of proximal development. Then the timer goes off, the children shift around the room, and the 5 minutes of personalized learning is done as another child takes their seat at the round table. AI-based adaptive learning means a student can go to work independently and continue on their own appropriate learning path.
Is this the future of education? No, it is our present; we just hadn’t noticed it until now. I was using Dreambox and MAP (both of with use AI to evaluate and adapt) for the past 10 years. Duolingo was the number one app in the Google Play Store in 2013, yep 11 years ago. When AI expanded over the past year/ 2 years to allow non-computer scientists to use it everyday for their own interests we (the general public) simply became more aware of it and had a name to which to attribute it.
What do you see the role of the teacher being with these tools? Do you have any concerns about it?
Teachers have and will continue to provide the humaness in learning. While it may see behavior and socioeconomic data on a student and make predictions, AI will never (of course, never say never, but I do for now) know how to respond to a student’s learning needs after a particularly rough morning with an abusive parent. Teachers do this everyday. So, aside from the EQ teachers provide, the teachers' role will be to evaluate the data and performance students accrue in learning platforms and help to map out what should come next for the students in physical classroom and with their real-world peers. My biggest concern that I will continue to shout to anyone willing to listen in K-12 education is that historically, when one thing is taken off teachers’ plates, 9 more are added. Oh you have AI to grade papers? Great, now you don’t need a planning period, so can you cover lunch duty? No, AI is a tool to take weight off teachers’ shoulders in order to do the work of good teaching, lesson development, and response to data analysis. I fear this tsunami wave of AI trumpeted like a magic wand will empower educational leaders to make ill-informed decisions based on a false sense of responsibility absolution when it should be augmentation.
