Why are you interested in AI for learning and teaching?
Why are you interested in AI for learning and teaching?
A core tenet of my educational philosophy is the dedication to taking burdens off teachers' plates through the use of Ed-Tech and thoughtful instructional design. I am passionate about providing educators with the tools and resources they need to foster a love of learning and meet the unique learning needs of each student. I firmly believe that teachers should be empowered to focus on what they do best—inspiring and guiding students on their educational journeys.
How do you think it might help?
Specifically, thinking ahead to our final project for this course, where we will be required to produce a 10-hour Massive Open Online course, the context for how AI can be used in the “Predictive Tools in Education” section on the “How AI is Transforming Learning Website” was particularly interesting. In conversations with educators try to wrap their minds around AI in education, their perception is always based strictly on a generative AI concept. They can only conceive of AI that generates student work and rips the cognitive work from “learning”. But, in reality, AI is a tool that can do more than generate, it can predict, which is what this section of the website article discusses. They explain that in 2015, the retention rate for students who signed up for a MOOC was as low as 4% (Tstokes, 2023). This means that “only 4 out of 100 students complete a course after enrollment.” (Tstokes, 2023) The author discusses how AI is used to understand and predict how and why students drop out of courses. Understanding the why, as we well know, helps streamline us down a corrective path. Outside of the ChatGPTs and the DALLEs that generate content (based on well-crafted and thoughtful prompts-but that’s a conversation for another day), AI has the potential to help us understand why we learn and why we don't, why we engage and then fall off. This right here, this gives us the opportunity break down barriers, identify and fix inequities, and make learning more available to all.
AI holds immense promise in this regard. It has the potential to revolutionize education by accurately assessing, pinpointing, and responding to learning gaps. This not only makes education more efficient but also more personalized and adaptive to each student's needs. My aspiration is to contribute to this transformative process and be part of the generation that harnesses AI to make education better, more inclusive, and more effective.
Do you have any concerns about its use?
Every new technology is initially met with fear and skepticism. Yet, history has shown us that these technologies have the potential to propel us beyond our current capabilities rather than merely replacing the status quo. Do I think that, like a slingshot, we will have setbacks before we propel forward and that every advance will require first backward motion? Yes, absolutely I think we will have to navigate the inherent faults that always come with something new. But if history shows us anything, there is always fear around new technology or, even more so, around new ideas. We can fight against it only for so long- but it is those who choose to learn about what they don't understand and figure out how it makes sense for them that are the most successful.
Reference
Tstokes. (2023, December 4). How AI is transforming the future of learning - the Learning Agency Lab. The Learning Agency Lab. https://the-learning-agency-lab.com/the-learning-curve/how-ai-is-transforming-learning
