Back to School with AI: We All Have Some Thinking to Do
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In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that time of the year. First day of school pictures, backpacks full of books versus hiking and beach gear, and a flurry of back-to-school sales. Fall of 2023 is also the first year we have a bit of an organized response to the availability of generative AI -- AI trained on massive datasets of prior work and information that then can create new work when we “prompt” it. While you might get away with last year’s outfits this Fall, you cannot ignore how AI is changing education.
Spring 2023: Students 1, Teachers ??
As schools let out last spring, many students had more AI expertise than their teachers. Not surprising as one of the easiest things to do with generative AIs like ChatGPT, Bing, or Claude 2 is to generate text in response to prompts. Much homework in the past was a prompt (to a student) to generate text. Easy 1:1 swap of effort from person to AI.
Schools and teachers hadn’t had time to prepare new assignments. Teachers and parents had little time to think about updating expectations and values around what is and isn’t cheating. None of us, even today, have had much time to consider the huge shift in what work is most valuable and important for people to do versus outsourcing to tools. (I argue for “owning” your own tools.)
Some of these questions were first asked as Wikipedia… or take a step back, calculators, came on the scene. But this year, it’s different. Generative AI can do much of our (and our students’) work.
What We Need to Think About - And Where to Take Action
Teachers open class this Fall after a summer of whirlwind catch-up. How do we support students' development in a world filled with an exploding number of AI tools? I’ve never heard a teacher asking for spell-checking to be turned off, but whole school districts have banned (tried to ban?) AI.
High-Level Evaluations
AI in education is a global topic. I’ve scanned a variety of reports (UNESCO’s report is 418 pages, scanning is the best I can do) and will share a few insights here. The May 2023 US Office of Education’s Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations offers much to cherry-pick:
Some headings:
A Duality: Learning With and About AI
A Challenge: Systems Thinking About AI in Education
Preparing and Supporting Teachers in Planning and Reflecting
These resonate with me, given my focus on Thinking in 5T as we build any kind of human, social, or technological system.
Specifics
The report also suggests possible benefits from leveraging AI in education: “Personalized learning, project-based learning, learning from visualizations, simulations, and virtual reality, as well as learning across school, community, and familial settings.” These are generally approaches we know are valuable, but given limited resources, hard to do. AI may change some of this calculus.
When asked how my courses are changing, I highlight that I can ask the students (all working professionals) to do more as they apply our course concepts to their work settings. I can also expect higher quality. I describe the value of AI as offering them an intern. Yes, having an intern has costs and benefits, but you both get an extra set of “hands” and a chance to be in a teaching role. Both are great opportunities for performance and deeper learning.
The 2023 US Department of Education report draws on their 2017 report (AI mentioned once then) to offer learning goals and considerations on how technology can be supportive. They say:
Enabling Enhanced Question Types: to give students more ways to show what they know and can do.
Measurement of Complex Competencies: to better elicit growth in important skills that go beyond typical subject matter standards, for example, in measuring practices, social skills like teamwork, self-regulation, and work-relevant skills (e.g., making presentations or leading teams).
Providing Real-Time Feedback: to maintain and increase student engagement and to support effective learning, providing timely and helpful responses and suggestions to each learner.
Increasing Accessibility: to include neurodiverse learners and to engage learners’ best communication capabilities as they share what they know and can do.
Adapting to Learner Ability and Knowledge: to make assessments more precise and efficient.
Embedded Assessment in the Learning Process: to emphasize an assessment’s role in improving teaching and learning
Assess for Ongoing Learning: to reveal progress over time and not just predetermined milestones.”
2023-2024: Our First Year of Experimentation
Governments and non-governmental organizations took until the summer to get us to their assessment and recommendations. We should see this year as one of experimentation. AI offers us new tools and questions in a way that changes -- and will keep changing -- daily.
How to Help
If you’re reading this, you are in one of my top two categories -- I’m not worried about you:
People who spent the summer trying out new tools and thinking about how to get value from them
People who were listening when others talked about their AI experiments
People who think they can ignore the latest batch of AI like they did blockchain and TikTok -- these are the folks we all need to be supporting
It’s a Process
As with any change, we need to stop-look-listen, and mix together a version of education and work where our talent, technology, and technique fit our targets and our times (Think in 5T). Then we need to share the results with others. As you see helpful ideas and examples, share them with your network. That’s the easy one. Include people with more and less technology experience and understanding.
Talk with kids, teachers, and school administrators, but most importantly, figure out how to use AI in your own work. AI is too important a change to get behind. Share your understanding and ideas with your children, family, friends, and colleagues.
If You Need Help to Get Started
Follow Professor Ethan Mollick:
Tryout Some of My Strategies
Show and share your work process. See an example here.
Use one coffee break a week to look back over the available tools. They change daily. Did you know you can use Microsoft’s Bing bot in Chrome? I didn’t until today.
1984-2024
Welcome to a school year to remember. I know personal computers were available before the 1984 Apple Mac Commerical, but that’s the date I use to think about computers being in wide public use. Here we are 40 years later. How will we look back on this year?
