Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer reminds us that, “The most important thing in education, in my opinion, is staring into the eyes of an inspiring human teacher. Again, a lot of it comes from motivation. If there’s a teacher who can really make me want to succeed, want to learn, and help me get there, that is the biggest force, the most important feature that I want in a teacher.”
Not a bot.
Case in point: Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA union members remain on strike, and why? As USA Today’s Kelly Lawler explains: “Text generators, such as ChatGPT, could write screenplays, and actors’ images could be used to create characters without any humans involved.”
Possible?
“Totally,” says Santa Clara Information Systems professor Haibing Lu.
And yet…
Says former teacher and member of U.S. Canva for Education Marcia McInnes: “AI is a game changer for teachers and in exciting ways,” apparently capable of…
- “Lifting the burden of tedious tasks.”
- “Enabling greater differentiation and more inclusive classrooms.”
- “Unlocking creativity with new ideas.”
- “Preparing students for a future with A.I.”
A sales pitch with a receptive audience.
Among them, the International Center for Leadership in Education’s founder, Bill Daggert. He says that “A full-functioning AI tool can remove 80% of the time and effort that goes into a single task. But the person using the tool still has to put in that remaining 20%–whether it’s fact-checking, revising, or synthesizing the output.”
20%…
Washington’s Spokane School District is already putting AI to work as “an instructional coach to help teachers evaluate and strengthen their classroom practices,” writes Education Week’s Lauraine, Langreo.
As she explains, “A teacher would upload a video of their classroom instruction onto the online platform, and from there the AI coach guides the teacher’s analysis of their video. The AI coach asks the teacher for their teaching priorities and goals and then offers relevant guidance that will help them achieve these goals. In essence, the software is an AI version of an instructional coach.”
Then there’s the fully onboard Los Angeles Unified School District with its recent “hire” Ed, an AI chatbot. Among its/his duties, “telling parents about their child’s grades, test results, and attendance.”
Says Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, “Imagine the power of Artificial Intelligence and comprehensive data working together to personalize an action plan for the benefit of our teachers, students and parents.”
Meanwhile, a recent Walton Family Foundation survey found that 60% of teachers have already used ChatGPT to “plan lessons, create rubrics, provide feedback on student assignments, and respond to parent emails.”
Plus, according to a recent Quizlet report, “The State of AI in Education,” teachers, more than students, are embracing this new technology. For instance:
- 50% of the responding teachers say they’re excited or optimistic about AI vs. 39% of the students.
- 48% of them believe AI can help students recover from their pandemic learning loss.
- 42% of them believe AI creates more equity in education.
Plus:
- 44% of those teachers now use AI for research.
- 38% use it to generate lesson plans.
- 38% use it to summarize or synthesize information, and
- 37% to generate such classroom materials as tests and assignments.
Now add in this from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which oversees and administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), aka the Nation’s Report. Reportedly, its long-term goal is remote proctoring and administration.
As K-12 Dive’s Naaz Modan reports, “Some upcoming innovations come with equity considerations. NCES’s use of AI in scoring, for example, is being evaluated for racial, ethnic, and gender bias. Once AI is put in place, it’s possible NAEP will be scored, and its results released quicker than the current six months that hand-scoring requires.”
You on board?
Sixth 6th grade social studies teacher, April Edwards, sure is, believing all teachers should get in on it. At the same time, however, she adds, “If AI begins to replace the role of teachers, that would be going too far…”
Buyer beware, indeed.
~ With many thanks, Carol