Do we need to re-imagine education?
Looking back at my own schooling from six to seven year ago, learning felt quite structured and standard for every student in the classroom. Everyone was expected to learn the same material at same pace. We did use technology in the classrooms however it was limited to just youtube videos and interactive powerpoints.
However when you compare such a standard experience from my generation with my sisters learning experience, there is a clear change in the experience. My sisters teachers recommend her to use AI tools to edit essays and use it to organize her ideas more efficiently. This kind of service was never really available to me as I had to ask the teachers in class and then act upon the feedback at home. Seeing how AI helps her refine her work and learn from mistakes makes me think education does need to be reimagined so it better supports different learning styles and keeps students more engaged.
What are the risks or roadblocks?
In thinking about the risks of AI in education, I watched a TEDx talk titled “Is AI making us dumber? Maybe.” by Charlie Gedeon, which argues that depending too much on AI can hurt deep learning because it tends to give answers quickly without forcing students to think things through themselves.
I see that a lot of my sisters friends cant even begin the assignment without putting it into chatGPT first as well as a lot of my university friends do act the same way. Of course AI can help us learn, but it needs to be designed for that. What we have now, is designed to promote laziness, not learning and teachers cant really enforce this concept within the students.
Another major risk with AI in education is privacy. Many AI tools and online platforms collect data on students’ work, writing patterns, and even their behavior while using the programs. This raises questions about who owns the data, how it’s stored, and whether it could be shared without permission. I think governments must have strict guidelines about data collection when it comes to data collection as this would ensure safety. Below is an image generated by Gemini when prompted “gen an image about ai privacy risks”.
What are the potential benefits of developing a personal learning approach?
More engagement: Students can follow topics they enjoy and learn at their own pace. Thus they may not feel bored while learning as they would be learning them in a classroom. Students may also prefer a different style of teaching that the AI could replicate.
Better skills: AI tools can help organize ideas, check grammar, and give quick feedback, so students focus on understanding and not just fixing mistakes.
Independence: Students take ownership of their learning and develop critical thinking as teachers cannot focus on an individual students learning difficulties. These difficulties can be worked on with AI if used correctly.
Hazza, thanks for a good post covering many of the details and issues from a personal point of view. Using AI to improve student learning is hard to argue against. For educators, we need to first learn about AI, test and use it ourselves. Only then can we figure out how best to teach students to do the same to support their learning. Pedagogy first, but change that pedagogy in our now AI-saturated world, I think.