Responsive Teaching and A.I.

Is it possible for us to engage in truly responsive teaching with the emerging technology of Artificial Intelligence?

The movement of A.I. into school settings has been in the pipelines for some time. The introduction to the term Artificial Intelligence began several years ago when school staff meetings would have smatterings of discussion of where this new technology was going, along with how schools were to support our next generation of students as they navigate the use of this tool, under the banner of preparing them for future career paths and employment opportunities.

This article looks at some of the ways that A.I. has been presented on a global scale and its ramifications in school settings. This includes the practicality of applying it in classrooms, the impacts on the quality of teaching offered to our students, as well as the effects on our teachers and the foundational standards that education offers.

Hu-man or Robot-man?

The word Artificial Intelligence conjures up images of sci-fi, futuristic living that lessen the impact of human input and the overtake of ‘machinery vs man’; images of robot-like figures lifelessly trudging through stark, cold buildings effectively in charge of administration of daily life. Many of us registered the potential of this growing up through the alleged ‘fantasies’ of electric cars, mobile phones, and watches that not only told the time, but stored our daily itinerary.  These are no longer a prediction but our actual, current way of life.

Schools are now sourcing a number of curriculum endorsed products that promote the introduction of ‘A.I. teaching’ in the classroom. These include virtual classroom spaces, with specifically assigned teacher avatar images (created with a quick search engine browse), as well as the introduction of pre-programmed curriculum packages designed to support teachers with the increasing levels of additional paperwork and demands of classroom life.

This is in tandem with –

·       the lived reality of teacher shortages impacting this profession on a global level

·       a significant trend of experienced teachers leaving the profession

·       decreasing working hours across the board

·       the plummeting retention rate of the graduating cohort.

No wonder there is demand for technology-based solutions to these trends (!), but have we considered the true cost to education of the uncritical, wholesale adoption of these?

Is It A Case of Undiagnosed A.I. FOMO?

With the influx of world attention on incorporating A.I. into global commerce and economy, is education experiencing an undiagnosed fear of missing out on the action?

The bandwagon has begun. The latest talk in the staffroom, and the move of schools to mainstream its usage in everything from simple, classroom grammar programmes, through to whole school restructuring of curriculum on a bigger scale, are the prevailing trends. Education has joined the global convoy and embarked on the many tantalising A.I. offerings that are rapidly becoming a mainstay in the classroom.

With the commencement of the new school year in the Southern Hemisphere, many teachers have reduced their programming time by purchasing online products that provide all the tools required to complete their learning area planning in one big A.I. hit. No stress, no time pressure, all boxes ticked!

Equally, masses of the daily detail and practical application of curriculum is completely disregarded and omitted, whilst ‘death by purchased PowerPoint’ is taken to a whole entire, other level and imposed upon the innate curiosity of young children who are asking for human responsiveness to what they are calling for on a daily basis.

This cannot be delivered through A.I. and it’s one size fits all concepts. 

Children are sensitive in their unfolding intelligence; they are not naturally consumers of computer generated smorgasbords of convenience.

What is on Offer?

There is a plethora of resources available with ‘ready to go’ curriculum summary packages and whole unit testing resources available at the click of a keyboard. Step-by-step lessons on how to teach skills with an abundance of charts, slides and digital access. Digital homework apps are offered to assist teachers with assigning tasks to students with diverse learning needs and extensions ~ all in a ‘game’ like approach with characters, fantasy lands, battling enemies, whilst at the same time learning your literacy and numeracy skills. Hologram computer avatar images bring all the trimmings of the teacher voiced responses and ask the teacher consumer: What is the topic you would like to learn? Here is the content delivered to you ready-made.

The question here is how does this all fit into the scheme of how education continues to market schools as ‘places’ of learning under the jurisdiction of responsible and responsive adults when in truth it is Artificial Intelligence that is being sourced, or outsourced, to offer the platform of learning?

It is we teachers who stand in loco parentis to our students. Do we really want to naively and willingly hand over this responsibility to technology and A.I?

 Are we giving permission for the parenting and educating of our young to be performed by technology?

Is there a more sensible way to incorporate A.I. in the classroom?

It is not a matter of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ when we elect to resource digital tools to support learning, but rather a matter of observing where have we stopped deploying our innate capacities to discern, modify and adjust the work for the specific students in our care, as educational professionals using these digital tools.

As an example: A recent early years numeracy lesson was planned exclusively from scripted resources. This lesson, delivered to six and seven year old children, presented eighty visual slides in a ‘warm up’ session that left the students totally disengaged and preferring instead to play with the edges of the carpet, poke each other, and stare out of the window. The teacher also then felt out of sorts when the purchased lesson preparation was not responded to by the students in the way she had expected it.

She had ticked a pre-planned digital box, but the children were so bored that they were almost literally chewing the carpet in preference to attending to the tsunami of slides.

Some Observations …

Teachers are observing that students are ill-equipped to understand the complexity of language used in A.I. generated material. It is often neither age-appropriate pedagogy nor age-appropriate language.  Offerings based on ‘expected algorithms’ of student learning at specific ages rarely correspond with their actual understanding and concept attainment.  

Students will often not say ‘out loud’ that they ‘don’t understand’, or that they are overwhelmed because of the fear of not ‘keeping up’ with the increased pace of learning via digital means.

Equally, teachers are commenting that A.I. generated lessons have a ‘hit and miss approach’, leaving limited foundational support for consolidation and review. In fact, teachers often have to go back and re-teach the lesson or bring in practical manipulables that provide the students with much needed confirmation of where they are in their current levels of learning, often offering additional concrete play opportunities to strengthen and consolidate this learning. That is to say that the teachers return to their original professional discernment and delivery of what the children require.

This back and forth momentum between A.I. and then the damage control of traditional methods, over days, weeks, terms and years has a trajectorial impact on both the students and teacher well-being with its unnecessary complication.

The KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) of Imbalanced Digital Learning

What are the trajectorial impacts of digitally driven products on quality teaching and learning?

All professions have KPI’s to achieve. In education, term or semesterly check-ins with our up-line leaders are the go, with teachers presenting the goals for students learning and how we are to address them through curriculum delivery and assessment. 

In the most recent school year, it was clear that in many schools accessing A.I. across an extensive range of learning areas, there were severe longitudinal impacts on the calibre of interactions between students and colleagues, impacts that compromised the standards of solid foundational teaching.

Un-well Being

Increased levels of anxiety have become a focal well-being factor effecting many teachers. Escalating administrative work alongside the routine daily classroom protocols, has seen teachers accessing A.I. teaching packages to lighten the load. This quick relief, ‘time saver’ mentality is the constant Achilles' heel of teachers’ aspirations and ideals of greater work-life balance. Is A.I. access a short-term ‘fix’ to a much needed underlying review of what really needs to be ‘thrown out’ with the bathwater in our current model that no longer serves and truly encompasses quality teaching and learning of students in our care?

A Curriculum of Convenience

The convenience of this digital tool has changed the tone of how teachers are embracing planning and teamwork.  There is an ambient air of lethargy in many schools with staff becoming complacent and settling for the ‘this will do’ MO. The precision of quality lesson planning that engages students with simple and meaningful lessons is being replaced with an attitude of ticking boxes that secure KPI outcomes through a simple engine search and job done! Is this a precursor to the wholesale adoption of a ‘lethargic approach’ in other areas of our life, or is the lethargy infiltrating the profession from other areas?

Some schools embarking on expanding their use of A.I. tools in their planning have highlighted an increased level of competition and comparison among teachers. The role of digital learning is paramount in our school settings, although the exclusive championing of technology in schools devalues the shared qualities all teachers innately bring to one another and how this reflects and models quality relationships to the students in their care. It also devalues the wisdom and generational experience of elder teachers

Are true educational standards going astray with the levels of comfort and ‘acceptable ease’ in bringing digital tools of engagement into the school learning environment without upholding the original standards of our teaching programming and delivery?

Foundational Standards of the Future Digital Age

As teachers, our role is to navigate the latest digital trends from the foundations of the true responsibility of teaching. We cannot avoid delivering the mandated curriculum, nor the growing technological introductions of Artificial Intelligence in school settings.

Is there an opportunity to work with the offerings of A.I. that reduce the workload in the practical everyday classroom application, whilst at the same time valuing our teaching skills that bring the responsive professional into the picture? 

The key will be creating technology that serves teachers and students, without compromising either.