What will school look like in 2044 – 20 years from now?
Different? For sure.
Unrecognizable? Likely.
Better? …
I have come to believe two things about this question.
- AI can be a force for good in education, but we must be focused on the aims of education as we develop AI tools
- It’s a slippery slope to AI for AI sake. We’ve been here before with computers in schools, the web, connectivity, remote learning. In my view, much of those efforts just fed the machine and a neo-liberal capitalist outcome for using technology in education as opposed to using technology to accomplish the goals we set for our students.
This is all happening so fast, it’s hard to process and make sense out of the impact of AI on our work and our lives. In education, we’re seeing early forays into AI take form as crafted tools to make our job “easier.” A recent survey of teachers from RAND showed that as of of fall 2023, “18 percent of K–12 teachers reported using AI for teaching and another 15 percent have tried AI at least once.” I came across this study when reading a article with a short review of research on the uses of AI to help with administrative tasks, coaching students, and assessment. In the context of this quick (and useful) survey of related scholarship, the author raised the question of whether AI can improve academic and social-emotional outcomes.
That got me thinking about the differences between academic and social-emotional outcomes and why and how we even make these distinctions. As a starting place I looked for recent research in social studies on the uses of AI tools to support academic outcomes. As you might expect, there’s not much, but I found a one interesting study.
This article reports the results of research on a custom designed AI-powered chatbot in social studies education. The results are promising in showing improvements across pre-post test of related content for an experimental group that received an AI chatbot treatment , but it’s unclear how those outcomes are valued. Are tests the measure of value for using AI? The study does include some qualitative results regarding students perceptions of value of the AI chatbot, but again it’s unclear why they value their experiences and what the outcomes are for learning in social studies.
There’s lots of energy and activity around AI tutors for students and teacher tools to make planning and assessment easier. The LA Unified School District rolled out an AI tutor called ED that, shall we say, did not go according to plans. Perhaps LAUSD was too quick, maybe naive about the potential, seemingly too willing to invest in an unproven provider. Whatever the reason for the setback, it’s a cautionary tale about implementation of AI in schools, but certainly not a story about whether or when AI is coming to a schoolhouse near you.
I spent some time recents with Magic Education – https://www.magicschool.ai Meh. Maybe I went in thinking I would get a companion, something unassuming, clean, just looking to interact. Something to be said for Google.
Instead, I got this….
The interface feels very top heavy.
The list of general AI tools like Magic School is growing. Just take a peek at what’s out there and it’s clear that the market is rolling.
- https://www.commonsense.org/education/lists/classroom-tools-that-use-ai
- https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-ai-tools-that-help-teachers-work-more-efficiently/
- https://tilburg.ai/2024/01/best-ai-education-tools/
- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ai-tools-for-education/
- https://www.weareteachers.com/chatgpt-alternatives/
Admittedly, this list includes a lot of less than useful AI adjacent tools, but maybe there are some useful nuggets out there. I’m going to continue my journey to find and reflect on those nuggets. I do think that we should stay engaged and connected to how AI is being used in social studies, but also be critical and keep our eye on the ball. For me that means, how are students benefiting from AI supported learning experiences and how those experiences contribute to the outcomes for which we are aiming in social studies. A reminder of how we think about this at C3 Teachers. Kathy, SG and I use this quote from John Dewey quite often!
No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another…..only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem first hand, seeking and finding his[her] own way out, does he [she] think. [Dewey 1916, p166]
I read this quote to mean that we have to be, as Teddy Roosevelt once said, in the arena — active and engage and prepared to make meaning from what we are learning. Such knowledge helps us to organize information and to do so for a purpose. It can help us to be wise in our actions, particularly in those instances when we may disagree. That’s what inquiry is all about. It’s a tool to help us developed reasoned convictions and to recognize that others may hold truths that may seem contrary but are also true. As long as we hold our differences and what we believe to be true with conviction that is grounded in reason and with respect for those who may disagree, we all win. Ultimately, that’s a world where what we argue does no harm to others.
As the machine comes knocking at the schoolhouse door, can AI tools help us with these ends of social studies education and be a force for good in education? We’ll see!
