A « transformation » is upon us. After a multi-year procession of educational technology products that once promised to shake things up, now it’s AI’s turn.
A « transformation » is upon us. After a multi-year procession of educational technology products that once promised to shake things up, now it’s AI’s turn.
Global organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as well as government bodies, present AI to the public as « transformative. »
Prominent AI companies with large language model (LLM) chatbots have « education-focused » products, like ChatGPT Education, Claude for Education and Gemini in Google for Education.
AI products facilitate exciting new ways to search, present and engage with knowledge and have sparked widespread interest and enthusiasm in the technology for young learners. However, there are crucial areas of concern regarding AI use such as data privacy, transparency and accuracy.
Current conversations on AI in education focus on notions it will upend teaching and learning systems in schools, teacher lesson planning and grading or individualized learning (for example, via personalized student tutoring with chatbots). However, when or whether AI will transform education remains an open question.
In the meantime, it is vital to think about how student engagement with chatbots should make us examine some fundamental assumptions about human learning.
How students view their teachers and their own ability to contemplate thinking (known as metacognition) are tremendously important for learning. These factors need to be considered when we think about learning with chatbots.
The popularity of the Rate My Professors website in Canada, United States and the United Kingdom is a testament to the significance of what students think about teachers.
With AI’s foray into education, students’ conceptions of their AI tutors, teachers and graders will also matter for multiple reasons.
First, learning is a thoroughly social affair. From how a child learns through imitating and modeling others to engaging with or being influenced by peers in the classroom, social interactions matter to how we learn.
