Many conversations are happening these days about artificial intelligence鈥檚 growing role in education鈥攈ow to keep student-data safe, how to prevent students from using AI to cheat, and how AI tools can help educators free up time on daily tasks.
What we鈥檙e not hearing nearly enough about: How AI will鈥攁nd should鈥攖ransform what students learn, experts and educators said during a panel at the Education Week Leadership Symposium this month.
The biggest promise of AI is 鈥渢he opportunity to rethink education and rethink why we do what we do, what we teach, how we teach it,鈥� said Pat Yongpradit, the chief academic officer at Code.org and a leader of TeachAI, an initiative to support schools in using and teaching about AI. This is 鈥渁 moment in time where the whole world is changing because of AI,鈥� he said.
69传媒 have been wrestling with whether to change how鈥攁nd what鈥攕tudents are taught since 鈥渒ids started Googling things and Wikipedia and everything else,鈥� said Tara Nattrass, the managing director of innovation strategy at the International Society for Technology in Education.
鈥淣ow, it isn鈥檛 just content that鈥檚 readily available. It鈥檚 the creation [of content that] is readily available,鈥� Natrass said. 鈥淎nd if those two things exist, then we really need to shift to a mindset where we鈥檙e focusing on problem-solving. We鈥檙e focused on critical thinking. We鈥檙e focused on creativity. And that鈥檚 hard, right? We鈥檝e been talking about those things for decades. 鈥� Now, I think we are seeing the tipping point of where we have to address that challenge.鈥�
But Nattrass, who has been working with districts nationwide on how to approach AI, worries that this part of the discussion is lagging.
鈥淭he conversations we鈥檙e having about AI right now are about efficiency, as opposed to pedagogy,鈥� she said.
For more on the discussion of AI and its potential to reshape what鈥攏ot just how鈥攕tudents learn, check out the video above.
