School leaders believe pairing AI and life skill courses is the future of education.
Alpha private school leaders believe AI learning paired with life skill courses will be the standard for modern schools in the future. The school doesn’t have teachers but instead uses what it calls “guides.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if some form of automated education becomes a big thing in the future, but this is just a shit idea right now meant to keep costs low and profits up.
I don’t know about ‘automated’ education, but we 100% SHOULD have been using technology as an education AMPLIFIER for a long time already. No AI needed for that.
My wife is in education and spent over a decade teaching science at an alternative public school (the “You’ve fallen behind due to illness, pregnancy, or family issues, so come here to catch up” type, NOT the “You’re a total delinquent, here’s a ‘prison classroom’” type) that did self-paced learning.
She had recorded a ton videos of herself teaching all of the various concepts/standards that were required by the state for her subjects. She also had assignments ready for the entire course, and labs which could mostly be done by the students with minimal direct interaction by the teacher.
So the kids would come in, check in with her on what was the next thing they needed to work on, then would watch the video on their Chromebook and then do the assignment or lab. She’d be there for them to ask her about anything they didn’t understand, or for whatever help they needed.
There were of course some labs and assignments that they would schedule to be done by the whole class at a given time, when it was necessary, or made more sense.
So the kids who picked it up quickly could finish a semester worth of work and learning within a month or two, leaving her more time to spend helping the kids who were struggling with a given concept.
It also gave opportunities for the kids who had mastered a concept to be able to help those who hadn’t.
I see no reason similar methodologies and technologies couldn’t be employed at regular schools to amplify the ability of teachers to educate students and give the teachers more time to help the ones who weren’t picking things up as quickly, without holding back the students who were.
I won’t be surprised if what you are describing becomes how education is handled going forward for high school and college, but I don’t think it will be a blanket solution for everyone.
I also think that the implementation of the technology will likely be done to reduce the reliance on qualified teaching staff rather than to free up their time.
Even as it is now, I could see it being good for some kids.
I certainly could’ve benefitted from a guided, fully-self-paced curriculum. I was bored off my ass in high school.
Like this, you could teach an entire high school and have a teacher:student ratio of like 1:200. Really just need SMEs annd a big computer lab, and that’s it.
But it’s definitely not for everyone. Most kids need more hands-on, especially with new topics. And there has to be human oversight (humans writing exams/quizzes and intervening if the AI is incorrect or ineffective).
have you asked an AI how to bake a cake?
hold on, i gotta pick up some fear and a few bowls of unmarked cubes first
No, the value of a computer based education is that you don’t need SME’s on site. Instead, you could get away with one home office developing the lesson plans, then distributing their work across a state. Specialty graders could be hired to handle anything that the computer can’t grade.
The schools themselves would just have enough teachers that are the equivalent of substitute teachers keeping order.