Navigating the Role of AI in Education: Balancing Innovation with the Human Element

In today’s education news, I didn’t get an Oasis ticket, so if anyone’s got a couple spare, please let me know. UK’s first teacherless AI classroom set to open in London. So it’s a private school in London which is offering 20 GCSE students a mixture of artificially intelligent platforms on their computers and virtual reality headsets without traditional teachers. Now, you know how much I love AI and I think it can be such a powerful tool to support and assist teachers, but I definitely have my reservations with this. My biggest worry with this it takes away what I feel is the most important aspect of education, which is the human element. That is something I’ve talked about on my courses for last couple of years. If we do implement this AI tech effectively, it should put much more of a focus back on the human element of education. So they say the platform learns what the student excels in and what they need more help with, and then adapt the lesson plans for the term, which is what teachers do. Except teachers are trying to do it in a real toxic environment when they can’t be trusted and so much of their time is taken up on other pointless paperwork tasks. Though ultimately, if you solve that problem for teachers, the AI is not doing anything a teacher couldn’t already do. The co principal of the school is saying there are many excellent teachers out there. But we’re all fallible. Even though the AI tech is impressive and great, it is also fallible. It says it thinks it’s very difficult for teachers to achieve the AI’s level of precision and accuracy and also that of continuous evaluation, which again, I would contest. Ultimately, if you really want to know exactly why a teacher is not learning, the AI systems can pinpoint that more effectively because the AI is gonna have the social awareness of what a child might be struggling with at home or anything. I’m not so sure. When they say it’s teacherless, that’s bit of a headline grabber. There will be three learning coaches, basically teachers anyway, to monitor behaviour and give support. On Teachmate, that is a platform we’ve created to assist and help teachers use AI so they can be the best versions of themselves both in and out the classroom. AI is never gonna be as creative as a teacher can be if you give teachers time. Now here, a retired head teacher has said that AI has a role to play in the classroom, but this idea takes it too far and I’m leaning towards agreeing with that. Last couple of years, I have been obsessed with AI. I’ve been learning as much as I can to understand how it all sort of work, sharing as much of that on the. On my training and obviously with Teachmate, trying to help teachers use AI to the best their ability. And Educate them around how it works, how you’ve got to use your professional judgment and and so on. And what a lot of people need to understand is that AI isn’t human. It doesn’t have a consciousness, it doesn’t have the social awareness that we have. It doesn’t have the reasoning skills that we have. It essentially makes predictions based on patterns of data it’s been trained on. And personally, that’s not something I would trust my child’s education with. However, in the hands of a very effective teacher, understands what it can do, how to use it effectively, I think that can then be a real positive tool. Says here is that it can dehumanize the process of learning, take away those interpersonal skills and the interaction between pupils and a teacher, which is what I’ve just talked about there. And yes, AI can be used and can be great, but it shouldn’t be pushed forward as a way of removing or replacing traditional teaching. But that is my worry, as it can be a cheaper approach to that. And we’ve all got to understand that the AI is a tool and a great tool for teachers to use, but it is not going to be the solution to all of the years of underfunding, the obsession with accountability and the workload pressures that have been put on teachers. There needs to be significant other changes. AI is not going to be the answer to that.