Mitch Harrington

Humanities

Pre-service

Educator

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Chalkboards to Chatbots: AI in Education

I will never know what it was like when to be a student when the calculator was invented, or when the internet became accessible, but I have a feeling it would be similar to the introduction and integration of Artificial intelligence in education.

Already feeling a bit like The Jetsons? Don’t worry. We are nowhere close to that; yet. In 20 short months, ChatGPT has changed the landscape of education in Australia, forever. Students can now whip up an essay on any topic imaginable in seconds, and without being clued in on a few ‘tells’, it is difficult to tell a student's work from a language model’s. Some of these ‘tells’ could be as simple as the use of the word “delve”, which has recently seen a 309% increase in global article usage. This is no coincidence. This is the global utilisation of generative artificial intelligence.

Teachers and educators may be in a potential blind spot when it comes to this technology in the classroom. Research has found that only 27% of primary schools have teachers with a high competency in AI technology. To further this, in the years before the release of ChatGPT, 60-70% of high school students admitted to cheating on assessments. Fortunately, this number has not seen any significant growth in the last 2 years, highlighting the sub-par ethics of the students, rather than the technology available to them. But, where there is a will, there is a way, and many students are making use of the tech to get a competitive edge in their studies.

While teachers need to be aware of AI in the classroom, they also need to know how to teach it and use it themselves. AI tools have seen significant improvement in a very short amount of time. They are envisioned to complement traditional elements of teaching like grading and providing student-specific feedback. This will allow teachers to focus on critical educational activities and decrease the amount of work taken home. Overall, this will have a significant impact on teachers, from increased career enjoyment to higher levels of teacher retention. The teaching workload is already very full, averaging about 50 hours a week, but only 49% of this time is spent teaching. Teachers need to know how to utilise AI as well as their students, if not, better. This will be better for teachers and importantly, better for students.

AI will never replace traditional human-led pedagogy. As humans, we rely on the connection that other humans bring. Although we may grow accustomed to the use of chatbots in our lessons, nothing will replace a teacher's interactions with their students.

There is no need to fear that this tech will be taking jobs from teachers. Quite the opposite is true. We should be relieved that some respite is coming our way. If we can find the right balance, and learn to evolve with the ever-changing technology, we will be able to create better and more efficient classrooms, and our students will have much better teachers.