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Many people play a role in schools: administrators, principals, teachers, specialists, and guidance counsellors, are just a few of the people who are crucial to the daily operations of schools. Students would not get the education or support they require every day without these people. The entire staff is required to facilitate and support students' well-being and learning. The range of staff and their duties must be taken into account when considering the use of emerging technologies in education as these technologies intend to mimic humans. We must ask, is it possible for technology to adequately replace the broad-ranging functions of the entire school staff?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer to perform tasks that are usually performed by humans (Copeland, 2023). The abilities of AI have been rapidly growing and are having significant impacts in several fields globally, and education is not exempt. While it is possible for AI to enhance education and learning outcomes for students, it also has potential risks. It is important for educators to consider the ethical implications of using AI in education and to ensure that it is being used in a way that promotes fairness, privacy, and equitable use. AI integration must be considered at scale, from the personal level of a teacher or student, to the expansive district/provincial level.
Michelle
Michelle
As an intermediate school teacher, finding ways to engage young teenagers is an important part of the job. Making learning relevant and finding that “hook” is essential. Since my journey at the intermediate level began, so did my interest in furthering my knowledge, comfort level, and use of new forms of technology in the classroom. I wanted to become part of the “maker movement” within my school and help prepare students to think critically, collaborate, problem-solve, and have technical fluency inside and outside the classroom.
When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, I quickly tested it out and saw what it could offer. There often seems to be a division between new technologies and their use in the classroom. On one side is the need to ban said technology, and on the other is to embrace it. I have always embraced new technologies and know it is important to incorporate their use and teach students how to use a tool effectively and efficiently as intended. Although there are challenges, I am hopeful for the role of AI in the classroom. As our classroom composition becomes increasingly complex at an intermediate level, AI can support many classroom management tasks, help teachers support students by providing individualized lessons, provide instant and continuous feedback, and contribute significantly to assessing. This can have a tremendous impact on the well-being of teachers and would hopefully equate to greater academic success for students as their learning needs are being met.
As educators, we cannot stop the advancement of new forms of technology, AI is the newest trend but not the last. In our role, we help prepare students to be competent and valuable members of society. Embracing all new forms of technology (whether using it in the classroom or having students evaluate its merit) is crucial to our educator role.
As recent as the last few months, AI and the ethical use of AI have become a topic for discussion as more and more schools are seeing AI being incorporated into student learning. Students are beginning to use AI to complete or aid in the completion of tasks while many teachers are using AI for routine tasks such as the creation of lesson plans, data input and other practical uses. AI can provide personalized learning experiences for students and offers new opportunities for collaboration and exploration. While there are many benefits to using AI, there are also concerns about the ethical implications of using AI in education.
As a grade 6 teacher of five years, I have been giving a lot of thought to how AI might affect my students. One way that I can see AI helping is by offering personalized learning experiences for my students (Kasneci et al., 2023). AI can analyze student performance data and suggest individualized learning activities to support the needs of individual students. In my experience, administrative tasks, while important, often take away from engaging with students and being able to work with my students individually. I am also excited about the potential for AI to automate routine administrative tasks, allowing me to have more time to focus on engaging with my students and supporting their learning (Zhai, 2022).
I do have concerns about the ethical implications of using AI in the classroom. One concern that I have is the potential for bias and discrimination. AI is often trained on historical data, which can reflect existing biases and discrimination. If this data is used to train AI, it could lead to unfair treatment of certain groups of students (Mhlanga, 2023). For example, if an AI system is trained on data that is biased against certain racial or ethnic groups, it may reproduce these biases in its outputs, leading to unfair treatment of students. I have been teaching in Nova Scotia for my entire career. The Nova Scotia Department of Education has created an inclusive education policy that actively counters inequities. Biases and discriminations produced by AI would go directly against the inclusive education policies in place and would put students at risk (Nova Scotia Department of Education, 2019).
I believe it is important to carefully consider the ramifications of using AI in the classroom. While there are clear benefits to using AI, teachers must also be aware of any limitations and work to eliminate any biases that could potentially put students at risk. It is important to be transparent in our use of AI with parents and students so that they are able to provide their informed consent for its use. I firmly believe that as an educator, it is my duty to take a thoughtful, responsible, and intentional approach to integrating AI into my teaching practices. While I believe that AI can be productive and a useful tool, I also believe that it can be easy to misuse. An example that comes to mind comes from my experience teaching in French Immersion. Many of my students use translators or AI systems to translate into French, thinking that it will be easier to write in English and have a program translate it into French for them. By doing this, they do not learn the skills to find vocabulary, conjugate verbs, or orally speak in French. They are robbing themselves of learning the language and writing skills in favour of a quick way to finish an assignment. While a translator, or AI, can be a useful tool when used appropriately, it can also be harmful when misused.
Benefits to a Solution: Regulations can help to mitigate potential biases and discrimination, protect student privacy, and ensure transparency and accountability in the use of AI technologies. They can also help to build trust in the use of AI in education among students, parents, and teachers. Providing clear guidelines for the use of AI in schools can help to ensure that these technologies are used in a responsible and ethical manner, promoting confidence and trust in their use.
Taylor
Taylor
Brandon
Brandon
As technology evolves, the ability to automate certain tasks - even some professions - raises ethical questions. The teaching and learning sector is especially vulnerable to a hostile overtake by automation. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML) may change the way students engage with learning, and the way teachers engage with instruction. Why learn arithmetic when there is access to a computer, why learn to read when there are audio books, why bother writing when there are text generators, why bother learning research skills when ChatGPT can return a list of articles? Broadly, why bother coming to school if everything is accessible online and student content can be generated by AI machines? Why have school? What is the purpose of school? What does this mean for the future of education?
Teaching is not simply a profession of academic knowledge transfer, it is also a profession of skill transfer, moral guidance, and interpersonal connection yielding impact that cannot be easily measured or quantified. This aspect of teaching can not be replaced by technology. What teacher's need to do to remain effective in their practice, is adapt to AI & ML by finding ways of ethically integrating these tools into their teaching practice. This not only makes them more efficient teachers, but can free up their time to focus on teaching deeper content, SEL, critical STEM topics related to emerging technologies, philosophy and ethics, to name a few that sometimes don't receive sufficient attention.
In my teaching experience at the Intermediate/Secondary level, I have witnessed students engaging with AI, chatbots, "borrowing" material from online resources, and other questionable uses of technology. Yet, since making a temporary career pivot to the EdTech sector, I have seen students actively engaging with automated tutors, using ChatGPT to streamline workload, and harnessing the ability to interface with a (somewhat) reliable online resource at any time of day. AI and ML systems can alleviate teacher workload, can help drive engagement in students, and can make learning more accessible/inclusive to all students regardless of privilege and socio-economic barriers.
There is a constructive path forward with these tools, and the most effective way of ensuring the teaching profession incorporates AI & ML tools effectively in practice, is to have a strong and clear understanding of what AI is, how it can be used, when it should be used, and to anchor this understanding in an ethical framework.
Group Design Challenge | ED 6620 | Brandon Collier, Michelle Bernard, Taylor Johnson | April 2023
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