Another academic year has just begun. It does not look much different from the one
before – indeed, it is not much different from when I started my education some
50+ years ago. And it has not fundamentally
changed from the compulsory education introduced in the 19th
century. Till today, children are
grouped in classes according to age and receive whole-class instruction from a
teacher in charge of a class or a subject.
Although the slates and quill pens have been replaced with updated writing
equipment and curriculum has been modernised, the way children are organised
and taught have not changed essentially since the beginning of formal
education, despite huge technological advancements.
The same does not apply to the world of
work. The way people work today does not
resemble the working environment or conditions from the 19th
century. So how effectively do schools
prepare young people for the next stage in their lives?
For many reasons, schools are extremely slow
in adapting to new technologies. The
technology already exists – with virtual learning environments and on-line
learning tools – to provide personalized-style education to match pupils’
skills, individual academic maturity and ability to ensure the best progress
for each child. This type of learning is
not only motivational but it also develops self-regulation needed for achieving
greater learning independence in the future.
However, this type of learning
is not being successfully applied to benefit all pupils’ education fully. Despite the overwhelming research evidence
(Black et al., 2003; Fullan, 2003; Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). of the benefits of
personalized learning to pupils’ achievement and motivation, educators and
policy makers have failed to reach a common understanding of what it actually
entails and how to embedded it effectively into today’s schooling. Although attempts at providing personalized
learning can be noted in some schools, in the main, learning and achievement
are focused on individuals as part of a class/group, rather than on
individualized learning pre se. This is
why little has changed over the years with respect to how schools organise
learning.
The limited use of modern technology to
provide solutions beyond the interaction with some of the curriculum content is
hampering young peoples’ individual progress and fails to prepare them adequately
for the demands of the modern world.
Some of the attitudes among the educators need to change imminently. Only recently, looking at an old, decrepit stand-alone
keyboard in a south London nursery, where my grand-daughter’s precious early
education was just about to be entrusted, I enquired about the use of
technology. I was simply told that it
was the settings’ philosophy not to use any IT because children had enough
access to computers at home…
Beyond the use of tablets, interactive
boards and other mobile devices, the technology is moving towards the
application of artificial intelligence (AI) in educational settings. Since the access to the internet and personal
computing failed to change fundamentally the organisation of education and the
way pupils are essentially taught, the application of AI should change
profoundly the way young people will learn in the not-to-distant future. It will undoubtedly enable pupils to engage
with AI-based tuition for a truly personalized learning matched to their
individual learning curve.
“Collaboration with human-computer could
help students to learn using new approaches we can’t yet imagine”, explains
Professor Emma Brunskill from Stanford University.
Erik Choi, Principal Researcher at Brainly
asserts, “Each student can gain access to information that will help them along
their unique path of their learning curve.
In the future, that means that a student won’t have to learn the same
exact thing at the same exact pace as 30 of their classmates”.
With the popularity of e-readers, the look
of some of the school libraries has changed.
However, the use of AI technology should truly revolutionise children’s
learning and the way schools are structured within the next 15 years. It will provide opportunities for each child
to learn in a personalized way and to make progress at own pace like no
implementation of any assessment policy has been ever able to accomplish.
Traditional schooling is about to change
dramatically with the arrival of AI tutors. This
signals the biggest transformation in the way children will be taught and will learn
since formal schooling was first introduced some three centuries ago. The use of teaching robots will enable
personalized learning on a large scale, thus ending the traditional teacher-led
whole-class instruction, which has been the feature of traditional education
for centuries. These changes will have
an impact on the way learning is monitored and assessed, and how and when pupils
gain their qualifications.
Tractica, a market intelligence firm, says that
“The rapid emergence and adoption of AI techniques are a wakeup call. AI will transform the technology landscape
and touch almost every industry over the next 10 years”. There are reasons to be excited about the
introduction of AI tutors to facilitate and monitor individual education.
In considering learning for the 21st
century, I have already written about the necessity for the mastery of learning
independence to effective preparation for multiple career changes. The application of AI techniques in education
will have an enormous impact on the development of learning independence through
the use of effective personalized learning strategies uniquely matched to every
learner. This will revolutionise education
as we know it. And about time!
References
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and Wiliam, D. (2003)
Assessment for
learning: Putting it into practice. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The
Psychology of Optimal Experience. New
York, NY, Harper Perennial
Fullan, M. (2003). The Moral Imperative of School Leadership. London: SAGE.
