Source: Bing Image Creator

A new headline appeared yesterday. It’s from MONEYWATCH. That’s important to note up front.

MoneyWatch says, Educators say they are working with, not against, AI in the classroom. Here’s a quote from the article:

While several school districts have outright banned students from using AI, other institutions are asking teachers to use their own discretion. And rather than trying to work against AI, some educators are willingly bringing it into the classroom.

“My opinion is that it is my obligation and responsibility to expose and immerse students in these generative AI tools,” Dan Wang, a sociology professor at Columbia Business School told CBS MoneyWatch.

He said the university has left it up to instructors to decide how to work with or against AI. 

When have educators actually had a chance to make a decision to say, “No!” when BIG MONEY is involved? 

We are now moving from buying hardware (although how will students access it) to buying subscription services. AI presents the next “must-have” subscription service. Can you see it now?

Source: Rawpixel, CC Public Domain

Breaking news. Schools can get AI subscriptions for staff and students. Discounts available for parents. Get your discount AI accounts for teachers ($24.99) and students ($9.99), NOW!

This assertion in the form of an image appears at Inspiritai.com If AI is so easy to use, why waste instructional time introducing students to it in the classroom? Spend that time on teaching critical thinking, then apply it to AI usage to resolve a real life problem or task.

A Changing Perspective

 A colleague, who is a teacher at a secondary campus, writes in response of The Atlantic’s article on AI. It is Daniel Herman’s The End of High-School English. Herman writes:

You may not be interested in poetry or civics, but no matter what you end up doing with your life, a basic competence in writing is an absolutely essential skill—whether it’s for college admissions, writing a cover letter when applying for a job, or just writing an email to your boss.

But then, he questions himself:

I don’t know if either of those things is true anymore. It’s no longer obvious to me that my teenagers actually will need to develop this basic skill, or if the logic still holds that the fundamentals are necessary for experimentation.

Critical thinking isn’t an essential life skill? This report from Brookings found it to be so and advises critical thinking:

K-12 education should prioritize teaching critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork across subject areas. Teaching students to become analytical thinkers, problem solvers, and good team members will allow them to remain competitive in the job market even as the nature of work changes. (source)

It’s not, I guess, if you intend for students to ask someone else to tell them what and how to think. That seems a problem, doesn’t it, for democratic system like America, no? 

Lots of discussion about education and democracy:

• AI Can Help Educate Our Kids Now, and It May Also Replace Teachers 
• The Role of AI in Education and the Changing US Workforce
• AI is coming to schools, and if we’re not careful, so will its biases
•  Schools face challenges with AI as students head back to class
• New Nationawide program utilizing AI in schools will turn kids into ‘robots’ warn critics 
• AI Ethics
• The Democratic Challenges of Artificial Intelligence 

Critical thinking, though, takes precedence. It’s essential to life, democracy, and seeing clearly with or without AI.

as cited in Team International’s The Skill Innovative Companies Value Most: Critical Thinking

Impact of Technology on Critical Thinking

Consider these points in this article, Are AI Tools Destroying Critical Thinking?:

A recent study found that 86% of respondents found a lack of critical thinking skills in students. It’s easy to guess why. Students used to be asked to write essays in school in order to teach them how to read, analyze, and form their own opinions. Instead of reading the book, students could copy this Sparknotes analysis.

Now, they don’t even need to read the Sparknotes. They can just ask ChatGPT to summarize the entire book.

The school has become more utilitarian and less about actual learning or skill development.

The article makes additional assertions, such as:

• As people get better at multi-tasking, they get worse at absorbing the information they consume
• People are able to find information on the web, but they get worse at remembering it
• Away from smartphones and computers, students get better at reading reading facial expressions and nonverbal emotional cues

 In Team International’s report, they make this point about critical thinking:

…why is critical thinking important, and how can it be developed? The problem is that this ability cannot be digitized or learned in a class. It requires practice and experiences where you were forced to debate and confront diverse opinions. 

Unlike with other skills, in this case you learn primarily from failure, especially from solving complicated problems, which teaches you to experiment with different solutions.

There has to be a process for teaching critical thinking and decision-making in place. How to better assess information as being of value. That’s why writing is an essential tool in the classroom. It makes student thinking visible, allowing for teachers to see evidence of pseudoscience and science denial.

Why Does PseudoScience and Science Denial Get Shared?

Sharing of pseudoscience and science denial happens when the following is true:

• trust the source (e.g. a family member, close friend, colleague)
• are convinced by the reasons offered (e.g. you accept reasons without critically analyzing them)
• are helped by these beliefs (e.g. you feel relief or better because of them) (source)

Critical thinking requires what Melanie Trecek-King says is:

• Insist on evidence before accepting a claim
• Match the strength of our belief to the strength and quality of the evidence
• Evaluate evidence with the FLOATER toolkit 

Reflections on Herman’s article in The Atlantic

The conundrum of teachers in most subjects, including math, is how to successfully teach students to use their minds.

I am doing my best to achieve that, but not everyone agrees with my method. I have students write essays in my class by hand without a laptop. Occasionally, depending on the assignment, I allow the students to use the notes that they have taken as an incentive to actually take notes.

And, I have discontinued prepping students for tests by giving the writing prompt to them. It became too obvious that the responses, even handwritten, were regurgitated info from one or more online sources. 

The central problem is getting students to “use their minds.” Whether the method(s) my colleague has chosen will be effective is another question altogether.

My Reflections On Herman’s Article

When I first wrote my reflection, I found myself looking back over time at all the educational technology innovations that found their way into schools. I found myself imagining all the landfills filled with obsolete technology. Chromebooks are sure to arrive, if they haven’t already. I couldn’t help but imagine the issues with extreme heat and a failing planet.

What choice do educators have? Like many other “educational technologies,” there are billionaires pushing technology into schools. The reason is less likely that research supports the usage of AI, but rather, that there’s money to be had for AI subscriptions that are taxpayer funded.

When reviewing the Visible Learning Meta X database, you won’t see Artificial Intelligence, Language Learning Models, or any of that. Of course, you won’t find productivity tools (e.g. Word processing, Spreadsheets, Presentation, Infographics).

That’s where the work of many media and educational organization is, of course. Fighting to stay current with the “latest, emerging tech” while giving it an educational angle, even if there isn’t research supporting it. And, teachers and administrators will embrace it because it’s the “pop, new, razzle-dazzle” thing…and their respective bosses or influencers says so. Only time will tell if it becomes more than that. 

I do like Glass’ approach in Educators Work with, not against, AI in the classroom:

“I’d say write an entire book with 15 chapters, an epilogue, prologue, and get five other students in the class to review it for originality, believability and writing style,” Glass said.

This will force students to think creatively about how to employ AI, including what prompts to feed it.

“It gets them used to what’s possible when humans team up with AI,” Glass said. “It pushes them to be more creative than ever before, while also preparing them for the age of AI.”

It’s positive, right? It leaves you thinking, “Yes, that’s not a bad idea. Bring AI in, use it to teach collaboration, and everyone benefits.”

In the meantime, a lot of money best used for libraries, librarians, professional development for teachers, and other proven educational approaches will be diverted to AI in the classroom.

That’s one angle on the story that doesn’t often get covered. In schools, it’s a fight for money and resources.