With so much disruption in so many other fields, the expectation of huge changes in the way we do education in the US.. is becoming harder to ignore. The chances of things just going along according to the status quo now seem minimal, despite huge bureaucratic inertia. The teacher’s unions are aware of the problem and are going to have to be involved in solutions as well. What will those solutions look like?
One aspect of online learning and mobile-based learning that engenders concern is where is the human one to one interaction? There’s a lot to understanding a human, and until proven otherwise we will likely continue to assume humans will best understand other humans. Much of the impetus for learning comes from that human relationship that affirms. Being “in person” allows a great deal of emotional exchange hard to duplicate online or with AI.
Yet we simply don’t know yet how much AI can progress in becoming able to assess human emotional states, and engender appropriate interactions based on those assessments. Seems likely there will be at least some areas where “machines” will not be able to “replace humans”. But will those areas be congruent with teacher’s roles as we presently define them? Or will what’s best done by humans necessitate a new role model and definition? We don’t know the answers today and it is certainly a concern for teacher employment over the coming decade(s).
OTOH, perhaps students can look forward to more ubiquitous realization of their potentials, and truly no child will be left behind.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Educators-on-Artificial-Intelligence-Heres-the-One-Thing-It-Cant-Do-Well-EdSurge-News.pdf”]