Lessons Through Time: AI's Impact on Education

Tyler
Yeah, no problem. Thank you for asking. Becoming a National Board-Certified Teacher was actually a long time in the making. It’s not something that many teachers do. I think there’s only about 8% of all teachers in the United States who are National Board certified. I would liken it to an additional master’s degree in terms of the length of time and the amount of work I had to do to get it but along you know I started out this journey to be a social studies teacher in Public Education really because I thought that was the place I could have the greatest impact on what I thought was probably one of the biggest needs that I saw you know when I came out of school which was a lack of civic education, a lack of solid understanding, solid, critical thinking skills and I wanted to be part of working with young people to help to build that I got a lot of fulfillment out of it but along the way I decided I wanted to become the best educator I could be and to become the best historian that I could be and so I became a national board certified teacher and got a second master’s degree in history along the way. And it’s been worth every minute of it. I’ve used all of that in the course of my twenty plus years in the classroom.

Husena
That’s amazing, that’s amazing. I have a feeling we’re going to end up talking a lot about critical thinking in this conversation considering that it is about AI so let’s get into the heart of our discussion here.

Tyler
I’m always excited to talk about critical thinking.

Husena
Could you tell us about the most important advancements in AI technology that have influenced classroom teaching particularly from a historical standpoint.

Tyler
Well, all right? So, this is very new so you know and I’m not necessarily an expert on all of the advances in AI that have been around. I can really just give you my perspective what I’ve seen in the school that I work in and with the educators I work with in a very short amount of time though I’ve seen a lot of changes and some of it is going in a very positive way and some of it is kind of a very concerning way. So, I would say my observations begin last year when ChatGPT really hit the public awareness and I started to see students using AI to complete their assignments without any sort of awareness that for the teachers that they were using this very powerful tool to essentially circumvent the requirements of what was designed for them to help make them better thinkers and better writers so that was concerning that we would see things like ChatGPT immediately being abused by students to undermine the real purpose of their education and teachers begin to notice fairly quickly because it’s pretty obvious as a teacher you know what your students are capable of doing and when they hand in work that is far beyond their capabilities in a short amount of time you naturally want to wonder why? So, teachers were able to figure out what was going on very quickly and then we all went and looked at ChatGPT and realized just how big of a sea change this really represented. I think that it’s an opportunity as well as a challenge. What I see in AI right now and this is in just in the last you know twelve months that I’ve watched, the capacity of AI change, the functionality and its applications in the classroom begin to grow and you know in a sense metastasize faster than I think teachers or students can really anticipate and utilize these changes. So I’m excited about what this means but I also think there’s a lot of pitfalls that we’re going to run into along the way and I don’t really don’t see many ways to avoid it either.

Husena
Yeah, and I think that whole idea of avoiding it. It’s you know, frankly speaking I don’t think it is something that can be avoided. Ah it would be silly for an educator to think that you know I’ll keep my students away from it. Students are smart doing going to find a way to use it one way or the other and it’s something that’s growing every day.

Tyler
Well and they should, and they should use it right? It’s going to be part of their lives and in education you’re always wondering how can I prepare these students for what they need in a real life situation post-secondary school post whatever educational situation they’re in you want you? The task is to get them ready and they’re going to be using AI because people are already using AI in the business world and in the professional world.

Husena
Exactly it’s going to be a part of their daily life. So prepare them for it rather than avoid it. I think that’s the idea here which really brings me to the next part of the conversation here which is you mentioned that there are pitfalls, of course we know that. But there must be also ways that we can use AI to help tailor learning experiences for students and then also to keep in mind that we need to address the potential for AI to worsen educational inequalities. So, what are your thoughts on these.

Tyler
Yeah, yeah, this is the conundrum. This is the real challenge. You know it’s like when you see AI and what it can do for students, it really, I think in a sense gives pause to what we’re already teaching in schools. You know, critical thinking, reading skills, literacy skills, writing skills. All of these things are going to be fundamentally challenged by AI in a very short amount of time to the point that you know when students are asked to write and analyse and reflect the question is going to become why AI is going to be able to do that for me.
And there’s really no answer to that to say well no, we want you just because it’s good for you that falls flat with every student you’ve got to really reinvent the need for them to learn these traditional essential skills as I would see them in an AI environment.
But why do they need to know how to write if AI is going to be able to do it better than they can and with a click of a button. I mean I’ve heard that you know content as we know it is going to go to zero that’s a phrase. I’ve heard a lot about how basically the cost or the price or the input to create new content is going to fall to 0 and so students are going to be able to create wildly wonderful things with a very little effort now. As an educator how do I judge that, how do I evaluate that, how do I challenge them to grow in that, those are questions that I think we’re still working on.

Husena
Which is fair and I think there is a lot that teachers might have already dealt with while it’s not necessarily related with AI technology in itself has evolved in a way that teachers have had to deal with it AI is yet another turning point in the use of technology in the classroom. I think I mentioned to you about that I teach math and this is not necessarily related to AI but I was teaching the topic of money to a student who really did not want to learn it and I asked her why, and she said you know honestly we’re just going to be tapping our card, why do I need to know about change and why do I need to know about what the note even looks like and those were valid questions. But at the same time, you know, just bringing her back to why it is important to know, how to calculate money even if you’re going to use a card for everything. She was very young. She was maybe grade 3. She probably didn’t understand you know the impact of learning about money in a bigger sense because just because you tap a card doesn’t mean you need to know where that money is going right? You know you need to know if you got everything back that you needed to get back for example so these are all things that teachers have deep been dealing with since all of these were created which is years ago I mean credit cards were created very very long time ago. So I’m sure that this is yet another thing that teachers will have to deal with but it’s not impossible to and it is more important than that it is important to get students to understand why they need to be ahead of AI. In fact, they need to think vetted in AI they cannot rely on AI to do all their work for them.

Tyler
Oh, absolutely no I totally agree. In fact, yeah I mean this is something I was talking about with some teachers the other day you see one of the courses I teach is twelfth grade civics. So, I was with the other twelfth grade teachers and we were talking about what’s this semester going to look like. You know because we’re trying to kind of align our so our teaching and we started talking about our usual activities. Our usual lesson plans, our usual projects etc. But then we started talking about AI and it occurred to me that you know we could rewrite the entire course just around how AI is going to affect civic education or the elements of civics. For example, I said you know we could just go through the first 10 amendments to the constitution and have every student just say all right amendment one. Your question is how is AI going to impact our rights under the first amendment in the next eighteen to twenty four months go and research it and feel free to use AI to research it but don’t just rely only on AI respond to what AI says about what AI is going to do to our first amendment rights in the next eighteen to twenty four months and then you go on to amendment 2 amendment 4 amendment 5 and that alone could be a course in itself because.

Husena
I love that.

Tyler
I don’t think a lot of people much less my students actually understand how bad AI is going to affect not bad, but how widespread the effect of AI is going to be on just our rights in this society within the very short amount of time we’re talking like between now and the next election and that in a sense would be something that students need to know because my students are going to vote in the next election and they wouldn’t know otherwise they’d actually have to go out and do fresh research some critical thinking some analysis and they could use AI to do it.

Husena
You know, I love how you said that you should think about how to respond to what AI is suggesting. I think that is important not to just take what results you get from AI at surface level really think about what is being conveyed to you through AI to think about whether that is you know, truly what is going to happen. There’s a lot of predictions that AI makes you know to have those ability to have that ability to think about it more critically I think that’s important for students to do.

Tyler
Well and it’s not just important, but it’s also a part of the challenge to see here the other side of this coin is when you know, when you see AI is coming and you know it’s going to be a tidal wave of change for the lives of these kids for all of our society in every way shape and form. What education fails to do is, it fails to be proactive about these things right? So, if I were to go back to that example of rewriting my civics course curriculum based upon AI and how it’s going to affect say the 10 amendments, first 10 amendments to the constitution, I couldn’t do that because the way.
Traditional public education works is it’s very reactive and it’s very aligned with what everyone else is doing. Teachers are under a lot of pressure to do the same units that other teachers are doing so that all students will have a common experience as they go through school so they don’t just get one teacher’s interpretation of civics and another teacher’s interpretation of civics that every student who’s taking civics is getting the same experience in that course which therefore necessarily mutes innovation and change.
So when something like AI comes along and you want to take advantage of the opportunity to get your kids ready for the coming tidal wave of change if you really can’t, there’s a lot of pushback. There’s a lot of why you are doing it differently than everyone else.

Husena
I can totally relate to that, and I loved how you compared it as you know proactive versus reactive it’s true. There are more reactive actions that are being done by teachers rather than proactive and I think this actually brings us to the next part of my conversation with you which is really about thinking about the role of teachers because in a world with AI tutors for example, what would you see as the most valuable role for teachers in the classroom.

Tyler
Okay. Right? So AI tutors are really interesting and what that’s going to look like, I think is not necessarily what we imagine a traditional tutor to be if anything AI is going to rewrite the definitions of all these roles and so an AI tutor might actually be a more effective educator than an in-person board certified teacher like myself simply because the AI is going to have much more detailed and intimate knowledge of the student that I will have the chance to gather within the few months that have them in my classroom. These AI are going to know the students better immediately because of the sheer amount of data they’re going to have about their students and they’re going to be able to track monitor and adapt to their growing learning needs over the course of their time with the student much faster and much more effectively than any human being could possibly do now. That doesn’t mean that human beings aren’t needed in the classroom. Students as we can tell from the pandemic effect students need that human connection but do they need a national board certified teacher with 2 master’s degrees in 20 years of experience? I don’t think so. What I think AI tutors are going to do is that they’re going to become the better teachers and the students are going to maybe need an aid a counsellor, an assistant in the room. You know the human being who can help them with their emotional needs. But even that even their emotional needs of the students. Ultimately I think might even be better addressed by personal AIs that will again have more intimate and complete knowledge of the students. So, in terms of teachers in the classroom I think they’ll always be a need because it’s not one size fits all but I think a lot of what the teaching role has traditionally been will be fundamentally changed and taken over by AI.

Husena
That’s a really interesting perspective. You know that you mentioned about teachers being more of an Ed with the AI Tutors kind of taking Forefront. That’s there’s a lot of fear right now in education that is there going to I mean am I going to lose my job, what are your thoughts on that?

Tyler
Yeah, yes I think it’s true. I think in a very short amount of time we are going to see drop off in the need for new teachers which may be actually a good thing because no one is becoming a teacher right now. The effects of the pandemic, no one is going into educational programs. Educational teacher programs are shutting down around the country and frankly school districts are struggling to find anyone to fill these jobs and so AI might be coming along at just the right time for districts and just the wrong time for teachers because it’s going to be easier to meet the needs of students with AI than ever before. And you’re not going to necessarily need to have all these qualified highly trained highly educated individuals in the classroom. You know I don’t I think the adjustment’s going to be swift and it’s going to be dramatic, but it’s also not just going to be education. You know if educators can be replaced by AI, so can doctors, lawyers, accountants and other white collar professions and I’m not the first to say that. I mean this I’m just passing this along I’ve heard this from a variety of sources and what I don’t think is being said is that this is coming in a matter of months. Not years.

Husena
That is certainly an interesting way to look at it and I don’t disagree I’ve heard that too. But you know there is one more role in education in a student’s life which is that of a parent right.

Tyler
Yes.

Husena
So, we have spoken about how AI is changing a student’s life. We’ve talked about how AI has changed teachers life now. When we talk about parents, how can parents play a role? How can they support their kids in this you know tech-driven learning environment and do you have any practical advice for parents who might find all of this really overwhelming.

Tyler
Yeah, no I think we have a crossroads situation here. Not just with parents but with students because AI is going to be so enticing to a student because like I said AI is going to know them better than even their best friends. AI is going to have that the ability to show compassion, understanding, sympathy, empathy, that a student might not get in the same way and in the same amount that they would get from friends and family. And so I think the crossroads is that students might actually just withdraw it to their AI. You know they’ll have an AI for everything they want educationally, personally whatever they need. There’ll be an AI there to sue them, to nurture them, to be their friend and that might be too enticing. Students might withdraw into their AI world and if I was a parent and I am a parent, I’d be terrified about what that could do to a young person and so if you know parents need to of course you know be involved as good parents always are and encourage an outer experience and a non online AI experience for their children and it might require you know a radical rethinking of what education is from in the classroom to experiential learning out in the world where AI isn’t necessarily going to be applicable. We might need to get out of the classroom more and students and teachers and parents might need to be more engaged in an experiential learning model than they would be a traditional book and paper model in the classroom.

Husena
That is a very valid point. The idea of a student withdrawing into their AI, just the thought of it frankly, speaking scares me, and I’m not even a parent but you know the truth of the matter is that if learning in a traditional way is no longer relevant and a student needs to understand how to apply their learning outside of the classroom and that becomes the focus and that makes perfect sense for us to try to shift you in the world of education I think that’s a yeah.

Tyler
Mean maybe just to put a little finer finish on what I was saying is that we’ll have the ability with AI to do unbelievable things with students and students will have unbelievable ways to show us their understanding like I said when content goes to students will be able to make video content that we could only imagine from Hollywood they’re going to be able to make that with just the push of a few buttons. You know they’ll be able to for example, create a video reenacting the signing of the treaty of Versailles with the you know the big 4 leaders after World War one and they’ll be able to you know with the help of AI, create a dialogue a script a trend you know of this interaction to display in a very wildly creative way their understanding of the events that ended that time period that, that event of world War I, which would be amazing and I can’t wait for that to happen. And that’s what we want. We want students to be able to express rather than just withdraw and so what the challenge for teachers and parents and students will be is to see this as an opportunity to be more outgoing in their expression in their understanding rather than more withdrawn as we saw with cell phones where everything’s online rather than in the real world. But I think that’s the crossroads students could easily do what they did with cell phones and just have an online digital world that they live in only much more damaging than cell phones have been or they can use this as a way to show the outer world you know everyone around them what their life-lived experiences really mean to them.

Husena
I love that so much and I love something that you said about expression like using AI to express so that it’s outward and it’s not withdrawn but talking about that the idea of expression it brings up the topic of the ethical aspects of technology. So, what are your thoughts on some ethical considerations that we should all keep in mind whether you’re a student whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re a parent with regards to AI and tech in education and what mistakes should we try to avoid in this digital year.

Tyler
Right? So, with ethics that’s a really important one because I think we don’t have a lot of traditional education around ethical education. You know a lot of that’s expected to be done at the home. And so you know with school we just expect that students won’t cheat or plagiarize but when they do there are some responses that we’ve traditionally had and those tend not to be institutional responses. They tend to be teacher by teacher. So, some teachers will handle cheating and plagiarism one way other teachers will handle in another way depends on the student depends on the situation but with AI students are already using it to write their college applications or their college you know essays which is essentially unauthentic. It’s essentially not who they really are teachers are already seeing students handing in major research papers that are you know, mostly written by AI which really undermines the true value of what they’re being asked to do. So I think we really needed to start teaching ethics around ai so that students know that it’s okay to use Ai but you have to use it in a way that’s honest, open and transparent so that you know you tell everyone here’s what the Ai did for me here’s what I did using the AI. And that there’s no shame in being honest about hey you use this tool. So just tell everyone use this tool. We just have to teach them like this is how you this is how you honestly and openly take credit for your work and how you honestly and openly explain how you did it using Ai if that’s the case.
Then we can you know then get more narrow and say well you should only use AI for this amount of your work or in this aspect of your work so we’re just going to be teaching going forward all the new ways that AI is going to affect students. But the sooner we get out in front of this and start saying we need a code of ethics around AI and an expectation that we’re all going to hold them to then students will know and they will be easily held to that standard. I’ve always felt that if you set your standards high and you set them clearly students will rise to them and they will conform to them but without that any clear you know direction students are naturally going to want to try to cut corners and seem you know more proficient than they really are.

Husena
That is definitely a valid point. You know, I was thinking about all you said about being able to teach this in the classroom. So, a student you see the idea of plagiarism for example, is not something that is new.
Right? The internet has been there for a while students have a lot of information on the internet which they can find they can use some of it. They may use some of it wholesale. For example, the problem that lies with AI is that is it plagiarism if it’s not it’s something that the AI has said right? It’s not something that I’ve copied from someone else. No other human being is involved in this situation. So is that plagiarism that is a question and I think these are type of questions that need to be asked in these type of learning environments when we’re talking about that when we’re talking about ethics in using AI in the classroom.

Tyler
So, like if I were to go back like an example might help here. So, you know I already explained how how AI could be used as the curriculum in my civics course you know how is AI going to affect the first amendment.
In the next eighteen to twenty four months you know if that’s one inquiry question for my students well together in class I would type that question into an AI whatever it might be and the answer would come back immediately and the answer would have multiple facets to it.
Because of course the first amendment has multiple facets to it all right? So that would be required for my students to show me what the AI told you the answer was and from then from that point on show me how your own response to that would be like if this is how AI is going to affect this aspect of the first amendment. You explain to me what we should do to best anticipate and adapt to that impact in your own words with other sources maybe included that guided you to that answer so show me the AI work but then show me your own work and explain how it’s different so and authentic, right? So that’s one way I think you could use AI in a classroom.

Husena
That’s amazing and I actually just read about this in some classrooms in Denmark that is actually an approach that they are taking where you use AI and then you write your own you talk about the differences. I think that’s a really wonderful approach of using AI effectively in the classroom on the student and but there is also one other aspect that I want to quickly cover here which is on effective methods for training educators to use AI tools in the classroom. So you know what are your thoughts around it especially for those who might not be as comfortable with this type of technology.

Tyler
Well, I don’t think that’s much of a challenge from the tools that I myself have used in just the last twelve months they’re amazingly convenient AI tools do the difficult work that teachers have had to do for well since there’ve been teachers in terms of you know creation of rubrics, creation of test questions you know, breaking down videos into usable formats. AI can do a lot of things; it takes teachers a long time to do on their own. And so, it’s a huge time saver which is a bonus that every teacher is looking for so that they can be more present for their students and they don’t have to constantly be grading, constantly be preparing, constantly be planning. AI can really take up a lot of those tasks that teachers might not want to waste their time doing so that they can be in the room with their kids and share their personality their understanding to make the what the AI is helping them do really come alive to a young person. So, I don’t think they’ll be a hard sell with educators because the tools even the rudimentary tools that are available free right now from a variety of different sources are so convenient and useful in ways that I think every teacher is going to jump on and even if they’re not quick to adopt technology, these tools are so easy to use. It only takes a few moments for them to figure out exactly how they want to use them.

Husena
Yeah, and while AI, I think has been trained, it’s taken a long time. I think for any of these companies to train the AI to churn out information or churn out questions like you said or assessments or videos or anything that a teacher can use in the classroom, this was all the training from human anyway, I don’t think I mentioned this to you before but I did actually work freelance for OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

Tyler
Wonderful.

Husena
A few years ago, in 2018 or so and my main role was just to write thousands and thousands of word problems to feed into the machine. So as a math educator you know obviously, I have the experience with that and so the AI then. Now whatever I’m not saying that I’m not in credit for any other word problems that the AI churn out now. But what I’m saying is that alongside me, I’m sure there were many others who contributed to this and we are human beings who contribute to the learning, the machine learning which now is churning out questions or other learning material curriculum like you said that teachers can now use in the classroom. So, there is obviously some thought process something that the creators of this AI have taken into account before releasing it. So yeah, I mean yeah, are it is it definitely is. I also want to say it’s just an exciting time in general for all of us.

Tyler
Yeah, it’s pretty, so it’s pretty exciting.
You know I really think that’s important for us to stay on that exciting side of it. I think a lot of times you know because it’s such going to be such a radical change the initial reaction might be oh I’m afraid of how this is going to affect things and I’m not going to want to do it.
But it’s really exciting for what this could mean for education in the future if we see it as an opportunity and not as an obstacle.

Husena
Yes, I love that treated as an opportunity and not as an obstacle you know our conversation has been really enlightening Tyler, but before we conclude, I’m curious about your thoughts on the classroom of the future. You mentioned a little bit about this about role of the teacher in the classroom of future. But let’s imagine that how might it differ from what we see today if you could paint us a picture.

Tyler
Right? So, I think it goes back to this idea of content going to zero right? You know the cost or the effort of content being just available at the tips of our fingers. I can imagine that students are going to be able to be transported to a variety of different environments at least in terms of you know history which is so much about storytelling but all teaching is really about storytelling and so if I wanted to put my students in a moment in history and present to them a decision that they need to make and to have them explain it in their own words I can do that in ways that are going to be really exciting and really easy to do with AI you’re going to be able to say I need to create a 5 minute video starring Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney in which they are playing Stalin and Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano, Roosevelt debating what to do the after the nazis surrender at the end of world war two at the Tehran conference and AI will be able to put together that 5 minute scene and I’ll be able to review it adapt it and then show it to my students in a very short amount of time in a way that’ll be interesting and fun and high quality presentation. We’re talking like Hollywood level movie presentation and I’ll be able to do that on my own in a matter of moments and then I’ll be able to present my students with that conundrum that critical thinking moment and use that as a discussion starter use that as a short answer writing prompt use that as a debate topic use that as ah as a as a prompt for them to do their own video content video expression starting stars of their own with their own answers. I mean it’s just the world is going to be so open to creative responses in the future for education both from the teacher and the student it’s going to be enormously exciting, and it doesn’t mean we’re going to give up on textbooks and primary sources and math problems word problems. The traditional things we’re used to it just means we’re going to have an unlimited amount of possibility on how to present that in a more creative visually enticing and thought-provoking way.

Husena
I 100% agree. It’s definitely going to be very exciting to see that picture that you have painted. It would be so amazing to see that in the near future as long as we all stay open to this.

Tyler
But it’d be amazing to see Brad Pitt as Winston Churchill.

Husena
Yeah, yes, it will. So as we wrap up this episode, I just want to express our heartfelt thanks to you again Tyler. Thank you so much for coming on this episode with us and for sharing your passion, your knowledge. You’ve definitely brightened our journey through this fascinating world of AI impact on education.

Tyler
Oh, it’s been absolutely wonderful. Thank you for bringing me on. I really enjoyed it.

Husena
Thank you so much. For our listeners we’ve travelled together through a landscape of knowledge and wonder, and we hope you have found inspiration in our conversation. We’re concluding for now, but the conversation doesn’t have to stop. Keep sharing your thoughts on social media using our favorite #MagicEducatorInsights. Your insights and reflections add magic to our podcast. Thank you once more for tuning in and until next time keep exploring, keep learning and keep those curious minds buzzing. Stay magical.