Aiming Higher for Education
Photo by Max Goncharov on Unsplash
From the moment they are born, children enter a world that classifies them by comparative metrics, height and weight, development goals, language acquisition and pre-defined indicators of intelligence. They are measured against systemised notions of normality.
Then young people enter a world of learning and education that defines them by more specific criteria, through testing and exams, measured against their peers within stratified educational boundaries.
And while there are some more open learning approaches such as Montessori or Steiner schools, the vast majority of young people experience a defined curriculum, determined when different political and social philosophies met educational thinking at a particular time in history.
Most core education structures separate children by age and attainment levels and deliver a subject-based common curriculum with standardised testing. This systemised approach has remained unchanged for a very long time and I believe this represents the opposite of developing the creative potential of each individual.
Recently, many people, including myself, have looked at new developments in generative AI and the possibility they provide for creating individual pathways of learning, tailored to and designed by the learner and their unique skillsets, interests, passions and diverse characteristics.
These tools present the opportunity to meet the student where they are in their own educational and life journey, with an approach to curriculum and assessment design that adapts to a person’s passions and interests that could be uniquely stimulating for the individual. AI allows the student to become their own prompt-engineer, designing scenarios that generate unique learning journeys chosen by them.
This is a wonderful opportunity, but how can we prepare and support students and educators to benefit?
And can the core culture of educational and social systems change to realise this potential?
As Peter Drucker has said, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’. For the established cultural traditions of education, generative AI is a threatening disruptor. It could help to develop creative learning approaches, tailored to the strengths of each student, but it could equally be crushed by blanket bans and resistance.
Now that GTP 4.0 is released, GTP 4 will be available to most students without a subscription. This is the next revolution.
Education’s primary focus on AI thus far has been a fear of plagiarism and the challenges of detection.
This fear comes from having an educational culture where the exchange of knowledge remains dominant. Students are the consumers, judged by their capacity to interpret taught curriculum knowledge within narrowly defined assessment methods. GTP 4 will render much of this assessment useless - but is that an AI problem?
We often hear the phrase ‘guide on the side, not sage on the stage.’ to define the preferred role of the teacher or lecturer. In reality, however, most schools, universities and online courses deliver with an educator leading a class where students listen, respond, and sometimes enact a task that has been set for them.
Education is still predominantly focused on information exchanges. In schools, universities, corporate presentations, and online learning platforms there is commonly a figure offering up knowledge for consumption, collation, retention, regurgitation and, occasionally, application. This can often limit opportunities for creative learning.
We seem unable to break away from the educational dependency model that has defined our approach to learning for a long time. We know there are more effective forms of learning, but we are only rarely able to implement them. AI offers an opportunity, but fear of change could stop the education culture from benefiting.
The transformative opportunities which AI offers requires a fundamental culture shift in the idea of what education is.
Students’ creativity should be nurtured from the start, so they can be the innovators we need for an uncertain future.
Fear of AI, and the threat it represents to conventional approaches to learning dominates the narrative and captures the headlines. Perhaps before we can adapt to this new technology for enhanced learning, we have to ask ourselves what education is really for?
I believe that helping students to be successful, getting careers and living meaningful lives is very important.
But our educational systems are not designed to develop the true potential of any individuals who go through them, because the consumption model commonly positions the student as receiver rather than creator. Inflexible standardisation requires students to conform to defined structures, which crushes creative thinking.
We need a new culture of learning from the earliest moment that we start to engage children. This would be the beginning of a lifelong learning pathway to empower individuals to be the creators of value beyond automated activity. This is how we avoid the fear that some have that AI will destroy human creativity whilst overlooking the fact that many of the educational systems we have achieve this destruction already.
We need to help students reach an understanding that the most creative learning comes not from an external authority, be that a human teacher or an AI LLM, but from inside of themselves.
Future Horizons Education is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge AI technologies designed specifically for the education sector. Our innovative solutions empower students, educators, and institutions to fully realize their potential. By integrating artificial intelligence with bespoke data-sets, we enable enhanced learning experiences and improved educational outcomes.
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