Do Educators Need to Adapt Pedagogies for AI-Driven Learning?

Generative artificial intelligence is changing the traditional education scene, but the most important task at hand for educators is to ensure a positive impact from this disruptive technology.

AI is unavoidable in education

AI is expanding into every field as everyone wants to be ahead of the curve, and this rapidly evolving technology is here to stay, and you have to adapt to it whether you are an educator or serving in banking, marketing, healthcare, or whatever.

Speaking of educators, many are optimistic and are focusing on the benefits that technology can provide in education, but there are also many who fear that using it in classrooms could accelerate unethical practices like cheating and violating academic integrity.

AI literacy is essential for educators and students alike and can be beneficial for proper usage of this powerful technology. 

Teachers are required to envision the benefits that it could potentially bring to the table for students, schools, the education ecosystem, and society as a whole before deciding on ways to utilize digital tools.

Generally, students seem to be a step ahead of most teachers as they are already using these tools, for example, ChatGPT, for their homework and assignments, which is a cause for concern for educators because they may divert from the learning objectives of the assignments for which they were intended in the first place.

For example, if students are just prompting a chatbot to write an entire essay that was intended to hone their writing skills, then that will obviously miss the mark and cut down on educators’ efforts. 

Educators will have to adopt new pedagogies

So educators must reevaluate their priorities about what they want students to learn, and then they can revise the curriculum accordingly to incorporate practices that can increase the use of cognitive processing in students.

In today’s world, processes and information change rapidly and on a continuous basis, so researchers are questioning if narrow skills and memorization of topics are any more useful. 

At the same time, pedagogies that help students become flexible learners are favored because they are more capable of accommodating unexpected circumstances.

There are many ethical concerns about AI, including gender bias and racism, as they are deeply rooted in AI. 

For example, last year a study was conducted about the same subject in image generators, and it was concluded that when the model was asked to generate images of surgeons, the majority of the images only showed white male surgeons; women and black ethnic people had very low appearances. Educators think that this same bias can infiltrate academics if not addressed properly.

The absence of federal laws or them being not enough to regulate AI use is also a major concern, as without the required regulations, it is difficult to prevent the misuse of technology and set limits as to what is ethical for students and also for educators, for example grading a student’s work with AI, as it has to be used as a tool, not a decision-maker.