Why parents might not be ready for AI in the classroom – VentureBeat

We previously looked at the ways artificial intelligence may disrupt the traditional classroom. From blended learning to AI tutors, algorithms are poised to reshape the way teachers engage with their students. But AI may do more than influence classroom experiences. It has the potential to replace classrooms entirely. No one can reliably predict the degree of impact AI may have in education, but one thing seems clear parents should expect to deal with more complexity and greater responsibility in overseeing their childrens education.

Parents are responsible for nearly every aspect of their childrens development. Health care, cognition, socialization, behavioral modeling parents do it all. The one area in which they exercise less control is in formal education. They make decisions about whether to send their children to private or public schools or to home school, oversee homework sessions, and volunteer for the PTA. But they leave the actual teaching to the teachers.

History shows that new technologies upend existing paradigms, usually in incremental ways. But artificial intelligence is unlike any technology weve encountered. AI could radically alter learning environments the schools themselves. What will it mean for parents if their children can learn just as well, if not better, from the comfort of their homes instead of in traditional classrooms?

Before we can answer that, we have to address something more fundamental: What is it that we expect of education? And, in particular, what is it that parents expect? Consider these three statements about education, which capture the range of expectations:

Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave. John Ruskin

British parents are very ready to call for a system of education which offers equal opportunity to all children except their own. Lord Eccles

The value of an educationis not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks. Albert Einstein

Depending on how it is structured, education is expected to provide a child with a craft, career, or trade; a foundation of knowledge; the development of culture; the capacity to learn; a hunger for knowledge and wisdom; or good behavior. That is a pretty long list of expectations. So long, in fact, that there is no school that can actually deliver on everything that might be expected of it.

Rather than try to define what education should be, lets simply acknowledge the most common elements of peoples expectations. In general, we expect schools to achieve or facilitate:

1) Preparation of children for a productive life and career

2) The transfer of an agreed-upon base of knowledge

3) The development of a childs understanding of their own culture

4) Socialization of a child around behavioral norms

5) Creation of habits supportive of lifelong learning

The American education system is built on standardization. Unless students attend Montessori or other philosophically driven schools, most learn from generalized lessons delivered in generalized classrooms. When theyre old enough, they begin taking standardized tests to determine how well theyve kept up.

Of course, many students fall behind as they struggle to grasp concepts that are presented in ways they dont understand. They may be ill-suited to the standardized school environment, or their cognitive development may take place at a different rate than that of their peers, either faster or slower.

Artificial intelligence offers an alternative for these children in the form of personalized learning systems that adjust lessons, reviews, and activities based on individual skill levels and strengths. The technologys adaptive customization around individual capabilities also offers the opportunity for students to advance at the pace most appropriate for them.

Given evidence that AI-powered intelligent tutoring systems outperform traditional classrooms, AI could have a democratizing effect on education not to mention reducing the need for large centralized physical schools. With the capacity to constantly adapt to an individual childs capabilities and circumstances, AI learning systems allow what in manufacturing is called mass customization.

But if children are learning at their own pace, in their own way, what happens to our existing one-size-fits-all approach, where children are collected in one large place and put through a standardized curriculum? No one knows the answer yet.

But taken to its logical extreme, if there is less reason to send children to large, centralized, physical schools, parents may begin serving as the educational gatekeepers. Theyll also have to facilitate behavioral and social learning opportunities. And, of course, theyll have to grapple with questions of how to prepare their children for a rapidly changing workforce. AI is likely to give us choices, societally and as individuals, which we have not had before and for which we have not considered the full ramifications.

With AI in the mix, it seems likely that our educational choices will broaden, and the context of education is likely to change quickly, as well. A World Economic Forum report on the future of jobs predicts that 65 percent of students starting elementary school today will eventually work in jobs that dont exist yet. If a core aim of education is to groom students for career success, how do we do that when we dont know what careers will be relevant when they come of age?

We dont know how the impact of AI will play out. It is worth recalling the excitement and exuberance in the early and mid-1980s, when personal computers were first introduced into school systems. There was great anticipation that computers would have significant positive impacts on students educational outcomes. But while computers in schools changed education practices and experiences, data shows that they did not make a meaningful difference in educational outcomes, at least in the aggregate. National scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests for graduating seniors have barely budged in nearly fifty years.

All of which is to say that it is premature to make firm forecasts of how AI might change educational outcomes. We can, however, think through the logical consequences of reasonable assumptions. AI-enabled education might give parents much more control over their childs education than does our current one-size-fits-all approach. But with AIs potential comes more complexity, consequentiality, and personal accountability. Parents may find themselves facing entirely new and complicated decisions related to their childrens education.

If we indeed move to a system of education that optimizes individual learning experiences and outcomes, then we might expect better outcomes overall but also potentially greater variance in outcomes. Moving away from a factory-style, standardized educational model might also drive higher levels of knowledge acquisition. Right now, education is still strongly a community activity. What happens if the administrative focus changes from large regions to local neighborhoods and becomes centered around self-organizing groups of parents with shared goals? Greater local control but also, perhaps, less normalization across larger groups.

Following through with this logic, here are eight possible implications of the adoption of AI in education that parents and society at large may have to address:

AI-driven learning is a transformative solution with the power to change the way kids view the world and how they interact with the people around them. A child who learns via AI technologies could gain untold benefits and skills intellectually, socially, and emotionally. But this method is likely to demand increased parental oversight, including time-consuming direct supervision of kids AI learning activities. Parents may have to make tough decisions about their careers to oversee their childrens educations, or about where the family will live to access the best resources and support for this new type of learning.

AI has the potential to change the quality, delivery, and scalability of education. But it may also change forever the role parents play in their childrens education.

Additional article contributors: Charles Bayless, Mehdi Ghafourifar, and Brian Walker.

This article appeared originally at Entefy.

Alston Ghafourifar is the CEO and cofounder of Entefy, an AI-communication technology company, introducing the first universal communicator.

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Why parents might not be ready for AI in the classroom - VentureBeat