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Improving skills and competences of VET teachers and trainers in the age of Artificial Intelligence

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AI and Ed: pitfalls but encouraging signs

Graham Attwell 85 Views 0 Comments , , , , , , , , , ,
Joahna Kuiper / Better Images of AI / Little data houses / CC-BY 4.0

In August I became hopeful that the hype around Generative AI was beginning to die down. Now I thought we might get a gap to do some serious research and thinking about the future role of AI in education. I was wrong! Come September and the outpourings on LinkedIn (though I can' really understand how such a boring social media site became the focus for these debates) grew daily. In part this may be because there has now been time for researchers to publish the results of projects actually using Gen AI, in part because the ethical issues continue to be of concern. But it may also be because of a flood of AI based applications for education are being launched almost every day. As Fengchun Miao, Chief, Unit for Technology and AI in Education at UNESCO, recently warned: "Big AI companies have been hiring chief education officers, publishing guidance for teachers, and etc. with an intention to promote hype and fictional claims on AI and to drag education and students into AI pitfalls."

He summarised five major AI pitfalls for education:

  1. Fictional hype on AI’s potentials in addressing real-world challenges
  2. Machine-centrism prevailing over human-centrism and machine agency undermining human agency
  3. Sidelining AI’s harmful impact on environment and ecosystems
  4. Covering up on the AI-driven wealth concentration and widened social inequality
  5. Downgrading AI competencies to operational skills bound to commercial AI platforms

UNESCO has published five guiding principles in their AI competency framework for students:
2.1 Fostering critical thinking on the proportionality of AI for real-world challenges
2.2 Prioritizing competencies for human-centred interaction with AI
2.3 Steering the design and use of more climate-friendly AI
2.4 Promoting inclusivity in AI competency development
2.5 Facilitating transferable AI foundations for lifelong learning

And the Council of Europe are looking at how Vocational education and Training can promote democracy (more on this to come later). At the same time the discussion on AI Literacy is gaining momentum. But in reality it is hard to see how there is going to be real progress in the use of AI for learning, while it remains the preserve of the big tech companies with their totally technocratic approach to education.

For the last year, I have been saying how the education sector needs to itself be leading developments in AI applications for learning, in a multi discipline approach bringing together technicians and scientists with teachers and educational technologists. And of course we need a better understanding of pedagogic approaches to the use of AI for learning, something largely missing from the AI tech industry. A major barrier to this has been the cost of developing Large Language Models or of deploying applications based on LLMs from the big tech companies.

That having been said there are some encouraging signs. From a technical point of view, there is a move towards small (and more accessible) language models, bench-marked near to the cutting edge models. Perhaps more importantly there is a growing understanding than the models can be far more limited in their training and be trained on high quality data for a specific application. And many of these models are being released as Open Source Software, and also there are Open Source datasets being released to train new language models. And there are some signs that the education community is itself beginning to develop applications.

AI Tutor Pro is a free app developed by Contact North | Contact Nord in Canada. They say the app enables students to:

  • Do so in almost any language of their choice
  • Learn anything, anytime, anywhere on mobile devices or computers
  • Engage in dynamic, open-ended conversations through interactive dialogue
  • Check their knowledge and skills on any topic 
  • Select introductory, intermediate and advanced levels, allowing them to grow their knowledge and skills on any topic.

And the English Department for Education has invited tenders to develop an App for Assessment, based on data that they will supply.

I find this encouraging. If you know of any applications developed with a major input from the education community, I'd like to know. Just use teh contact form on this website.

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AI Competency Framework for teachers

Graham Attwell 285 Views , , , , , , ,

At last week's Digital Learning Week 2024, UNESCO formally launched two AI Competence Frameworks, one for teachers and the other for students. These frameworks aim to guide countries in supporting students and teachers to understand the potential as well as risks of AI in order to engage with it in a safe, ethical and responsible manner in education and beyond.

Above is a copy of Tim Evans popular poster  summarizing the AI Competency Framework for Teachers. He says "I've taken the extensive, lengthy report and attempted to gather my take on the 10 key points, and areas of focus." Tim has also made a copy of the poster available on Canva.

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AI: What do teachers want?

Graham Attwell 146 Views , , , , , , , ,
Yutong Liu & Kingston School of Art / Better Images of AI / Talking to AI / CC-BY 4.0

A quick post in follow up to my article yesterday on the proposals by the UK Department for Education to commission tech companies to develop an AI app for teachers to save them time. The Algorithm - a newsletter from MIT Technology Review picked up on this today, saying "this year, more and more educational technology companies are pitching schools on a different use of AI. Rather than scrambling to tamp down the use of it in the classroom, these companies are coaching teachers how to use AI tools to cut down on time they spend on tasks like grading, providing feedback to students, or planning lessons. They’re positioning AI as a teacher’s ultimate time saver."

The article goes on to ask how willing teachers are to turn over some of their responsibilities to an AI model? The answer, they say, really depends on the task, according to Leon Furze, an educator and PhD candidate at Deakin University who studies the impact of generative AI on writing instruction and education.

“We know from plenty of research that teacher workload actually comes from data collection and analysis, reporting, and communications,” he says. “Those are all areas where AI can help.”

Then there are a host of not-so-menial tasks that teachers are more skeptical AI can excel at. They often come down to two core teaching responsibilities: lesson planning and grading. A host of companies offer large language models that they say can generate lesson plans that conform to different curriculum standards. Some teachers, including in some California districts, have also used AI models to grade and provide feedback for essays. For these applications of AI, Furze says, many of the teachers he works with are less confident in its reliability. 

Companies promising time savings for planning and grading “is a huge red flag, because those are core parts of the profession,” he says. “Lesson planning is—or should be—thoughtful, creative, even fun.” Automated feedback for creative skills like writing is controversial too. “Students want feedback from humans, and assessment is a way for teachers to get to know students. Some feedback can be automated, but not all.” 

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What does it mean to live in a world with AI?

Graham Attwell 597 Views , , , , , , ,

This is the third in our series of expert interviews about AI and education.

Linda Castaneda is Associate Professor Educational Technology at the Universidad de Murcia in Spain where she teaches preservice teachers and other professionals related to learning and undertakes continuing professional development activities for teachers and university professors.

She has recently led a research project for the European Joint Research Centre around the European Frameworks and tools for technology for teachers and trainers:

  • DigCompOrg) - supporting the development of digital capacities within educational organisations;
  • DigCompEdu – the European framework for supporting teachers and trainers in the use of technology for teaching and learning;
  • SELFIE and SELFIE Work Based Learning tools for the self-assessment of readiness of both organisation and individuals for using technology for teaching and learning. m

The study involved the analysis of the use of the Frameworks in Spain to support educational digital transformation, seen as one of the European Member States with a deeper and more extensive use of the frameworks and tools, to learn from its practical experience. The aim was to extract lessons on how to adapt, apply and use the frameworks and tools to digitally transform the Spanish educational systems and to increase the educators´ digital competences together with its educational organisations´ digital capacities.

This report highlights the importance of DigCompEdu as a framework that goes beyond the instrumental view of the digital transformation of education, helping institutions to anticipate, design and structure it. SELFIE is seen as a fundamental tool for school awareness and digital planning. Furthermore, the results consolidate the evidence of diverse approaches to digital transformation, especially considering the context of Spain, where the competence of education is at the regional level.

Linda is also involved in two projects devoted to Foster DIGCOMPEDU in University Teachers, nationally and internationally.

Graham Attwell interviewed Linda Castaneda in September 2003.

Competence Frameworks

“The major problem is how to engage participants in the process of educational digital transformation. Teachers' Training is not meaningful. Students are not motivated. Teachers and trainers complain about how useful the programme is. A reason may be that the Framework of Competences – DigCompEdu is being taken as a curriculum. But before it is useful and can be applied, its contents must be localized, the jargon needs to be translated into something close to the day-to-day experience of teachers – it needs to be based on their practice and to be important for them. At the moment many teachers are not appreciating how useful the Framework could for their area of education.

We need to translate the global framework into something which they can take ownership of. We must realise that different territories, as well as different areas of knowledge – e.g.Engineers and lawyers– have little in common. Translation is needed to make it meaningful with them.

Institutions and governments are backing the use of the Frameworks because they consider a way to be connected with a global –European– vision about the future of education, and also because they are supported by European Union money. It is all about politics and impact.

Even though frameworks are a clear approach on what to do and the perspective where to go, they come from the Anglo Saxon epistemic tradition about learning and education, which focuses on course and time-based learning. Education –with a wider approach– should include informal learning from outside the institution.

Additionally, DigCompEdu is mainly based on Blooms taxonomy, but it largely ignores the issue of metacognition and agency – the power to enact self-directed learning. It is not in the framework but is in discussion of the framework.

Digital transitions

Digital transition in education is too often focused thinking on budgets and governance, not on approaches to teaching and learning. We try to implement as many devices as possible but without challenging poor pedagogical approaches. We saw the problems in that approach in the Covid emergency. Everything about digital transformation is about teaching using a digital device or online. The most advanced technology most teachers –specially at the university– know is Turnitin. This needs a professional approach, teachers are professionals of education.

The Challenge of AI in education

The challenge of AI is what it means to day-to-day work, to the human everyday life. What does it mean to live in a world with AI.

Now we have a very restrictive curriculum. There is a growing debate over how to reshape courses. We need to rethink the purpose of education for each case, and the role of teachers in that new definition of education– e.g. what is the point of teachers especially in technical education –, it is crucial redefine human roles. We need to reconfigure the role of people and think in broader terms. For instance, why do we have a shortage of teachers, can we really replace them with AI?.

This, as everything regarding transformation of education and learning, requires a strategic approach. It is not the responsibility of some, but a systemic issue that ask everyone to have a critical perspective and to redefine the elements of the institutional structures.

News 

UNESCO AI Competency Framework for Teachers

Graham Attwell 1048 Views , , , , , , , , ,
Last weeks UNESCO Digital Learning conference attracted attendees from over the world and significant press and social media interest. Much of the focus was on AI and education, especially around the UNESCO publication of what they say is the first-ever global Guidance on Generative AI in Education and Research, designed to address the disruptions caused by Generative AI technologies. A recent UNESCO global survey of over 450 schools and universities showed that less than 10% of them had institutional policies and/or formal guidance concerning the use of generative AI applications, largely due to the absence of national regulations. The UNESCO Guidance sets out "seven key steps for governments should take to regulate Generative AI and establish policy frameworks for its ethical use in education and research, including through the adoption of global, regional or national data protection and privacy standards. It also sets an age limit of 13 for the use of AI tools in the classroom and calls for teacher training on this subject." Perhaps more significant for those of us working on competences for teachers and trainers in using AI for teaching and learning (as in the AI pioneers European project) was the publication of the UNESCO AI Competency Frameworks for Teachers and School Students. In a draft discussion document they say the "AI CFT responds to the stated gap in knowledge and experience globally and offers initial guidance on how teachers can be prepared for a growing AI-powered education system." They go on to explain:
The AI CFT is targeted at a wide-ranging teacher community, including pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators and trainers in formal, non-formal education institutions, policymakers, officials and staff involved in teacher professional learning ecosystems from early childhood development, basic education, to higher and tertiary education.... The purpose of the AI CFT is to provide an inclusive framework that can guide teachers, teaching communities and the teacher education systems worldwide to leverage the educational affordances of AI, and develop the critical agency, knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to manage the risks and threats associated with AI. It promotes the responsible, ethical, equitable and inclusive design and use of AI in education.
The draft discussion document provides a diagram of a High-level Structure of the proposed AI Competency Framework for Teachers.
Further diagrams provide progression routes and more detailed contents for the Framework. The main criticism in social media was not so much the content of the Framework, but that the Framework is based on Blooms taxonomy, with some asserting that the taxonomy is outdated and doubts being raised as to whether teachers would be able to follow an orderly progression route around AI. UNESCO Have asked for feedback on both the Framwork for Teachers and the Framework for students on an online form.