AI puts education on brink of seismic change - expert

With AI poised to conquer England’s classrooms. Should we be excited or concerned for our children? And what might it mean for teachers? We spoke to Dr Pete Atherton, a lecturer in the LJMU School of Education, who has a forthcoming book coming out on the subject of generative AI.

Pete recently told business magazine Fortune, that education is “on the precipice of a paradigm shift” but what does he mean by that?, and does it pose a threat or an opportunity?

“We have been wedded to the Victorian industrial model of education, which is predicated on deference, conformity and standardisation in a world of fragmented social structures, individualism and diversity.  Behavioural issues feed into this perception of a need for conformity,” Pete says. “Until now it hasn’t been radically changed by technology with many schools simply bolting tech onto old structures.

“You could say tech is going one way and pedagogy is not keeping up but AI is effectively handing us a chance to look afresh at everything.

“It’s not so much a question of how can tech help us achieve the same old goals, more one of how it can help us revise those goals, perhaps think why are we learning what we are learning?”

50 ways to use tech in the classroom

Pete can scan the AI horizon from a privileged viewpoint, being an English teacher and one-time technology sceptic and also an acknowledged expert and advocate of the potential of machine-aided learning.

Author of 50 Ways to Use Technology Enhanced Learning in the Classroom (Sage, 2018), he is quick to add that although the paradigm shift is coming, we are not quite there yet.

“I’m often struck by how excited pupils get when technology, such as Kahoot, is used in the classroom but excitement is not learning. We always have to ask: ‘to what extent is a new platform aiding learning; is it actually a distraction?”

Pete’s research into the impact of tools like Chat GPT’s Creative Writing Coach has found that having a dispassionate ‘machine’ judging creative output is often better received than ‘criticism’ from a human. He says the last thing you want is a teacher who, either through words or body language, communicates that they think your work is rubbish.

“Too many times we’ve allowed the coach or teacher to be the problem and we don’t want to repeat the case with AI. This tells me we need to ensure that this time we can coach the tech and vice versa.”

Personal Trainer

Instead, he sees AI more of a personal learning assistant than a replacement teacher.

With AI already being introduced as a core skill in many higher education courses, not least at LJMU, Pete is currently looking at how platforms like Chipp.ai and Notebook LM can help students’ cognitive skills outside the classroom. In the short term he sees AI working as a tool to enhance the dialogue between students and their human teachers.

"AI can democratise education and make it more equitable" - Dr Pete Atherton

Longer term Pete doesn’t envisage AI replacing teachers lock- stock and barrel. He says while AI has proven more effective at giving feedback and marking, people will always be better at acting in loco parentis, showing empathy and also championing their students. “I don’t think a student would ever value a computer saying they’re awesome over a real person saying it,” he says.

What technology might give rise to is the erosion of social and class structures around education: “Having access to platforms like Chipp can democratise education and make it more equitable.

“To date, if you wanted your child to target a top school, like the Bluecoat in Liverpool, you’d more than likely be paying for private tutors, a factor which immediately creates a two-tier system. Free tutors ‘albeit one on your phone or PC’ could revolutionise this.”

Keir Starmer's push for growth

Having spent a decade or more working with both student teachers and the tech community, the people actually creating and marketing these technologies, Pete has done his best to be dispassionate. If he finds people in schools resisting tech, his advice is always to keep an open mind.

“It’s really important young teachers don’t self-identify as ‘not-techie’ –because people can infer they are not ready or apt for the contemporary classroom,” he says.

Equally, as the AI ed-tech space develops, supported now by Keir Starmer’s AI push for growth, Atherton cautions that Big Tech companies could use their resources to dominate the education space, without considering what’s best for teachers and students nor end users.

“We should all be worried about the tech giants having a field day, particularly in this era of public austerity. It won’t be schools buying millions of pounds of technology, it’ll be firms and sales people providing the tech for free to the point where they are ‘hooked’ on it.

“This predatory relationship is not likely to change any time soon.”

Shiny tech meets actual people

One drawback, he notes, is that those tools tend to unleash access to the unfiltered internet, whereas specialized ed-tech tools are engineered to draw information only from approved, verified sources and come complete with other safeguards to, for instance, ensure they aren’t generating racist or sexist content. There’s also the question of instructing both teachers and students in how to use the new tools and ensuring there’s not an overflow of new programs taking over the classroom.

“In reality, we still have a real disconnect between the shiny showroom of a future world and the real world inhabited by actual people.

“Overall, probably my stance is that we should try to not think of AI as either a threat or a opportunity but to consider it a potential partner.” 2025 will see a proliferation of AI agents, which can complete and replicate tasks autonomously. Is now the time to harness AI so that educators can be true agents of change?