Could teachers be replaced with robots?

[noblegiraffe]

This is increasingly being suggested as a solution to the critical lack of teachers, particularly at secondary school.

My general position is that we saw how pupils are not motivated to learn when left to their own devices at home over lockdown. As a teacher, a lot of my day is spent getting kids to do the work, in various ways.

This blog by Becky Allen "Will students feel motivated to work for the AI-masters?' is an interesting discussion of the issue. It refers to Animal Crossing making you feel guilty for neglecting your characters, the Duolingo owl encouraging you to keep a streak and so on. Personally, I find closing the rings on my Apple Watch the only thing that has motivated me to do regular exercise.

But what these things all have in common is that they are things that the student has opted into in the first place. Presumably there was some initial motivation on their part that just needs a nudge to keep going.

An important part of teaching is building relationships with the pupils on a human level. Can a student build a relationship with an AI? Well, definitely. But on a widespread enough scale for it to be more effective than humans interaction? Not sure.

However, would it be better than no teacher? Most likely.

https://rebeccaallen.co.uk/2024/01/13/artificial-incentives-will-students-feel-motivated-to-work-for-their-ai-masters/

Which is why luckily why naive 16 year olds can’t vote.

@noblegiraffe I think Labour have solved the problem as it relates to computer science. Their policy is that it isn't necessary for anyone to learn computer science anymore because AI will be able to write code meaning that humans won't need to. If they apply these ideas to a few more subjects they should be able to use AI to remove the need for teachers without even having to use AI directly.

Not sure what happens to anyone who wants to understand how AI technologies actually work. Perhaps that will be the preserve of a small Californian based elite.

The answer to ‘we can’t find maths teachers’ isn’t ’let’s Bring AI’ or ‘let them teach themselves’

We can't find the teachers and the kids are having to teach themselves.

Mark McCourt (big in Maths education) saw years ago that there was a problem with a shortage of maths teachers and his solution was to create an entire out of the box maths curriculum called Complete Maths which would essentially teach the teacher how to teach each topic as well as give them the resources to teach it (so a list of misconceptions, how to address them, links to other topics etc).

Unfortunately even adults who would be willing to deliver that highly structured programme are in short supply.

Anyone who has read my threads over the years know I would rather the solution be that teacher supply was fixed! But we are possibly past the point of no return.

But what is interesting about his subject choices at A-level is that they are the ones where it is going to be very difficult to find teachers to teach them to him.

He might want to be taught by a person, but our computing A-level students are having to teach themselves because there's no teacher.

So would he prefer an AI teacher or no teacher?

Good point, although in his case he has applied to a boys' grammar school for 6th form and will almost certainly get in. I teach in the equivalent girls' one down the road. They are the only grammar schools for miles around and neither school has trouble recruiting (yet).

My point is, I doubt many people (least of all students) would actually prefer AI over real teachers, in spite of some of the spurious and frankly downright ignorant reasons proposed for that preference on this thread. The only valid reason for using robots/AI in my opinion is to cope with lack of teachers or to free up teacher time.

@FrippEnos made an excellent point about watching practical subjects disappear. AI cannot teach good lab skills, or food tech skills, or how to play a musical instrument. Even remote learning with an actual human teacher can't do that. We'd lose the ability to teach practical and vocational subjects entirely.

He might want to be taught by a person, but our computing A-level students are having to teach themselves because there's no teacher.

Also, I was in the bottom set in maths about a million years ago, and we had the analogue version of "robot teachers". We "taught" ourselves from books while the teacher invigilated, when she could be bothered to show up. No questions allowed.

Ok, so instead of sitting with a book, you are sitting with a laptop. But now, your 'book' can talk to you and you can have a conversation. Anything you don't understand, you can tell it and it will explain, and it can take as long as you need to understand. it can break the topic down as far as you need to go, to build your understanding. If you learn verbally, it'll talk and explain and reiterate until you do get it. If you prefer to learn by images, pictures, visual cues etc then it will provide them. And you won't have to ask it for this - it will have learned how you, individually learn best and it will learn more about you every time you use it. It will 'know' the entire curriculum inside out. It will know all the previous exam questions that have been asked in each sibject and at every level, and will be able to tailor your learning programme to give you the best chance to pass whatever exams you'll sit. It will be aware of any learning difficulties that you might have and it will have been trained on huge amounts of data on the best way to work with you, individually. And it will be available to you 24/7, whenever you want it, round the clock. And of course you'll be able to work in groups - what's to stop the AIs working together to find the best groups to set up online, either by ability, by age, by progression, whatever?

The resources that the big tech companies have access to is astounding both in terms of content and $$$. E.g. Google owns YouTube: that means they have access to all the fantastic teaching and learning content on there and can use it to train their AI how to be a teacher. And the ability of AI to connect with teenagers and become a trusted friend / counsellor etc is already galloping ahead. AI personal assistants / friends are just around the corner.

Obviously we aren't there yet, but it's coming. The social challenges of this are immense.

AI could MASSIVELY help with this.
The exam boards and AI in schools could could offer a huge choice of books to study on screen, with schemes of work and resources to go with each book, and automated assessment.
No physical books.

There would need to be several megatons of money spent on the IT equipment.

A big part of the teachers job would be to prevent students damaging or stealing the equipment. (Plus relationships, safeguarding, being a role model, and all the other human things already mentioned).

I've been thinking about the bits of my job that are time consuming:

marking ~ AI can already mark the simple stuff, but it would need a lot of training to be able to mark and provide feedback to a question which requires nuance. And I need to do the marking to be able to plan the next steps.

following up issues - we already have some automated emails for things like incorrect uniform. More time consuming is wading through emails that aren't for me - although, we've been using quite effective email groups for years. And I have quite effective rules in my inbox.

behaviour management - could AI get Bob to get his head off the desk or stop poking Fred with a pencil? If it could, brilliant.

report writing - we don't do many but ChatGPT could probably write them. Would parents accept that?

data input - I'd love it if that could be outsourced, but I don't know if that would work

pastoral support - I don't have a pastoral role at all but I probably spend at least a couple of hours a week 1:1 with students for various reasons. Could a robot do it? Probably. Should they? No.

Yes, the advantages are obvious. It's the disadvantages that bother me. They would bother kids too. Like I say, my ds is super techy, very into computing, loves his pc (a bit too much). He also did very well in lockdown (got through all the work by 11am every day), is not a massively communicative person, and really doesn't need much help with school work. Yet even he recognises the value of having a real teacher.

I don't think the advantages are obvious. Maybe in a superficial way, but not beyond that.

We've invested in an online platform for English homework which my colleagues rave about because they no longer have to mark the homework. Which sounds good, but actually the material is poor quality.

I know AQA is currently researching how AI might be used in assessment but the reality is that's a long way off.

Kids can get all info online.
They dont need library books for studying just give them the wifi password.
Socialising done online or after school.
Schools are they just day care centers now.
Robot teachers there are less likely to lose their temper at children.

I think i would love to have had a robot teacher for my children or for myself when i was at school.

Robot teachers there are less likely to lose their temper at children.

They also won't care about the children. Or ask them if they're ok if they are upset. Or have any relationship with them. And do you think children are going to magically behave themselves for a robot? Do you really think learning is just 'getting info'? If so, I'm sorry that you clearly didn't have a very good experience of school yourself. Lots of children don't, unfortunately. That's not how it should be, but I really don't think robots are the answer.

Robot teachers there are less likely to lose their temper at children.

They can’t change nappies, wipe noses or notice yawning, tears or bruises.
They can’t mop up tears or notice if a speech referral needs to be made.
They can’t sort out playground friendship disputes or check if a child seems hungry.

In secondary, I would suggest AI for all suitable subjects (on-screen, not a physical robot), coupled with a human in the room to supervise behaviour and watch out for children who needed emotional help or permission to step away from the screen (e.g. the 14 year-old who isn't working because her boyfriend dumped her).

No more than 3 hours per day of AI on screens, in 40-50 min blocks through the day. No more would be needed if the AI was good enough at individual and bespoke teaching.
The rest of the day doing PE, art, music, dance, cookery, woodwork, electrics, gardening, car-mechanics, drama, science-lab work, etc. All optional with some physical exercise compulsory. All the stuff that children are intrinsically motivated to do. Could be done in larger groups (50-ish) with two or three adults in the room: a lead teacher plus helpers. Would need physically bigger rooms that most schools currently have.

Crucially, the school needs a behavioural / pastoral workforce at least as big as the actual teaching workforce, who can be on-call and arrive at any classroom to remove a disruptive child within 3 minutes.

In primary - real humans all the way, with a bit of AI on the side to prepare them for secondary methods

I'm not convinced that AI would have spotted the child in my lesson on Friday who was decidedly not okay, in spite of assuring me they were.

@Whistle67
We are already on the way there in some academies where every PowerPoint for every lesson is fixed and predetermined and there is no flexibility to adapt to the needs of the class.

I agree that the teacher must have ultimate control over what they teach and how, including full flexibility.
But I can see huge advantages to centrally-prepared, professional-standard resources, lesson plans and PowerPoints.
OMG the hours and hours I wasted just putting PowerPoints together!

The only ready-made handouts were tatty and dog-eared photocopies in the filing cabinet, or sometimes saved digitally if I was lucky.
There were schemes of work provided that were mostly useful, but the accompanying resources were missing, not suitable or just not up to scratch.

As long as the teacher had autonomy to skip slides, make additional slides, make their own handouts, ad-lib, go off on tangents, adapt the lesson on-the-hoof, etc., then centrally-prepared high-quality resources and schemes of work are definitely the way to go.

Which brings us back to AI: professional-standard, centrally provided software that would take most of the preparation drudge out of the job, leaving the teacher free in the evenings to do the assessment / marking, and in the classroom to actually form relationships and concentrate on teaching the children that couldn't understand the AI's explanation.

So if robots/AI replace teachers, or in some subjects, who will deal with safeguarding concerns, bullying, children who have had a bereavement. Do referrals for SEND needs etc?

I think it may be bad from a safeguarding point of view. It’s school staff who notice bruises, dirty clothes, hungry kids etc!

Yes it could work if you want a classroom full of mini robots with no personality.
What about SEN what about bullying what about the kid with the short attention span that needs to be jollied along or drift off the lesson.
My kid wouldn't be going to a school where this sort of garbage is considered normal 🤷‍♀️

I think it will be possible to replace my job with AI far sooner than it will be possible to replace teachers.

If few people will have jobs in the future, do we still need schools? OK, learning will still be a good thing, but will most people still NEED to attend school for more than a decade? And who would fund this?

DS (Y8) had a French teacher for only 5 weeks this school year. The rest of the time it's been on duolingo. It's not ideal.

The rest of the day doing PE, art, music, dance, cookery, woodwork, electrics, gardening, car-mechanics, drama, science-lab work, etc. All optional with some physical exercise compulsory. All the stuff that children are intrinsically motivated to do.

You think all kids are intrinsically motivated to do practical stuff? That's certainly not my experience.

AI will be helpful because it will be bespoke, at the moment teaching, by necessity is one size fits all, with AI it can be tailored for you child's personality, issues etc. nonetheless I see it as a supplement to teaching not a replacement.

I'm not sure that you understand the complexity of what you are suggesting.

Although saying that I would love to see how AI would cope with multiple conflicting ECHPs.

For close critical reading you need physical books.

https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/tech-and-the-brain/2020/reading-on-paper-versus-screens-whats-the-difference-072820