This week’s Inland Journal looks at artificial intelligence in the classroom.
For many of us, artificial intelligence (AI) is part of our daily lives. For example, most of Google’s queries return answers from chat bots. AI will play an even bigger role in our lives in the future. This technology is advancing so rapidly that its applications seem endless. However, there are concerns about how humans will use this technology.
We speak with Annie Fritzen Case, professor of teacher education at Gonzaga University.
“I think generative AI provides at least a partial solution to at least two problems or big problems in education. One is that schools are increasingly taking on a set of responsibilities that are beyond what schools and teachers can realistically expect. So schools and teachers are being overburdened with responsibilities.”
Second, teachers are responsible for very large groups of students with very diverse learning needs and rich and diverse backgrounds. Therefore, one-size-fits-all education doesn’t really fit everyone. So Gen AI has the potential to be a tool to make some of the work teachers do more efficient and give them back time to do fundamentally human tasks. ”
We will also speak with Jay Yang, director of Gonzaga University’s Institute of Informatics and Applied Technology.
“I think ultimately it’s about empowering teachers and empowering the human beings who are actually developing the institutions to reshape the next generation of teaching. What we wanted to do was not teach the technology. I don’t even think that every teacher in the program has to have AI technology in place. No, it was about knowing this AI technology. How do you teach it? What do you teach it? How do you evaluate it? How do we help children learn? Therefore, we empower teachers to reimagine education.”
Case and Yang created the AI for Educational Fellowship program to help K-12 teachers learn innovative ways to use AI in education. This program is funded by the Gates Foundation.
