The Education Secretary has suggested that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be used to mark pupils work and devise lesson plans, freeing teachers to teach.
According to The Times:
Gillian Keegan spoke about the “transformative change” AI could bring and likened it to innovations of the past, such as electronic calculators and Google.
Addressing the Education World Forum in London, she said: “AI could have the power to transform a teacher’s day-to-day work. It can take much of the heavy lifting out of compiling lesson plans and marking. This would enable teachers to do the one thing that AI cannot and that’s teach, up close and personal, at the front of the classroom.”
Keegan suggested that AI could be used to “radically reduce the amount of time teachers spend marking”, or “as an assistive technology to improve access to education”.
While she praised schools and universities that already used AI, she concluded: “We have a lot more thinking and learning to do as we understand the potential here. I’m committed to working hand in hand with expert educators . . . as we do that thinking.”
Her speech represents a positive take on AI, which is bound to disrupt education along with many other sectors.
The technology can write content to a high standard but can also produce teaching materials and critique writing, opening up a new resource. Thousands of teachers have been using an AI company to help them to write reports.
The education sector has been scrambling to adapt to the technology, with some seeking to ban AI while others, like Keegan, urge its adoption.
Alleyn’s, a private school in Dulwich, southeast London, has introduced “flipped learning”, where research is done at home in preparation for assessment and discussion in class.
Many believe that the writing fluency of ChatGPT and the difficulty in detecting AI writing will mean a reversion to exams for assessment.
The New York City department of education has banned all use of AI in its schools. Professor Bhaskar Vira, pro-vice-chancellor for education at Cambridge University, said that this was not sensible.
He told the student newspaper Varsity that educators had to adapt learning, teaching and exams to the inevitability that it would be used.
Cambridge has said that content produced by AI could be considered academic misconduct.
Bill Gates recently wrote that “in the next five to ten years, AI-driven software will finally deliver on the promise of revolutionising the way people teach and learn”.
