Edtech: the future of education?

The July 22 issue of the Economist covered the wide-ranging and fascinating issue of edtech and machine learning. This revolution is spurred on by advances in artificial intelligence (AI), as well as cognitive science. I will attempt to summarize and highlight the salient points.

What’s interesting is that “adaptive learning” software has been around since the 1970s, but it hasn’t come to a level of usefulness until now with the advancements in computing power. Momentum has built and now there are many schools, software, systems and people all over the world trying to use edtech to improve teaching, learning and schools.

PROS:

• An upcoming paper in J-PAL by Oreopoulos and Nickow show that most studies of students using adaptive software scored higher than those using traditional means.
• In 2015, the RAND Corporation, a think-tank, found students at 62 schools using high-tech personalized learning made greater progress on test results than students at regular schools
• Students have more freedom and choice but it is not a free-for-all. “There are standards and structure,” says Aylon Samouha of Transcend Education.

CONS:

• If students are put in charge of their own learning and its pace, some may decide not to work as hard and avoid more “challenging” understandings.
• Also, students need to have information and facts in their head (and not just Google) to develop creativity and critical thinking.
• Privacy may be an issue as machine-learning software love to gather data
• Currently much of the funding of these edtech schools comes private sources, such as the investment fund set up by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, as well as Bill Gates and his foundation. A study at the University of Washington concluded that these schools’ “long-term financial stability is still unclear.”
• In 2015, a study of 1200 education meta-analyses found that, of the 20 most effective ways to boost learning, nearly all relied on the craft of a teacher.

SCHOOLS

• Khan Lab School (KLS), California: no homework or report cards; use Khan Academy software; personalized; teachers are tutors and mentors (character building)
• AltSchool (7 in California and New York): founder Max Ventilla, former Google engineer; tablet shows PORTRAIT (student progress in subjects and social skills) and PLAYLIST (access to material and complete work); screen time is 20-30% of day; project work; peer learning; no marking or planning lessons; $27000 per year tuition
• Summit Public Schools (11 in California and Washington; 130 “partner schools in 27 states use Summit software and training): platform built pro bono by Facebook engineers; projects and teacher mentoring (½ day); must master basics before project participation; ⅔ score as well or better in national math average; in 2015, 93% graduated (10% more than national average)  
• Achievement First (34 on America’s east coast): tough discipline; “personalized, digital learning”

SOFTWARE

• ​Mindspark, Educational Initiatives, India: software discovers patterns in real student errors and recommends remedial exercises
• Machine learning programs: ALEKS, Knewton, Teach to One: Math, DreamBox Learning, Siyavula Practice, Geekie, Byju, 17zuoye
• Speech-recognition and generation: Alex (ArticuLab, Carnegie mellon University) is a “virtual peer” using the children’s vernacular

CONCLUSIONS:

Are teachers about to be replaced by edtech? At the moment, no. Teachers, students and schools are all being augmented by this new wave of technology. As well, there are limitations to edtech: improving the argument in a history essay or finding humour in drama class is still a challenge for machines. And as the 2015 study shows, teachers still play the most critical role in student learning. Having said that, as technology becomes more pervasive, cheaper and especially intelligent (AI), it is probably only a matter of time until teachers may need to consider a career change or early retirement.

​

---