Alpha School, a pricey private school with campuses nationwide, uses artificial intelligence to instruct students. AI schools have been praised by the Trump administration, but researchers say there's limited evidence the model works.
Which is obvious to anyone who has read theory about how we learn.
The right amount of struggle is critical to learning. When I tutor or teach, I don’t just give them the fucking answer, which is what AI does. With AI, there’s no tolerance for confusion or having to process things - it’s just type in the question and copy/paste the answer.
There’s just a fundamental ignorance of learning here with the push for AI - as if knowledge is just a list of facts.
Yeah the teaching training I got was “lead” them to the answer but don’t give it to them.
If they get stuck. Guide them towards reflecting on the information they can use to get the answer.
Then they learn how to consider and reflect on knowledge to find conclusions.
Another big one is making it personally relevant.
“When did you experience or witness this in action?”
Or
“What’s an analogy that you are familiar with that helps you understand this phenomenon?”.
I can’t see AI guiding students through something like that.
I was teaching a class and talking about changes in brain O2 use for a novice vs an expert at a task.
A student had mentioned in their introduction they played chess. So I used that example. My brain would use more oxygen to play chess (because I’m not very good or skilled) than his brain. But this higher activation of my brain isn’t a sign of more brain power but the lack of skill. (I was illustrating how interpreting fMRI data isn’t as simple as it looks since increases in activation (O2 use) isnt always a “good” thing).
Incorporating a student’s experience into the example made it easier for all the students in the room to understand how it would work.
It’s amazing how much knowing about Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, or stupid TikTok memes can win over a kid. I love doing unit conversion with Vbux or whatever.
Recent fun one was helping a kid design a poll about favorite SCP’s and having a discussion about population versus samples.
There does seem to be a stagnation in culture in that most of my middle school cultural touchstones are still there. I can hold my own in a conversation about Naruto because I’ve been around people obsessed about it for two decades. My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy are still popular.
Which is obvious to anyone who has read theory about how we learn.
The right amount of struggle is critical to learning. When I tutor or teach, I don’t just give them the fucking answer, which is what AI does. With AI, there’s no tolerance for confusion or having to process things - it’s just type in the question and copy/paste the answer.
There’s just a fundamental ignorance of learning here with the push for AI - as if knowledge is just a list of facts.
Yeah the teaching training I got was “lead” them to the answer but don’t give it to them.
If they get stuck. Guide them towards reflecting on the information they can use to get the answer.
Then they learn how to consider and reflect on knowledge to find conclusions.
Another big one is making it personally relevant.
“When did you experience or witness this in action?”
Or
“What’s an analogy that you are familiar with that helps you understand this phenomenon?”.
I can’t see AI guiding students through something like that.
I was teaching a class and talking about changes in brain O2 use for a novice vs an expert at a task.
A student had mentioned in their introduction they played chess. So I used that example. My brain would use more oxygen to play chess (because I’m not very good or skilled) than his brain. But this higher activation of my brain isn’t a sign of more brain power but the lack of skill. (I was illustrating how interpreting fMRI data isn’t as simple as it looks since increases in activation (O2 use) isnt always a “good” thing).
Incorporating a student’s experience into the example made it easier for all the students in the room to understand how it would work.
AI can’t do that kind of thing either.
It’s amazing how much knowing about Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, or stupid TikTok memes can win over a kid. I love doing unit conversion with Vbux or whatever.
And 6-7 has been a godsend to teaching math.
I think it has to be more challenging to teach younger people because you have to keep up with all that.
But yeah if you can speak their language, that’s a huge advantage.
Recent fun one was helping a kid design a poll about favorite SCP’s and having a discussion about population versus samples.
There does seem to be a stagnation in culture in that most of my middle school cultural touchstones are still there. I can hold my own in a conversation about Naruto because I’ve been around people obsessed about it for two decades. My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy are still popular.