From Chalkboards to Chatbots:
Why Ai Tutor Training Is Education’s Next Flight
I am a frequent traveller and I love to go abroad as often as time and money permits. Flying at 600mph, gazing down at the clouds below, is something myself and my 200 accompanying passengers take for granted nowadays. But was it really so long ago that Leonardo da Vinci was drawing crude sketches of aeroplanes? Well, perhaps yes, but since the inception of the Zepplin at the turn of the last century, air travel has come on in leaps and bounds. AI informs me that an avarage of 1400 flights leave Heathrow alone every day of the week. Each flight is powered and monitored by computerised systems. So, why is it that everyone is so shocked and resistant to the sudden proliferation of AI platforms for education? Surely, the moment the first neanderthal scratched a meaningful symbol with a stick, the outcome was inevitable?
But there is a demand for air travel, I hear you say. There is no need of AI in Education.Teachers are doing perfectly well with computers and whiteboards. Why complicate things? Well… adding and subtraction were once taught by abacus, but would we want to take an abacus on our shopping trips now? Would teachers want to return to the days of blackboards and chalk dust? As a teacher myself, who did not like the messy stuff, I can positively say no! Just because something is new, it doesn’t mean it must be complicated. What it does mean though, is that it needs to be learned if it is to be used ethically and effectively. Teachers are committed to educational growth by the very nature of their vocation. Why resist the opportunity to provide your learners with the chance of an education that is akin to having a personal tutor, but with the social element of the classroom also thrown into the mix?
Gone are the days of book learning in silence. Interaction is what teaching is all about now. Whether it is tutor/class, small group or peer to peer, learning is promoted through the very active communication of ideas. The beauty of AI is that it moves along with your learners in real time. As they respond, AI adapts its level of questioning – either to add fresh challenge or to revise something that the learner failed to absorb the first time round. While educators have a number of tried and trusted teaching tools to reach that Eureka moment, AI has an infinite number of possibilities it can run through until the learner finally ‘gets it’. As AI builds up a picture of the learner’s knowledge, it can fine tune with increasing precision each time it interacts with the learner.
Learners quickly grow in confidence, gain new skills and develop their interests in the curriculum at their own pace, without pressure. Stressed learners can’t learn. It is as simple as that. By reducing the pressure and tailoring the interactions to a learner’s interests, tricky subjects, such as Maths and Science, can be embedded in an entertaining way. If a teacher was to try to do it with every one of their pupils, they would spend their entire working life stuck in the planning stage. AI saves an abundance of time for tutors and teachers all the way along the line. From the early stages of planning, though differentiated delivery, to formative and summative assessment.
AI will always need the teacher, though. You will not be made redundant, as long as you work with it and stay ahead of the learning curve! Your role in overseeing the responsible and ethical use of AI will always be needed. As will your checks and balances against bias, to ensure the inclusion of EAL or SEND learners is also planned for. Finally, as in any well run classroom, the teacher will always have the last word! AI can perform assessments but major summative pieces will always need to have the final judgement of you, as the teaching professional that you are.
AI isn’t a futuristic concept. It is not a passing phase. Although it may be presented in the press as something still in development, AI has already made astonishing inroads into assisting tutors and teachers, as educators. Here at Ai Tutor Training, we have grasped the opportunity to help prevent educators from sleepwalking into a world of AI where you are unable to comprehend the huge number of platforms and learning tools that are out there. We offer you an insight into the cutting edge of AI and our courses are regularly reviewed and refreshed so you are leading your learners, and not the other way around. Better still, they are designed with you in mind. They are direct and to the point and adaptable by you to suit your leaners on an individual or group level. We can offer you a whole new world of capability, using resources which will very quickly become familiar to you. You will soon be wondering how you ever managed without them!
So, embrace the future with an open mind. Progression is the natural way of the world. In the same way that our learners of today can well expect to see air travel extend to space travel, we need to extend our professional development to include the inspired use and management of AI. We can remain in charge of AI, to utilise it to our own convenience and the benefit of our learners. Play with it, learn with it and run with it. You can take part in the future, now.
Get on track with Ai Tutor Training, to Stay Ahead of the Learning Curve.
