AI & Education: Generative AI & the Future of Critical Thinking

AI is changing everything, including the way we learn. I'm an adjunct professor and the first time I saw what a chatbot leveraging generative AI could do, I knew immediately there was no point in assigning essays to my students to write because I'd only be grading chatbot output and I don't need the practice. Most educators took the position that AI should be prohibited from student use entirely on their assignments because it would do all the work and the students wouldn't learn anything. Well, many have also tried to use AI to detect AI, but it's inevitable that chatbots will keep improving to the point where there's nothing left to detect. I'm thinking we need to do the exact opposite and figure out how to embrace this technology and use it to elevate education. I'm hoping others will start thinking this way too. Look, the train has already left the station. We can either get on board or get run over by it, but standing in front and yelling stop isn't going to work. So in this video, I'm going to cover the pros and cons of AI in the classroom with an eye toward how we elevate learning to a new level. Let's take a look historically at the past. Some of the skills that we used to think were really important and we trained all students on this kind of stuff versus what we're doing today because there have been some changes. For instance, there was a time when we taught all kids how to write in cursive. Now, if you're above a certain or below a certain age, you can't even read what I just wrote because you were never taught that. And my handwriting is not all that good anyway, but that goes to another subject that was often taught in my grandparents' generation, penmanship. That was actually a course and that was something that was considered of extreme importance. Now, we don't care so much about that. Some people might still care about cursive, but the bottom line is we're not teaching it because it's not as critical because today most of our writing is not done by hand, it's done on computers. So how good your penmanship is doesn't really matter all that much, does it? And how about in the past, we also used to really value the ability to memorize. And I'm still suffering PTSD from having to remember the periodic table of elements, all 106 of them as there were at the time when I did it, had to know where all of them were placed, how to spell them, all this kind of stuff. Well, why would you learn something like that and spend so much time of your scarce educational, instructional time trying to memorize stuff that now you could just look up in a database? Understand the principles because understanding the periodic table and where the elements are located tells us something, and that is interesting, that is important to know. But remembering the precise number of all of these things when it's so easily looked up, maybe not so much. How about another skill that we used to drill students on? I certainly had to do this a lot, but these complex arithmetic problems like this, you're going to look at that and spend a lot of time and drilling and doing and doing and doing versus now we just use a calculator. Because once you've learned how to do that, then there's really not a great deal of value in just continuing to do it and do it and do it. If in fact, in virtually every case, we're just going to go use a calculator anyway. So I'm not saying don't learn the fundamentals, but once you've proven that you know how to do arithmetic, we know now that in classes, certainly in college, people are expected to use calculators. Or how about something like map skills, reading a map? Okay, I think that's still a useful skill, but it's not nearly as important as today, the ability to use a GPS, because that's how we're getting around with things. Again, you could talk about, yeah, but what about if the GPS system fails? All that kind of stuff is true. But I'm just saying how much time, we have only so much time to educate students. Do we want to educate them on these things or these things? And so we need to really start thinking about if we're responsible teachers, this is what we're trying to prepare our students for. How well prepared are they for the future? Let's say we train them in these skills. How well do these skills project into the future, into the job markets, into the things that they're going to need to know every day? Or look at it a different way. If I had students that I have just produced, how well prepared would they be if they couldn't do these kinds of things? Not very well at all. So again, there's a lot of things. Another way to look at this would be if you were hiring someone, if you were trying to get an employee, would you want an employee who was really good at this or really good at that? These are the tools of the future, really of the present. And the tools of the future are going to be things like AI. So the question is, do we want to continue to drill students in doing things this way or do we want to prepare them to use the tools of the present and the tools of the future? Okay, so we've talked about skills that were really important and taught in the past that we don't spend as much time or at all on in the future. And in the present, the kinds of skills that we know students need to have in order to survive in the world that we're in now, how about as we move into that era of AI, what kinds of skills are going to be really important there? Well, I'll give you some broad picture ideas, big picture ideas of what's going to be important here. And I think one that's really important is flexibility. It's a mindset of flexibility and adaptability. We cannot always think inside the box that we've always been in the past. AI is going to present new possibilities for us and we need to also be creative thinkers. We need to be able to think outside that box in many cases. But we're also going to have to, in addition to being flexible and adaptable and creative, we're going to also have to govern all of that with critical thinking skills. So AI will in fact do some things, say some things that might not even be true. So we're going to have to be the judge. It might also, for some of the things that it says are true, they might not actually be useful. So I need to decide, is that really something I want to do? Have I really thought through what all of the unintended consequences might be if we were to do that particular thing or do it in that particular way? So literally the critical skill is critical thinking. Okay, so those are the things that I think we need to really be preparing the students of today for living in the world of tomorrow, things like this. Now they're very general, but what are the advantages that AI brings to the table in terms of teaching? Well, one of the things it can do is just-in-time education. So if I need to learn a particular subject right now, I need obviously to have a general background if I'm going to understand the concepts, but if I just need a refresher or if I need to know something about a particular topic, I can go into an AI, into a chatbot, and I can get a decent education on a lot of these things, at least at a fairly high level, just-in-time, just when I need it, which is really pretty nice. This is also a really big one. As a tutor, we could use AI to do personalized education. Not every student thinks the same way or learns in the same way or responds at the same speed. Some get mathematics instantly. Others, it needs to be explained in different ways. An AI-based tutor would be infinitely patient and would keep trying other alternatives. Even when the best teacher might run out of patience or be pulled in a different direction because they're trying to manage an entire classroom, well, an AI personalized tutor could work with that student and really figure out what kinds of things work for them and what don't. Doesn't obfuscate or eliminate the need for a teacher, but it just allows an augmentation there. Another one, and I think this is really good, is it could serve as an editor. So if I write something, well, we already have spell check and grammar check and things like that, and the AI systems can do that sort of stuff as well. So they could be the editor and point out where I've made mistakes and maybe even teach me, oh yeah, that grammar was wrong and here's why and here's the rule for it and on and on. That would be really useful. It would save a lot of teacher time in terms of grading some of those things and teachers then could focus more on the content of the papers maybe that they're grading. Accessibility is a big one here also. Not everyone has the same ability to process information in the same ways. Some people that may have disabilities, then a system that's able to translate text into speech or other things like that or images into speech, then that could be particularly useful for someone. So helping someone that might have certain learning disabilities and overcoming those accessibility challenges, AI could be a big winner for us in that. I told you I'm an adjunct professor. One of the things that would be nice is if AI could serve as my teaching assistant. It might help me with lesson planning. Right now, I use a TA to do some of the grading and some of the more mundane tasks which are really helpful to me. It frees me up to think more about content and about actually teaching. What if I could use an AI to do some of those kinds of things? Other things about practicing. Let's say I want to put some skills into practice. Well, some things that would make this more practical if we've just talked about a particular kind of idea is maybe a debate. Having students prepare for a debate using AI, but then when they want to actually do and prove that they know something, well, then they're going to actually have to defend it themselves. But this would be a good research assistant. So it can't necessarily do all the thinking for them. We don't want it to do that, but we want it to suggest ideas. And then they can decide which ones they think they would put forward in the debate, for instance. And it can do drills in practice. Like if a student wants to take a position, they could debate with the AI and have it find holes in their arguments and make them hone their critical thinking skills, the way that they think about systems, the way they think about the things around them. It also could create more equity in education. Right now, if you think about it, certain students are very fortunate in that they have certain resources. Money is a big factor in this. And the ability to afford the latest and greatest tools, the latest and greatest teachers with the best education and all of these kinds of things, that's not available to every single one everywhere in the world. But if we had an AI system running in a cloud, all someone needs is a browser, and they can be anywhere as long as they have internet access, they have access to this kind of educational resource. So imagine what help that would do for teachers who are taxed in the classroom, and they've got way too many students and they can't give the one-on-one time that they'd like to, but they could leverage tools like this, and all of a sudden, even in parts of the world where these capabilities, this technology would not be available, now all of a sudden it is. And then it allows a teacher, and this is a big one I think for me, to focus more on the big picture. I want to be able to look at what are the main learning objectives that we have here? And if I can focus on that and focus on more one-on-one instructional time with students, I think that's a lot better educational experience. So here we could see, I think, where AI could be a big help in the classroom if we leverage it well. Now, what are we going to need to do though if we're going to teach this? I think we're going to need a good deal of AI literacy. We're going to need to be able to understand what AI can do and what it can't do. What are its limitations and what are its possibilities? So it's not always clear to everyone what those things are, but that's going to be critical and understand what things it may tell you it can do, but it really is quite limited on those. We also need a lot better understanding of ethics. What are the right things to do with this? Because one of the things I emphasize in my classes to my computer science students is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. Think about unintended consequences. Think about responsible AI, trustworthy AI. What will be the impacts of this on society? Okay, let's take a look at some practical examples of what I've been talking about just kind of in general. So we'll look at some, rather than have students write a ton of essays from scratch, which still a good, useful activity, but maybe we spend a little more time having them do debates where they're going to have to leverage their critical thinking skills that I told you were so important. Also, being able to communicate. So their communication skills will be tested in this and their ability to do quick thinking on their feet in the moment. That's something also, they won't be able to rely on the AI to give them the example, but I want them to be able to think on their feet and not everything allows the sort of time for deep thinking. So we could do some of that kind of stuff. Again, I'm not saying we should never do essays, but I'm saying some of these other things might be more important going forward. Instead of doing memorization, well, we're going to spend that time on principles. So for, again, the example of the periodic table, instead of memorizing where every element is, realize that certain parts of the table have certain characteristics and other parts of the table have certain other characteristics. And what does that mean then if we try to mix different things? To me, that's a lot more interesting kind of situation. It leads to more higher order thinking and it's a chance to do more applied knowledge and things of that sort. And then another example that I already gave is the example of complex arithmetic. Instead of doing a lot of that, if I'm not spending all of my time doing long division, I can spend more time doing algebra and calculus. And that's a lot more interesting stuff. There's a lot more possibilities for analysis, for logical thinking, for reasoning and things of that sort. So again, there are college courses where there's no way you could get through the class if you were having to do all of the arithmetic by hand. So we're not going to require that. We really want them to learn these kinds of things because that lets us accomplish a whole lot more in the end. AI is not some passing fad that will go away in a few years. It's here to stay. What boss is going to say, do this, but by the way, don't use AI? I'll help you with the answer. None. The jobs of the future will require the best tools in order to stay competitive. So the education we give students needs to assume that and leverage it. If we want our students to be able to use AI in the workplace, they should learn how to use AI in the classroom first. Otherwise, we're training the next generation to live in the past, making them ill-equipped to compete in the modern era of AI. And as you can see from my penmanship, or lack thereof, that's a future I'm definitely looking forward to.