Not so long ago Shannon Ahern, a maths and science teacher, could be found working until late at night creating time-consuming resources or worksheets for students of different abilities in her classes.
When one of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools was released, she set it a challenge: create custom-made worksheets for students, ranging from high achievers to those with numeracy and literacy difficulties, on statistics in Formula One racing.
Within moments it produced impressive results that might have taken hours.
“At first, I thought: if a machine can do this in seconds, what am I here for? So I learned as much as I could: reading books, listening to podcasts and doing a course,” she says.
Ahern – who goes by the handle “craic_matamaitic” on Instagram – now shares her resources and ideas on harnessing the power of AI in teaching on social media.
“The more I learn, the more I see how human input, insight and creativity are important to create quality resources,” she says.
There have been other unexpected benefits, personally and in the classroom.
“I knew I needed to look after myself too, and AI has helped cut down on this time, allowing me to focus less on behaviour management and more on real learning,” says Ahern, who teaches at St Declan’s College in Cabra, Dublin.
[ Will AI change education for the better or worse?Opens in new window ]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is radically transforming education. Students are using it for assignments and, sometimes, to cheat. Teachers are using it for lesson plans and as a learning tool. Like it or not, AI is here to stay.
Many learners and educators are figuring it out on the fly: aware of how useful AI can be, but without a full understanding of the potential downsides.
This is changing, with new professional development courses helping teachers harness the power of AI.
One of the most significant of these is AI Literacy in the Classroom, a new course developed by Adapt, a Science Foundation Ireland research centre focused on AI-driven digital content technology, in collaboration with Google Ireland.
Dr Eileen Culloty of DCU’s institute for media, democracy and society; and Patria Martin, a digital learning specialist who designed and developed the course, were among the key players.
As an educator training the next generation of post-primary teachers, Dr Eamon Costello, associate professor of digital learning at DCU, sees first hand that AI can be used for, good and ill.
In an exercise carried out with his own students, he asked them to generate multiple-choice questions for an assessment, and then critique the questions, including whether they were factually accurate. This is because AI can give wrong answers, and is prone to “hallucinations” (in this context, simply making things up that are not true).
“We also look at how to ask AI good questions and what the theories are behind the questions,” says Costello.
One of his students, Dylan Casey, is studying on DCU’s BSc degree in science and mathematics education course.
“When I was on a placement, I asked the third-year students to put an equation into ChatGPT,” says Casey. “The result was wrong, and wrong in different ways for different learners. In much the same way as Google Translate isn’t always perfect at translation, ChatGPT often gets the maths wrong.
“In science, however, the material is more informational, so AI has been useful for breaking down the language, but it has to be hand in hand with a teacher, and we still have to check for accuracy.”
Teachers are concerned with integrity of assessment, especially as the AI detectors on the market don’t work well
— Dr Michal Wieczorek of DCU
Dr Michal Wieczorek is an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland fellow and a lecturer at DCU’s Institute of Ethics. His job involves researching emerging technologies, including AI in education and the ethics of its use.
He is one of the key figures involved in the research and implementation of the new course from Adapt.
“We are not training to use AI, but to understand it,” he says. “If they do decide to use this technology, it will be helpful, but ultimately we are telling them what they need to know to make informed decisions, and what problems can arise with the use of AI, how it works and what its limitations are.”
Because AI is evolving at such a rapid pace, Wieczorek says it is difficult to develop a firm, centrally regulated policy in education.
“We can’t expect teachers to become experts overnight, but they are concerned with integrity of assessment, especially as the AI detectors on the market don’t work well.
Cheating has always existed, but AI exposes new problems, says Wieczorek. Nonetheless, teachers are largely embracing it, with many of them keen to get ahead of the curve.
“But they’re not getting adequate support, which is where we hope this course can help,” says Wieczorek. “There is great interest from teachers. There is good work happening in this space, with WebWise also providing teachers with support.”
He is concerned, however, that a lack of direction from the Department of Education and the Department of Further and Higher Education could lead to corporate actors filling the gap.
“While Google are involved in this Adapt project, they have been supportive of developing AI literacy. But if teachers are feeling underinformed, tech companies may approach schools with their technologies and tools, and that could be a conflict of interest.”
This is a worry echoed by David Duffy, education research officer with the Teachers’ Union of Ireland.
“There are opportunities and challenges for the system, but we have to ensure that we don’t compound educational disadvantage, because the best AI systems require a subscription, which can be substantial. AI also assumes access to a laptop, because it works better than on phones.
“Our members are putting together classroom resources with AI assistance, and it is reducing the low-level administrative work that teachers have to spend a lot of time on. But there are issues around, for instance, who owns the intellectual property rights, and how AI can have biases, including gender biases, and it can be wrong.”
Costello says this technology offers great opportunity, but also poses risks.
“When I have my doomster hat on, I think of AI as a type of digital plastic, creating synthetic text; the job of teachers is to clean up this plastic,” he says.
“There are also concerns around the environmental impact of the data centres needed to support AI technologies.
[ Let’s get real: Ireland’s data centre boom is driving up fossil fuel dependenceOpens in new window ]
“I wouldn’t use it to land a plane, as it could hallucinate that the sea is a runway. It is useful for getting ideas, but the paradox here is that this works best if someone is already an expert in the subject, because they can immediately spot if the AI is wrong. If you’re using AI to learn from scratch, it can be detrimental in getting you to an expert level.”
Duffy says AI is not all good, or all bad, but that more guardrails are needed.
“We need investment in technology, as well as CPD [continuous professional development] and guidance for teachers,” he says. “Crucially, we need to ensure equitable access for all. We need to avail of the opportunities and challenges for students and staff so they can avail of one without falling foul of the other.”
Shannon Ahern, meanwhile, says teachers at her school are receptive and educated about AI. The next move, she says, is rolling out student workshops.
“They [will] learn about generative AI, how to use it and what its problems and limitations can be,” she says. “They know now that it is not all-knowing and reliable, and they know how to critically use and analyse it. Ideally, it should be embedded into the curriculum of all subjects.”
“We’re not going back to a world before AI, and we have a responsibility to prepare students and to educate them in how it can support their learning – but also to know that a machine will never take away from what it means to be uniquely human.”
Adapt is running a free online courses on exploring AI literacy in the classroom; its next in-person workshop is at Galway Education Centre on January 25th
Oide.ie, a support service for teachers, has also developed an online AI course for schools (oide.ie/new-online-course-ai-for-schools/).
