Fear and Learning in a World of Ai

-
When it comes to Ai, Pandora's Box has been opened. There's no going back. I do fear the implications Ai may have for humanity. I fear its omniprescence could both undermine our collective purpose and spell further environmental degradation. I fear it all. But beneath all that fear, we must too find hope. What choice do I have as an educator?

I've struggled with the question of Ai for a long time. Like most educators, I stress about how Ai could hurt our students' learning and development. I'm weary that by integrating it into my teaching practice, I'll be accomplice to the existential risks. But, frankly, I'm just as worried about the alternative. What if I allow my own fears and questions to get in the way of my students' needs?

Whether I like it or not, Ai is going to be part of our world. And, as an educator, I've committed myself to teaching students how to navigate the world that is and the world that will be. Therefore, I must teach them how to navigate a world driven by Ai.

Maybe it's not quite the Hippocratic Oath, but as a teacher I have tacitly pledged to ease my students' transition to what comes next in their journey, be it post-secondary or the work force. Therefore, I will facilitate conversations around the ethical considerations of Ai; I will facilitate conversations around the environmental consequences of Ai; I will allow students to engage with Ai technology in a controlled space. I will do what I have committed myself to do as an educator. 

I don't believe I have any other option.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Rubrics with Embedded Feedback Banks

-
Image
My Why: Marking has always been a source of guilt for me: Guilt that I'm not returning students' projects quickly enough; guilt that I'm not providing those same students with the feedback they deserve. A few years back, I adopted the single column rubric as the base for my assessment practice. I appreciated how single column rubrics afforded me lots of room to jot down meaningful feedback, the kind of feedback my students deserved. I didn't appreciate how time consuming that meaningful feedback was to generate. Since then, I've spent years- largely in vain- trying to come up with efficiencies to quicken my marking. Fast forward to my newest creation: the single column rubric featuring embedded feedback banks. With these rubrics, I can offer students much more feedback in much less time. Descriptive feedback with a couple clicks of the mouse. For a quick peek at the rubric check out this video:  Demonstration of Rubric Here is the step-by-step process I took to crea...
Read more

Step #1 for Implementing Standards-Based Grading: Understanding, Reorganizing, and Unpacking Curricular Competencies

-
Image
Many BC educators I've spoken to are intrigued by standards-based grading (SBG). They've heard of it. They like the idea of it. But, they have no idea where to start with it. The intent behind this series of blog posts is to provide those same educators with a step-by-step guide for implementing SBG into their own classrooms. I don't claim to be an expert, but I've had plenty of trial and error over the years with it. Also, my assessment, including my SBG practices, has been substantially informed and inspired by many true experts in the field, including Tom Schimmer, Katie White, Matt Townsley, Myron Dueck, Emily Rinkema, Stan Williams, and many others. I'll publish a later blog post with reading recommendations (Those folks are a great place to start though!). These past few years, I've gradually made the transition from having what Tom Schimmer would call the "standards based mindset" to having true SBG secondary ELA and Humanities classrooms. I thi...
Read more

How to Meaningfully Implement the New K-12 Student Reporting Policy at the Secondary Level

-
Image
When the BC Ministry of Education released their proposed Draft K-12 Student Reporting Policy , I felt empowered. I felt reassurance that my assessment practices were on the right path. But I also felt apprehensive: to be most successful, significant assessment changes demand significant buy in from all teachers. I believe a tiered and staff-wide approach to this transition could maximize success at the individual teacher level. After all, such a vital transition demands all hands on deck. I created this tiered step-by-step plan* as a framework for implementing the K-12 Draft Student Reporting Policy at the school, department, and classroom levels. It's certainly not perfect. But I hope it can assist other educators as they jump into proficiency language practices. *By no means do I claim ownership over any of these ideas. This is merely a synthesis of practices I discovered in books, blog posts, articles, or even Tweets. I'm just a teacher who wants this transition to work. Wh...
Read more