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A message from our Director

Dear reader

Marhaba,

Artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly gaining momentum in all aspects of life, and even though it is not a new concept, its recent accelerated advances show that the sky is the limit in its potential and uses. For education, the next few years promise to be exciting when looking at what emerging technologies can bring, and there seems to be no escaping an AI-fuelled future in teaching and learning. So, how to incorporate AI in education in 2024 and beyond, to ensure we are harnessing its power while circumventing any complications? Various reports have attempted to address that, the most recent being the insight report by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Overall, various positive points and negative aspects could be highlighted on the topic, but I will focus here on five prime messages that I label 'five AIs for AI in education': Asking Intelligently, Accentuating Innovations, Acknowledging Input, Assisting Instructors and Avoiding Inequalities.

Answering questions has always been a key skill to be taught and nurtured in schools. While this will remain important, learning how to ask the right questions is undoubtedly one skill to master in the AI era for all people involved in education, and not just students. This applies to knowing how to formulate a prompt when interacting with a large language model (LLM), and to follow up in an efficient and well-styled manner. Prior to ChatGPT, the traditional approach in Q&As would be students being asked a question and thinking about it, before answering that question. With the new AI tools, they now also need to be (further) trained in thinking of a question to ask, having it answered by an LLM, and then questioning the answer they get.

Another key element is to empower thinking beyond the boundaries of textbooks and traditional resources, and to allow students' and teachers' minds to roam freely. The new AI tools, which should surge in form and scale in 2024 and beyond, are a great resource for accentuating innovation and emphasising creativity. Emerging technologies are allowing more interaction between the human and the machine, the real and the virtual, and the physical and the digital. This opens the door to new models in education, including additional ways for presenting and explaining a concept, treating a topic in a face-to-face or virtual setting, tutoring students and differentiating learning. 

Speaking of resources and books, if one decides to use any AI tool or an LLM, what is a safe and reasonable way to do it? How should these 'contributions' be acknowledged? Who should get the credit? Who retains the intellectual property rights (note here that we just celebrated World Intellectual Property Day)? What about monetising the outcomes, if any? The recent cases of papers being published with 'leftover' text from LLM prompts and responses are bad examples of how to acknowledge such add-ins. Internally, in order to get the discussions going, we launched several months ago a first draft of our report on how to engage with AI in research and writing, a document that we will be developing and enriching regularly. Having clear guidelines is important, be it in textbooks, essays, assessments, research, and more.  

What about the role of teachers in this whole situation though? This question reflects the concerns of many people, including teachers themselves. At this stage, at least, the call is to focus on educators and assist them in integrating these AI-powered tools in their teaching practices, more than anything else. The aforementioned WEF report calls for the "optimization of teacher roles through augmentation and automation of tasks, alleviating administrative burdens and empowering educators to focus more on personalized instruction and mentorship" (p. 3), and in the same spirit, last year’s report by the Office of Educational Technology in the US called to "always center educators" (p. 25). The human aspect of the teaching profession remains a core element in education, as it should be, and teachers should be assisted in leading this quest rather than being eclipsed by it. 

But beyond these shiny features, there is a need to talk about challenges, because there are many: ethical and regulation considerations, the needed training and infrastructure, and the impact on human interactions are just a few examples. One major hurdle to overcome when thinking of embracing AI throughout education is the possibility of an even larger digital divide compared with what we have seen in recent decades. Avoiding inequalities will be crucial in the years to come, even more than before, as if we do not tread carefully, the gap created between those having access and fully using the emerging technologies and those who do not, will potentially grow beyond our control. In the context of education, and even at a larger scale, such a divide will be life changing.

Emerging technologies are surely adding a fascinating layer to the current education landscape, and we are just scratching the surface of what they can offer. How we can ensure that we maximise the positive impact and avoid the pitfalls of such technologies is for us to decide, and the coming months will be an indicator of where we are heading. But for now, enjoy this newsletter that includes two fascinating blogs: "Designing twin-fographics" by Darren, and the first part of Lynn’s blog that attempts to answer the question "What is an 'effective' school". We also have a humble tribute by the team members to Dr Tony Gardiner and Professor Hugh Burkhardt, a couple of months after their sad passing. 

Best wishes,

The first two months of 2024 saw the passing of two giants of mathematics education in the UK: Dr Tony Gardiner, who died on 22 January, and Professor Hugh Burkhardt, who died on 4 February. Both men made important contributions to the development of Cambridge Mathematics, which we acknowledge here with our deepest gratitude. 

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