One of the major applications of Gen AI in education, is to support personalised education in the form of individualised learning support for each learner. However, due to the way in which AI is structured, its propensity to 'hallucinate' is still a challenge. Additionally in our work with chatbots (see project report for details) the chatbot has a propensity to 'drift' from its training after several students have used it. Therefore, there is still a challenge when using AI to underpin personalised learning.
This mashable.com article runs a test through the AI tutors provided by OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. The article provides for an interesting overview, the process for testing and then an summary of the performance of each. Links for each of the summaries bring you to a more detailed write up.
The findings/discussion will not be new to teachers. Importantly, the writer decides that chatbots cannot replace great teachers; reinforcing that learning is social.
Another post from AI toolkit undertakes a similar discussion. Although personalised learning is a 'holy grail' in education, the ways AI tutors go about provisioning answers, rather than supporting, nudging, encouraging learning is its disadvantage. When learners do not have to put effort into the learning process, learning does not take place. They end up with a 'cognitive debt' because the brain is not engaged in 'solving the puzzle' and 'making meaning'. In turn, learners develop 'metacognitive laziness' and depend on AI to do the hard work of thinking required to increase learning and develop expertise.
Of note is the status of AI in education. This post in Education Futures warns of the ways education is losing control as commercial interests become the providers of learning platforms. Although written within the US of A context, many of the arguments laid out are universal and global. AI is not only a form of technology, but can dictate what is learnt, what is accessed (or not) and removes teacher and learner agency.
Therefore, we need to be careful when thinking about AI-supported personalised learning. The design of learning into the AI agent/chatbot is essential to ensure that AI helps learning to take place and not replace learning.
