More as promised in my last post from the interviews we are doing on AI and Education.

One implication of AI and automation is changes in curriculum content and pedagogy. I talked with Chris Percy about this.

Chris pointed out that for school leavers qualification at GCSE level maths and English are a requirement even for vocational students and he thinks this is unlikely to change. However he thinks that programmes in these subjects will move to  –to adaptive personal learning environments.

Furthermore he says the flipped classroom model will change the role of teachers. "It has proved impossible to improve the staff student ration – general courses have 20 – 40 students or 7 to 10 on niche courses. This needs 3 / 4 way differentiation. Teachers are more conductors than coaches." However Chris added a caveat – research suggests the the flipped classroom re model has limits. "It only really works for those who want to learn. It is possible that adults know what they want to learn but lack the motivation for self learning. Peers and teachers are important for extrinsic motivation. Disengaged teenagers are frequently not sufficiently motivated. Self taught learning even wth a mentor will only go so far. " Cris also says that learning has a social element and questions whether avatars can really replace the social role played by teachers. As he points out, generalized AI is still out of reach.  "Chatbots cannot replace teachers at the front of a classroom. Students will have no respect for a chatbot. Teachers are skilled in developing engagement. Chatbots are good for students with a base level of motivation."

The issue of motivation has come up in most of the interviews I have undertaken as part of the AI and Vocational Education and Learning project. I will talk more about this in a short podcast this weekend talking about my experiences as a language learner using the popular and heavily gamified DuoLingo application.