While there has been considerable chatter in academia about the growing influence of AI in education, little has been said about the role artificial intelligence can play in teacher training. As seasoned educators and academicians look to formulate a response to growing AI prevalence and student usage, it might be time to take a look at whether acquainting student teachers with artificial intelligence might aid academia in better addressing existing concerns, while providing better educational quality to future students. So far, academics have sat on the fence regarding the recent advances in language model artificial intelligence due to concerns surrounding academic integrity and educational equity. However, education catering to the field of teaching is also a key component in the long process of learning adapting to the bigger role AI has come to play in academics. Existing fears surrounding teaching AI replacing human teachers, while unfounded, have also contributed to growing skepticism about AI tools in education, at large.
Approaching these concerns through an alternative standpoint, the inclusion of AI exposure and tools in teachers’ training phases might prepare these professionals better to face what is turning out to be a society that is bound to encounter AI on a near-ubiquitous basis. Current teacher training programs and protocols are still based on traditional methods and teaching techniques despite drastic changes in the technological environment. These gaps can be bridged by introducing AI and technical foundations to student teachers, so they’re better equipped to use these technologies. Alongside their usage, student teachers can also be trained to notice and be aware of common pitfalls in AI tech to ensure faculties like critical thinking and human intuition always supersede technical aids in academia.
How AI Training Can Be Implemented in Teaching Education
AI must not be used to replace existing learning methods that have worked for students.
Despite several revisions in curricula, be it at the school or university levels, teaching still retains several innately human characteristics that have been central to the learning process. These traits in the process of education have likely persisted for millennia and will continue to remain so, regardless of AI presence. Tweaking these practices might only lead to further confusion and a deterioration of educational quality due to dehumanization. The introduction of AI in education, and teaching education in specific, is to be aimed at supporting existing structures and enhancing their effectiveness as opposed to replacing them entirely. Existing AI technology presents teachers and academics with intuitive tools such as personalized teaching modules through adaptive learning, AI testing and evaluation models, and intuitive course planning platforms. Training teachers in using these technologies while they’re already on the job might be both time-consuming and financially burdensome for institutions. Instead, allowing student teachers to be exposed to these machine learning protocols in their learning stages might prove to be far more effective and useful in the long run.
The acquisition of AI skills and indulging in AI training has gone beyond the technical fields and is now percolating to other sectors of the economy. Soon, teachers will also need to have at least a basic understanding of artificial intelligence to train their students to become citizens of a highly digitized society. While educators and academics have already adapted to the considerable integration of electronic learning in existing classrooms and educational structures, the next step in this process will no doubt involve AI, even if restricted to a rudimentary role. Classroom AI protocols and tools have already become popular concepts, and the whole weight of educational technology is now behind enhancing teacher efficiency and ease. Incorporating natural language processing tools and augmented reality-based simulations might be the first step in a long process of integrating teaching education programs with the technologies that might end up shaping tomorrow’s practices at academic institutions.
Teacher Training and AI Tools: What to Expect
AI tools can bring several unique tools to teaching education curricula.
AI training and inculcating AI-related skills in student teachers can be academia’s hedge against potential AI misuse while leveraging the technology to benefit both teachers and students. Below are a few ways in which AI might be able to enhance existing teaching education programs to produce better-equipped educators.
1. Simulations
AI is a great tool for creating simulated environments. Apart from the regular AR and VR simulations, artificial intelligence can also produce algorithms capable of creating practice environments for student teachers. Practicing in these environments will not only acquaint student teachers with realistic academic environments, but also enable them to become situationally aware and adopt a more didactic approach to learning.
2. Personalization
Each teacher tends to adopt a unique approach to disseminating knowledge. Personalization is a great advantage provided by AI, all thanks to algorithms capable of carrying out intelligent analytics on key metrics. Student teachers can use AI-aided tools in their teaching education programs to identify their strengths while focusing on areas that might require more work.
3. Cooperative Approach
Collaborative exercises bring a great degree of change in the nature and outcomes of the teaching profession. Utilizing AI tools and providing AI training to nurture a more cooperative approach in student teachers can enhance multidisciplinary expertise, alongside approaching key topics with a more holistic viewpoint. Such tools are especially important when nurturing assistive learning programs for students with special needs.
4. Data-oriented Learning
ML-based technologies such as big data can be of great use to teacher training programs. As humans use more data to inform their decisions, student teachers, too, can adopt this approach for future classrooms. With AI-generated insights on hand, teachers can take a better call about student outcomes. Training student teachers in this aspect will bring a great degree of change to the overall approach in academia.
Teaching AI and the Future of AI-Based Pedagogy
Outstanding concerns must be addressed on a practical level before making changes to existing teacher training programs.
Though the prospects of integrating AI with existing teaching education modules seem promising, the practical implications of these technologies are yet to be learned. While speculations abound about the expansive reach of AI tools, current models are still in fairly rudimentary stages. While companies like OpenAI continue to enhance language models like GPT-4, the degree to which they can be customized and molded to highly specific tasks remains yet to be known. Currently, AI writing and generative tools have been the most talked about. While language models are indeed groundbreaking since they enhance communication efficiency between humans and computers, AI still lacks rationality and cannot be expected to make independent decisions. Any implementations of AI within the teacher training framework will have to be made with humans at the forefront of the decision-making process.