The plan to introduce AI in schools is a welcome initiative – one that has the potential to transform education and empower the children with the abilities to excel in their lives. At the same time, there are several questions that arise around the modus operandi of its deployment, the training of teachers and the impact on children’s learning abilities. AI is still a mystery for the general public at large and its specific role in teaching-learning is yet to be fully understood and facilitated in schools. Generative AI, which is relatively easier to experience and access by most teachers, has begun to be used by some of them to design the curriculum or seek clarifications for topics or help build assessment.
Creating familiarity with AI amongst students has to be handled with thoughtfulness and a well designed framework. In the early stages, coding should not be the focus, instead curiosity and observation should be carefully nurtured among children with logic building activities, games and toys with AI/robotic features. In the next stage, children should be encouraged to recognise patterns, training machines using simple steps and introduce them to simple chatbot games.
It is at middle school that children should be exposed to what AI is and reflect upon the examples of AI as experienced in their daily lives. This is also the stage where they should be made aware of potential biases and inequity and the importance of continuing with independent thinking and decision making. In secondary school, programming and other tools required for building small AI models could be introduced and the importance of ethics in the use of AI could be highlighted. Advanced coding, building own chatbots and being able to differentiate fakes and misinformation could be the areas of focus in the high schools.
AI by virtue of its construct has inherent biases and therefore could influence the young minds and shape their thinking aligned with the AI models. Unsupervised interaction with AI could also mean children could be exposed to the dark elements and be guided by certain AI models towards their beliefs and value systems which may be contradictory to those held by families or the society.
Seeking help from AI/Gen AI for their homework or assignments would mean surrendering their abilities to think and work independently and the likely dependence on AI for all their requirements over a period of time. The access of AI tools being not equitable, may lead to giving unfair advantage to certain groups of students with better AI literacy or access which may widen the gaps in the learning quotient. Therefore it is vital to reflect upon all of such potential risks and come up with a plan for AI immersion at appropriate stages of development with effective guardrails.
To begin with, teachers have to be properly oriented on the risks and help them address these risks with changes in their assessment and assignment processes. Teachers should lay more emphasis on judging genuine understanding of concepts taught through one to one personal examinations or presentations. Students, particularly those in high schools, should be alerted to the dangers of plagiarism and schools should put in place effective tools to identify or prevent plagiarism in the works of students. Where students use AI, they should be asked to disclose the sources.
AI is a double-edged sword and teachers should be abundantly clear about the need to balance its use with accountability and transparency. Unlike most other digital tools, since students would be conditioned to the AI environment in their daily lives, parents and teachers would have to work together to maintain academic trust. They need to collaborate to ensure the precious early stages of children are enriched and not diluted with the arrival of AI in their lives.
The writer is chairperson, GTT Foundation.