Mr Neil Smith, Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) Head, considers the impact of technological developments in artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, and says only schools that adapt will enable pupils to thrive.
“On 1 April, after the noon deadline for fools’ tales, The Times reported that Italy had become the first country to ban ChatGPT, an online AI ‘conversational agent’. Many will have heard about ChatGPT and seen the headlines suggesting AI facilitates cheating, will end coursework and lead to the emergence of sentient robots a la RoboCop, Blade Runner and Erling Haaland.
The growing capability of AI as an educational tool illustrates that we are in the early stages of the fourth industrial revolution. Having a profound implication for educators and learners, schools will need to shift from a model structured on the acquisition of knowledge to one teaching young people how to assess, evaluate and use content available at the click of a button.
Outside the classroom and in lessons, the flipped learning model will likely become the norm; pupils research outside the classroom, identifying content they consider to be accurate, and are then assessed in class on their understanding and ability to verify it. Coursework will be impossible to assess without some form of viva.
As educators, we must look at what we are trying to develop within subjects and assess. The way young people will study at university or perform in the workplace requires us to begin facilitating explicit links between subjects whilst developing skills beyond what subjects require.
At CHS, the Lower School curriculum has introduced Big Questions alongside developing subjects that emphasise skills like interdisciplinary thinking. CHS’s Lower School Waconian Diploma is the first step we have taken towards adopting a more holistic view of what children are capable of. The school is actively exploring a more sophisticated platform for Upper School and Sixth Form pupils.
We have a choice whether to be fearful of AI’s potential, but we do not have a choice whether to exploit its ability to enhance the educational experiences of young people and better prepare them for the world in which they will live, work and study after school…”
This extract, adapted for Glossy Magazine, is from Does ChatGPT mean the end of education as we know it? – the latest Head’s Blog at cheadlehulmeschool.co.uk
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