The Salopian Summer 2023

SCHOOL NEWS 7
Learning in a World of AI
Deputy Head Academic Dr Richard Kowenicki writes about the challenges faced by the inexorable
rise of ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence platforms.
Since ChatGPT was launched for public consumption,
the rapid acceleration and universal availability of AI
technology has left all those with an interest in education –
pupils, teachers, parents – attempting to forecast the potential
impact on school life. Is this the opportunity we’ve all been
waiting for to develop genuinely personalised learning? What
will it mean for the role of homework? Will we even need
teachers in the future?
While the answers to these questions are not clear yet, AI
looks set to be a fundamental disrupter to education. In his
2018 book The Fourth Education Revolution, Sir Anthony
Seldon anticipated many of the themes that are now in
the public spotlight, and made recommendations to all
institutions on how best to prepare for a world of AI. The job
for schools, including Shrewsbury, is to develop expertise in
the context of education, and as far as possible to anticipate,
plan and innovate as the technology evolves rapidly. It is
worth remembering that the hardware and software that
young people are currently using will be the worst and
least powerful they will ever use. It is both an exciting and
daunting prospect, especially when we consider that experts
predict that technological advancement in the next ten years
will be equivalent to what we have witnessed in the previous
100 years.
Our job, as educators, is to balance the risk that AI poses
with the opportunities it creates. It seems these days that
every article or post out there is either on one side or the
other. Clearly, we must protect learning and the integrity
of assessment, whether by internal or Public Exam, but we
should also be open to the opportunities that AI affords.
Unsurprisingly the response from schools has been varied.
Some, most notably all the New York City Public Schools, the
largest school district in the US, have banned ChatGPT due
to “concerns over cheating” and the potential impact on skills
development. At Shrewsbury we, like all schools, will be
developing systems and policy to mitigate the risk to learning,
but our focus has been on promoting positive behaviour and
in particular on attitudes to learning. Academic Honesty has
been a theme of this academic year – an ongoing discussion
about what it really means to engage intellectually with
academic endeavours, consistent with the Salopian Virtues
that pervade the School; intellectual curiosity, critical thinking,
originality and above all a love of learning. The goal is for
our pupils to be genuinely proud of the work that they
create, and so we need to be mindful of the challenge young
people face in ensuring that the work they complete is truly
their own and that they have the skills and understanding
to acknowledge content that is not their own. This does not
come without training, and we expect to coach pupils on
how to work in an academically honest way.
That is not to say we are ignoring the role that AI will
play in learning. The advancement of AI technology and
Academic Honesty are not mutually exclusive. It seems as if
every day a new AI learning tool is released to market, and
in the classroom I have already seen our pupils are using
ChatGPT in a very effective way to summarise texts and to
assess their knowledge and understanding, all of which helps
support their learning. There are tools for teachers too, who,
with careful prompting, can use ChatGPT to plan lessons
or suggest creative and effective assessment activities. Our
challenge is to identify and focus on the areas of teaching
and learning where AI will have a meaningful and positive
impact and to train our pupils to use it for good purposes.
We have recently convened groups of interested pupils and
teachers who are enjoying experimenting with selected AI
tools and exploring what enhances learning and, perhaps
more importantly, what doesn’t, so that any promising leads
can be scaled up.
To showcase the potential flaws of the technology, a number
of school leaders in recent times have used ChatGPT to
generate content for magazine articles, newsletters and
assemblies to see if the consumer can spot the difference.
Invariably the AI content is technically precise, but at the
same time anodyne and lacking in nuance and with a trained
eye is easy to spot. (This entirely human-generated article is
perhaps the exception which proves the rule: I am after all a
science teacher.) In the future, better promptcraft may lead to
more convincing AI-generated content, but the point being
made is that whatever the output of AI, it cannot replace
the human attributes of a developing learner, most notably
the natural human instinct to want to know more and to
understand better. There is no doubt that technology will play
an important role in the learning journey of all young people,
but it will never supersede the fundamental human trait of
intellectual curiosity. It is with that spirit that we proceed into
a world with AI cautiously, but also with a sense of optimism.