AI in Education report published
AI in Education report published
Clear guidelines and effective professional learning are urgently required to enable thoughtful and innovative integration of AI tools in education.
This was a key finding from our recent report on AI in education, which is available here.
In March last year, Brendon Shaw and I wanted to learn more about how schools integrated AI tools to support teaching and learning. We formed an open community of practice that met every fortnight online and several times face-to-face. The community membership ranged from 4-50 members at different times and directed the themes we would focus on for the research. The emerging themes were understanding how generative AI could impact equitable outcomes for Māori, inclusive learning and effective pedagogy. From there, we collaboratively built a survey and shared this with a wide range of educators in Aotearoa.
Summary of Findings:
The data has highlighted the pressing need for comprehensive guidelines supporting teachers to safely and confidently integrate generative AI into their classrooms. Many educators expressed concerns about the lack of professional development opportunities to enhance their AI literacy skills.
A notable finding was the uncertainty among teachers regarding whether students or whānau were using generative AI tools, indicating a critical need for open and transparent conversations about AI ethics and usage.
The report highlights AI's potential to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori students. This can be accomplished through the creation of culturally located content using AI. However, guidelines, professional learning, and clear policies are essential to support educators in avoiding cultural appropriation and bias when using generative AI.
Educators believe that generative AI can reduce administrative tasks, enabling more face-to-face contact, building connections between students and teachers.
Teachers also thought creating engaging content and supporting individualised learning plans with generative AI was a high possibility. This could enhance pedagogy and inclusivity in education.
The following steps for Brendon and I will be to write up the qualitative findings and publish these. We would also like to revisit the survey, re-initiate the CoP, and investigate if anything has changed from last year. Through this research, we hope to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on AI in education and its implications for teaching and learning in Aotearoa.
If you would like to be involved in the next phases of the, please contact either of us.
Thank you to Lou Fox, Michael Puhara and Dr Karatiana Taiuru for their thoughtful input and guidance.
In addition, Brendon and I will share the research findings at an online webinar with academyEX: Let’s talk about what schools are doing with AI.
Please find a link to sign up to the webinar here.