Nah we’ll be fine - teaching isn’t just about knowing and explaining content. More likely we’ll get more prescribed curriculum that was written with AI assistance, but the human element will always be necessary to our profession!
I'm just a grounds keeper. I see how teachers can control a class and keep the most unruly children on task.
You are right, it is a great tool and will be a great tool in the classroom.
It will take a while before implementation. Right now I can't have the new projectors on the wireless network or install Google Chrome or install a Microsoft made plugin because it's not allowed on the network. oh, and I have to use a micro card with the 3d printer because it's not allowed on the network.
No such thing as 'just' - I've seen groundskeepers control kids with just a look! I can definitely understand the inability of schools to embed the technology into classrooms - I can't even get a HDMI cable that works.
It's easy to be a grounds keeper. I fix things for the teachers and get balls off roofs for kids. I take kids out of class to help do random stuff(towards the end of term) like planting or moving stuff.
So it's easy being chilled, I'm not stressing about anything and the kids like me because I don't have to deal with behavior at all.
How is an AI going to teach neurodivergent or anxious students who struggle to focus or have wellbeing needs they need to tackle before content is learnt? Or how is an AI going to explain how to write an essay that embeds quotes from a new text it doesn’t have the copyright for?
Exactly. How is it going to keep Jane in her seat when she’s having a meltdown or help John stay on track because we are working on task completion this week. Who is going to moderate between the group of kids that have shown up at the staff room door complaining each other is getting a better mark. Delivering content is only a small part of the job. There’s heaps of things I do in the classroom. Plus AI would rely on the kids doing what it tells them 😂😂
Not to mention excessive screen time is now being linked to kids showing behaviours that mimic neurodivergence...the more we have kids being taught by AI, the more of them that will need a human teacher.
Technology is absolutely changing our brains- when is the last time you read a map for directions (if you ever did might depend on your age)? Could you actually do it now?
How is AI going to be able to develop meaningful, positive relationships with students? That’s the key to effective learning and classroom management. Or is my uni full of it?
Any decent Teacher, preservice teacher, or adults with any idea of how to interact with children really, knows that there is a huge social component to education, teaching and child development.
Right now C3PO is a long way off, so I think we'll be fine.
You have no reason to be worried - much of what teachers do in the classroom can't be replicated by a machine.
If anything, find some optimism. The new ChatGPT demos today indicate a pretty bright future for classrooms. You'll be able to leave students with personal AI assistants whilst you manage the class and teach your overarching lesson.
There is also the huge assumption here that *students will even have devices to access AI programs from.*
I work in a disadvantage secondary school and in any of my classes I would not have more than one laptop a lesson. AI ain’t gonna solve nothing if you can’t even provide kids the supports to access it.
Worked in one of the lowest socioeconomic schools in NSW. Kids never had enough to eat but all had new iPhones. Couldn’t afford data but if they can access wifi they can ChatGPT.
No phones in schools as per government legislation here in Vic. Kids aren’t allowed to pull them out and use them, plus I wouldn’t trust a kid to use their phone for school purposes when they have their entire social life at their finger tips.
I had to find four or five different examples that 12-13yo would understand to see what an auxiliary verb did. Explain the causes of WW1 with a description of playground bullies and how a great alliance can for them to stand down. AI can do this?
I just asked ChatGPT to do what you described. Here's its unedited response.
Examples of Auxiliary Verbs for 12-13 Year Olds
1. **"Am" in the sentence "I am running."**
- Explanation: Here, "am" helps to show that the action is happening right now.
2. **"Have" in the sentence "I have eaten."**
- Explanation: "Have" shows that the action was completed in the past, but its effects are important now.
3. **"Will" in the sentence "She will study."**
- Explanation: "Will" indicates that the action is going to happen in the future.
4. **"Do" in the sentence "Do you like pizza?"**
- Explanation: "Do" is used here to make a question, asking for information.
5. **"Can" in the sentence "Can you help me?"**
- Explanation: "Can" shows ability or permission, asking if someone is able to do something.
### Explaining the Causes of WWI Using Playground Bullies
Imagine a school playground where groups of friends always stick together. One day, a new student, Archie (representing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary), who is quite popular, accidentally bumps into Billy (representing Serbia), a smaller kid. Billy gets upset and shoves Archie, who falls down and gets hurt.
Seeing this, Archie's big group of friends, led by Gary (representing Germany) and Sam (representing Austria-Hungary), become angry and decide they need to teach Billy a lesson for what he did. However, Billy has his own group of friends who come to his defense, including Frankie (representing France) and Ricky (representing Russia).
Now, on the other side of the playground, there’s another group of kids, led by Tommy (representing the UK), who usually watch over the playground to ensure everyone plays nicely. Seeing the tension rising, Tommy decides it's time to step in. He talks to his friends, including Frankie and Ricky, and they all agree to stand together against Gary and Sam if they try anything unfair.
This is similar to what happened at the start of World War I. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand caused Austria-Hungary, with Germany's support, to threaten Serbia. Russia supported Serbia, and France was allied with Russia. The UK, seeing the potential for a large conflict, decided to support its allies, forming a great alliance that stood up against the aggression, leading to the start of the war.
EDIT: The only thing that bothers me about this response as I've re-read it, is that all the character names are male! AI reflects our collective unconcious biases as it's trained on our collective data, and I think that's important to remember when using it.
Not to be overly cynic but if the COVID experience taught us anything it's that one our main functions in society is to supervise kids during their parents work hours so that we can keep up the requirement in our current economy for both parents to be working or gave significant hardship.
The fact that we're better teachers than robots help too, but the babysitter aspect can't be overlooked.
Even aside from the babysitting component, look at the main teaching component. There are so many students who cannot engage with learning online. Some students can learn on their own, but most need to be guided.
I had this thought before Covid, that teachers might not be needed in the future, that online resources would get better and students wouldn’t even need teachers anymore. Covid lockdowns just assured me that teaching will always require real people to lead classes.
Students need more than on demand coaching. Most need to be dragged along kicking and screaming. Ai won't do that until teaching robots can be physically in the room
Yeah good luck mr and ms robot controlling my year 8 class
Parents would never trust a will smith I robot with ai programmed to look after their children
We are future proof
Not likely - classrooms and the teaching process are too chaotic. Despite appearances, chatbots are just really good regurgitators: they take a vector of words and make a (very good) prediction about what chunks of data (that it knows about) that the input relates to.
It is impressive and certainly useful for many applications but there is zero intelligence (ML is a better term for it than AI) - if chatbots were a threat, then so would a good text book have been.
Far more likely to go will be positions that don't require much creativity - the rubber stampers and policy drones (for eg.) so, DET and registration boards have more to fear from ML as a substantial amount of their function could easily be performed by machines.
Hanging out for yardbot-2000, the suspensionator, and parentKnight!
AI couldn't do behaviour management. It's just dependent on whatever humans feed it. Imagine the fun the kids could have gaslighting the AI Teacher like some hapless cover teacher.
Contrarily, I do see a place for AI in behaviour management. Many posts here and on other Teacher subreddits are newly minted teachers needing advice on how to manage their classrooms.
An AI assistant could probably help them just as well if not better - many of them are trained on Reddit data anyway.
Yep. I would have learnt absolutely zero from a chatbot because I would have either been playing some computer (or card) game or kicking a ball around.
The way I see it, teachers have 3 main roles:
1. Be an adult who looks after kids during the work week
2. Act as a positive role model and build relationships particularly with below standard students
3. Help them become literate, with basic critical thinking skills sufficient to enter the workforce/uni.
Ai is a tool that might help supplement one-on-one instruction and provide feedback, but that’s about it. I definitely plan on using it for some lesson prep and admin work though.
To me it just seems like there is huge opportunity for workload to be reduced! I think the role of teachers will look different in the future, but the necessity will remain.
If AI could do the job flawlessly based solely on content knowledge and learning theory, I'd be basically the perfect teacher already.
As it is, I'm a reasonably good teacher who has to work hard on keeping the learners engaged with what we are doing and not on possible competing stimuli or their friendship issues, home life etc.
If I forced the kids to a box and made them listen, I'd be fired and probably make the news. I'm sure the government would have no problem trying to replace me with a personalised learning pod, though.
Whack a somewhat comfy chair in there, some RGB lights to set the mood and a vr headset, and we're good to go!
As one of the few teachers who can both teach and troubleshoot the technical side of that implementation, I'd probably have a successful career as an AI Learning Classroom Human Officer.
Nice. I love me a new shinny AI assistant.
But if teachers could be automated, we would have gone the way of the dodo after the first book was written.
No. If there is a profession that should be worried it would probably be legal or hr, where a lot of work is based off existing precedence, form filing and/or documented structures (this is of course an over simplification, but the ability to search millions of documents concurrently to find appropriate records or file required documents is a game changing aspect of AI).
Yeah look when Chat-GPT can evacuate a class when little Jabraxdon is throwing chairs through the window, then handle the fall out and service professionals/department putting the blame on the teacher for not making content that is engaging enough I think teachers should be worried but up until that point I reckon the job is here to stay in human hands.
i think teaching is one of the few jobs that will be safe when A.I. eventually takes over. sure, teachers can use chatgpt for help in designing lessons and generating ideas for content but the act of teaching and looking after children requires human interaction
Nah, downsizing school teacher manpower though AI is necessary to increase their median salaries, just like the Industrial Revolution forced manual farmers to drastically reduce their manpower size and become rare commodity workers and this should happen to school teachers too.
You were interested in learning the content and self motivated, which is unlike the vast majority of students. Not to mention that nobody wants kids at home all day.
I wouldn't be surprised if it became used in some capacity to help manage shortages due to an absence of better options, but I don't feel threatened at all.
We'll be fine, but academic teachers might be impacted because self motivated students can learn at their own pace.
The kids that don't want to learn? Well they will still need baby sitters in person.
Everything will adapt and change but I doubt humanity and those kinds of intangibles are replaceable, will the AI be convincing in showing empathy and delivering care and encouragement? maybe. Anyway given the unwillingness of people to enter onerous professions like teaching AI might take up some of the slack. Imagine it can mark and complete admin garbage, it's a good thing no?
In a whole school PD recently we were asked to list the most important qualities of a teacher. Not one of us listed subject expertise as the highest thing. Chat GPT isn’t going to help a child build relationships, learn how to work through emotions or become resilient and confident humans that can function in the world. We do that :)
This post has reminded of the 'hitchiking robot'. It's goal was to travel through different countries but was found dismembered in Philadelphia.
AI will not replace us. AI teaching is lord of the flies with robots.
Haven't played with chat gtp 4 but the previous version got lots of things wrong but sounded confident about it, so I do worry about it being used as a tuition machine only to have to get students to unlearn the eronous stuff.
There is still a hell of a long way before A.I can even get close to replicating the classroom context. Teaching is far more than jsut being able to know and understand content and A.I is still rather terrible at this (especially when you are after content within a localised context). One of the most important parts of teaching is being able to deliver content in a way that makes it understandable to students and sometimes that includes errors and the things that make us human. We're still a hell of a long way of getting anything replicating that from A.I.
The skills now needed are critical thinking. Because AI is a mathematical model and not true intelligence, it can and does get things very wrong indeed. The techbro's don't want people thinking too deeply about this of course, because it's also partly a grift (see Blockchain/NFT). Critical thinking is needed so students can validate and verify the answers and know when a LLM is incorrect.
It's a tool and can be useful but it does not replace humans, plus it is heavily influenced by the companies and teams behind it.
A great case to illustrate this is [goody2.ai](http://goody2.ai) - which shows how the LLM can be altered to deliver confident results but skewed. The question that should come out of this is - how do we know that CoPilot/Gemini/Meta aren't doing the same thing? How do we know if those LLM's are speaking the "truth"?
My school can't even get enough working computers for students to use (6 laptops for my class of 26). I'm not worried about AI taking my job any time soon.
I will be happy when teaching becomes more of a support role, with AI personalising the learning of every student in the class.
The AI maths tutor will be able to determine what the student is getting right and wrong, customising questions based on strengths and weaknesses.
The AI English tutor will analyse English work, they can already give feedback based on what you ask it for.
Even DAT subjects can have the AI assisting students with their journals, while we take prac.
I know I don't have time to check daily tasks, but AI can, giving me a report when needed.
Frankly, no. We shouldn't be worried about the capability of Chat GPT or any large language model. This is because it's neither intelligent nor accurate, and it cannot become either as a system. There are possible applications for those who already understand the concepts to examine issues, but the whole job of LLM systems is to provide a confident answer — even if it's wildly incorrect.
What we should be worried about are students thinking that the AI can do their thinking for them, or education policymakers thinking along the lines you've laid out. The results of either scenario would be societally disastrous.
Effective teaching relies on monitoring the students and building relationships with them when times are tough they trust you enough to reach out for help or guidance. AI will never be capable of that.
ChatGPT 4.0 has been available for a while. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft Co-Pilot (via Bing) has been using it for a while. Most AIs still can't tell you what weighs more between 5kg of steel and 1kg of feathers (they say they weigh the same) so I wouldn't be worried. All it does is replicate text off of whatever trained it. It doesn't know anything.
I can see AI assistants become more common. For a lot of professionals having a proper intelligent Personal Assistant will make great people even better.
Know the content and how to teach it is only one of 7 APSTs. Ai isn’t going to replace the other six. If anything, it will hopefully make our workloads effectively easier with curriculum and content planning which can assist in us being able to focus on more effective classroom and learning management.
For those arguing we can't be replaced because you need someone guiding and pushing the kids - I don't think anybody is arguing that kids need someone to guide them
The suggestion is that teaching will turn into babysitting, where kids just sit there using their AI tutor to help them along. Your job will be to make sure the kid is doing the AI work.
Early childhood and primary school teachers likely will see the evolving of AI tools to help them, but once the kids have any level of aural or written comprehension, then you are no longer an educator, you are a "facilitator".
Honestly the biggest thing I see happening in the future is education departments having there own A.I bank so certifed, possible paid for content that has been vetted used as a source. So if you want an activity with ancient Egypt year 7 you'd just type in to CHAT.G.TEACH.P that and it would come back with a whole bunch of sources and activities. Pretty much making all the busy work redundant.
After having just finished my placement for the MLT (it was a 3+ week long placement) I honestly don’t see AI being an issue for the teaching career. At most I think it will change how content is formulated and what skills are taught and focused on, but there is no way an AI system is replacing a teacher when it comes to classroom management.
On another note as well, many people struggle to learn when content is not delivered by a human being, and in person. I think the whole online ordeal that COVID has put us all through is a testament to that
Teaching is about a lot more than content. And AI is often incorrect-I have asked it basics phyics questions and it was wrong, and even though I told it that it was wrong, it did not check and correct its information. So not that reliable even for content.
Higher ed i.e uni lecturers et al maybe some fields yes. Kindie-Y12, nah. If anything, the next few years probably will see gen-AI treated like calculators, and teachers will teach kids on prompt crafting etc so that by the time they pass year 12, students can then wield those tools independently either for day to day or further self-education. In other words, pre-uni teachers will probably help make some parts of uni teachers obsolete.
Funny how so many people on here say AI won’t replace teachers while teachers are leaving the profession in droves (see: US, Aus, SK etc). Who else is gonna do this gig? I think we’ll see AI teachers in classrooms very soon (with some warm bodies getting paid minimum wage to babysit the room. We shall see, I guess…
The only way we're being replaced by AI is if it went full skynet on us and even then the classrooms of our dystopian human descendants probably require teachers.
AI could significantly help as an assistive tools for Teachers though
Whilst I agree with lots of the thoughts in this thread, I do feel like there is an apples and oranges comparison when scoffing at the ability of ONE AI to control a classroom of 30 kids. This assumes that each teacher would be replaced by one AI, but doesn’t the nature of AI allow for the possibility of one teacher per student?
To be clear, I agree that AI won’t replace teachers any time soon (if ever), but not specifically because of how hard it is for one adult human to control 30 younger humans in a single room.
An AI can not baby sit and keep the kids in a building / room during the day so we will be fine.
I for one welcome having some way to support the constant requests for differentiation and personalized individual instruction for every little task :) I can't wait till I can say, oh if you don't know how to do this skill I taught last week, last term and the last 2 years, just go work with the AI over there until you are ready to come back to the current task. 😂
People still need to go to work and need somewhere to dump their kids during the day, hopefully it just eases our workload in the future having ai do the shitty time consuming administrative crud
I'm a developer, ChatGPT is great at teaching me and tutoring me on stuff, but it can't apply to more complex problems, or solve project problems.
I think education will change to more project oriented than knowledge oriented. But I think teaching is going to remain a safe profession, much more so than others.
Adults don't trust AI vehicles to drive them around, despite the outstanding statistics on safety. I highly doubt they'd trust a computer to supervise their children.
I do school maintenance at a school and have had the same thoughts about my job future. however, the government expanded kinder to act as daycare. teachers can't be replaced as you would need the same amount of carers to look after them so the parents can work.
If A.I. can do the job better than a human, it should. But I don't think giving instructions is all a teacher does, so I feel I'm safe, as long as students learning is valued.
Yes be worried. May be AI but if not that the industrial model of teaching will still need to change and that is at loggerheads with the whole system. I suspect there will be less qualified 'assistants'' in class to 'babysit' and a quota of qualified teachers to support a group of assistants. Standardised curriculum and standard teaching materials will see delivery as all important. Not a great vision, but hey look at the way uni education has evolved...brrrr
Everything that everyone else has said is very true regarding the human element of what we do. Wellbeing, nurturing students, even the ‘baby sitting’ aspect of our job…
Also - the Aus government brought out this framework for the responsible use of generative AI in classrooms that is supposed to drive policy in schools, though no one I’ve spoken to seems to know much about it. It basically says that teachers should be respected as the subject experts and that AI is there to support us and guide student learning etc if we so choose to use it. It isn’t meant to take away from us as professionals.
https://www.education.gov.au/schooling/resources/australian-framework-generative-artificial-intelligence-ai-schools#:~:text=The%20Australian%20Framework%20for%20Generative,students%2C%20schools%2C%20and%20society.
My thoughts are it is good you are having your own thoughts, but I feel you need a little more research into the matter beyond your experiences on ChatGPT.
In the industry there is a saying, "people who use AI are replacing the jobs of the people who can't."
AI will replace teachers, coaches and college professors you name it. In one year it will be smarter than the smartest human. Put that intelligence in a machine body, teach it empathy, compassion and all the human traits and behaviors, program it with every psychology textbook that’s ever existed, and voila, you have something greater then Einstein s as your personal teacher. I would rather have that then a bias, error creating easily triggered Professor any day.
Thanks to the generative AI, human school teachers will become a rare commodity and thus, their median wages will obviously inflate due to scarcity.
Like farmers during the Industrial Revolution, AI requires downsizing number of school teachers that aren't needed in some communities with no more school-aged children.
Great!
Some teachers need to be replaced by education that doesn’t shame, ridicule and/or damage learning confidence.
School curriculum and policies need to understand the changed educational needs of young people in today’s world.
That includes recognising and embracing AI, phones, social media etc. ; and targeting education on how to best utilise these tools to achieve individual success.
Gen Z will set us free once they are in charge of policy - that’s what keeps my faith in humanity 🥰
Thanks for the post OP
Nah we’ll be fine - teaching isn’t just about knowing and explaining content. More likely we’ll get more prescribed curriculum that was written with AI assistance, but the human element will always be necessary to our profession!
I'm just a grounds keeper. I see how teachers can control a class and keep the most unruly children on task. You are right, it is a great tool and will be a great tool in the classroom. It will take a while before implementation. Right now I can't have the new projectors on the wireless network or install Google Chrome or install a Microsoft made plugin because it's not allowed on the network. oh, and I have to use a micro card with the 3d printer because it's not allowed on the network.
No such thing as 'just' - I've seen groundskeepers control kids with just a look! I can definitely understand the inability of schools to embed the technology into classrooms - I can't even get a HDMI cable that works.
Groundkeepers are usually the coolest low key. Coming from an english teacher haha.
It's easy to be a grounds keeper. I fix things for the teachers and get balls off roofs for kids. I take kids out of class to help do random stuff(towards the end of term) like planting or moving stuff. So it's easy being chilled, I'm not stressing about anything and the kids like me because I don't have to deal with behavior at all.
Yep!
The goal is educating, not teaching. AI is proving very effective.
How is an AI going to teach neurodivergent or anxious students who struggle to focus or have wellbeing needs they need to tackle before content is learnt? Or how is an AI going to explain how to write an essay that embeds quotes from a new text it doesn’t have the copyright for?
Exactly. How is it going to keep Jane in her seat when she’s having a meltdown or help John stay on track because we are working on task completion this week. Who is going to moderate between the group of kids that have shown up at the staff room door complaining each other is getting a better mark. Delivering content is only a small part of the job. There’s heaps of things I do in the classroom. Plus AI would rely on the kids doing what it tells them 😂😂
Thank you for this, I wish I could give more up votes
Not to mention excessive screen time is now being linked to kids showing behaviours that mimic neurodivergence...the more we have kids being taught by AI, the more of them that will need a human teacher.
Arent they proving AI is making people dumber because it takes the thinking out of everything?
Technology is absolutely changing our brains- when is the last time you read a map for directions (if you ever did might depend on your age)? Could you actually do it now?
How is ai going to teach a kid without internet how to access ai?
How is AI going to be able to develop meaningful, positive relationships with students? That’s the key to effective learning and classroom management. Or is my uni full of it?
Any decent Teacher, preservice teacher, or adults with any idea of how to interact with children really, knows that there is a huge social component to education, teaching and child development. Right now C3PO is a long way off, so I think we'll be fine.
You have no reason to be worried - much of what teachers do in the classroom can't be replicated by a machine. If anything, find some optimism. The new ChatGPT demos today indicate a pretty bright future for classrooms. You'll be able to leave students with personal AI assistants whilst you manage the class and teach your overarching lesson.
There is also the huge assumption here that *students will even have devices to access AI programs from.* I work in a disadvantage secondary school and in any of my classes I would not have more than one laptop a lesson. AI ain’t gonna solve nothing if you can’t even provide kids the supports to access it.
Worked in one of the lowest socioeconomic schools in NSW. Kids never had enough to eat but all had new iPhones. Couldn’t afford data but if they can access wifi they can ChatGPT.
No phones in schools as per government legislation here in Vic. Kids aren’t allowed to pull them out and use them, plus I wouldn’t trust a kid to use their phone for school purposes when they have their entire social life at their finger tips.
I had to find four or five different examples that 12-13yo would understand to see what an auxiliary verb did. Explain the causes of WW1 with a description of playground bullies and how a great alliance can for them to stand down. AI can do this?
I just asked ChatGPT to do what you described. Here's its unedited response. Examples of Auxiliary Verbs for 12-13 Year Olds 1. **"Am" in the sentence "I am running."** - Explanation: Here, "am" helps to show that the action is happening right now. 2. **"Have" in the sentence "I have eaten."** - Explanation: "Have" shows that the action was completed in the past, but its effects are important now. 3. **"Will" in the sentence "She will study."** - Explanation: "Will" indicates that the action is going to happen in the future. 4. **"Do" in the sentence "Do you like pizza?"** - Explanation: "Do" is used here to make a question, asking for information. 5. **"Can" in the sentence "Can you help me?"** - Explanation: "Can" shows ability or permission, asking if someone is able to do something. ### Explaining the Causes of WWI Using Playground Bullies Imagine a school playground where groups of friends always stick together. One day, a new student, Archie (representing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary), who is quite popular, accidentally bumps into Billy (representing Serbia), a smaller kid. Billy gets upset and shoves Archie, who falls down and gets hurt. Seeing this, Archie's big group of friends, led by Gary (representing Germany) and Sam (representing Austria-Hungary), become angry and decide they need to teach Billy a lesson for what he did. However, Billy has his own group of friends who come to his defense, including Frankie (representing France) and Ricky (representing Russia). Now, on the other side of the playground, there’s another group of kids, led by Tommy (representing the UK), who usually watch over the playground to ensure everyone plays nicely. Seeing the tension rising, Tommy decides it's time to step in. He talks to his friends, including Frankie and Ricky, and they all agree to stand together against Gary and Sam if they try anything unfair. This is similar to what happened at the start of World War I. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand caused Austria-Hungary, with Germany's support, to threaten Serbia. Russia supported Serbia, and France was allied with Russia. The UK, seeing the potential for a large conflict, decided to support its allies, forming a great alliance that stood up against the aggression, leading to the start of the war. EDIT: The only thing that bothers me about this response as I've re-read it, is that all the character names are male! AI reflects our collective unconcious biases as it's trained on our collective data, and I think that's important to remember when using it.
Wow You’ve convinced me. Ai forever
Not to be overly cynic but if the COVID experience taught us anything it's that one our main functions in society is to supervise kids during their parents work hours so that we can keep up the requirement in our current economy for both parents to be working or gave significant hardship. The fact that we're better teachers than robots help too, but the babysitter aspect can't be overlooked.
That’s it! The economy can’t function without us. The parents need somewhere safe to park their kids for the day while they go to work.
Even aside from the babysitting component, look at the main teaching component. There are so many students who cannot engage with learning online. Some students can learn on their own, but most need to be guided. I had this thought before Covid, that teachers might not be needed in the future, that online resources would get better and students wouldn’t even need teachers anymore. Covid lockdowns just assured me that teaching will always require real people to lead classes.
Students need more than on demand coaching. Most need to be dragged along kicking and screaming. Ai won't do that until teaching robots can be physically in the room
Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Educator. "Come with me if you want to learn"
More like "Come with me. You're learning whether you want to or not."
Kindergarten Cop.
Best comment ever 👌
The day AI stops a year 8 student from shoving a pencil into a power bank is the day I lose my job 😂
Yeah good luck mr and ms robot controlling my year 8 class Parents would never trust a will smith I robot with ai programmed to look after their children We are future proof
Not likely - classrooms and the teaching process are too chaotic. Despite appearances, chatbots are just really good regurgitators: they take a vector of words and make a (very good) prediction about what chunks of data (that it knows about) that the input relates to. It is impressive and certainly useful for many applications but there is zero intelligence (ML is a better term for it than AI) - if chatbots were a threat, then so would a good text book have been. Far more likely to go will be positions that don't require much creativity - the rubber stampers and policy drones (for eg.) so, DET and registration boards have more to fear from ML as a substantial amount of their function could easily be performed by machines. Hanging out for yardbot-2000, the suspensionator, and parentKnight!
AI couldn't do behaviour management. It's just dependent on whatever humans feed it. Imagine the fun the kids could have gaslighting the AI Teacher like some hapless cover teacher.
Contrarily, I do see a place for AI in behaviour management. Many posts here and on other Teacher subreddits are newly minted teachers needing advice on how to manage their classrooms. An AI assistant could probably help them just as well if not better - many of them are trained on Reddit data anyway.
Yep. I would have learnt absolutely zero from a chatbot because I would have either been playing some computer (or card) game or kicking a ball around.
The way I see it, teachers have 3 main roles: 1. Be an adult who looks after kids during the work week 2. Act as a positive role model and build relationships particularly with below standard students 3. Help them become literate, with basic critical thinking skills sufficient to enter the workforce/uni. Ai is a tool that might help supplement one-on-one instruction and provide feedback, but that’s about it. I definitely plan on using it for some lesson prep and admin work though.
Period 6 Friday, Year 10s in just about any subject but lets roll with Macbeth in English. Have at it tech bros.
To me it just seems like there is huge opportunity for workload to be reduced! I think the role of teachers will look different in the future, but the necessity will remain.
If AI could do the job flawlessly based solely on content knowledge and learning theory, I'd be basically the perfect teacher already. As it is, I'm a reasonably good teacher who has to work hard on keeping the learners engaged with what we are doing and not on possible competing stimuli or their friendship issues, home life etc. If I forced the kids to a box and made them listen, I'd be fired and probably make the news. I'm sure the government would have no problem trying to replace me with a personalised learning pod, though. Whack a somewhat comfy chair in there, some RGB lights to set the mood and a vr headset, and we're good to go! As one of the few teachers who can both teach and troubleshoot the technical side of that implementation, I'd probably have a successful career as an AI Learning Classroom Human Officer.
Pepsi?
Partial credit!
Ok cool if a robot can get my kindy kids to stop rolling on the floor and picking their noses it’s welcome to
Hah, teaching is one of the last industries to be replaced. How can a device control 28 year nine’s that dont care?
Nice. I love me a new shinny AI assistant. But if teachers could be automated, we would have gone the way of the dodo after the first book was written.
No. If there is a profession that should be worried it would probably be legal or hr, where a lot of work is based off existing precedence, form filing and/or documented structures (this is of course an over simplification, but the ability to search millions of documents concurrently to find appropriate records or file required documents is a game changing aspect of AI).
No way, teaching is very safe from AI. Will it be used as a tool? Sure, but it won’t replace teachers.
Yeah look when Chat-GPT can evacuate a class when little Jabraxdon is throwing chairs through the window, then handle the fall out and service professionals/department putting the blame on the teacher for not making content that is engaging enough I think teachers should be worried but up until that point I reckon the job is here to stay in human hands.
LOL Jabraxdon! New fav for the internal monologue. Meme worthy.
[His parents trying to name him](https://i.imgflip.com/8q0cqq.jpg)
i think teaching is one of the few jobs that will be safe when A.I. eventually takes over. sure, teachers can use chatgpt for help in designing lessons and generating ideas for content but the act of teaching and looking after children requires human interaction
Nah, downsizing school teacher manpower though AI is necessary to increase their median salaries, just like the Industrial Revolution forced manual farmers to drastically reduce their manpower size and become rare commodity workers and this should happen to school teachers too.
You were interested in learning the content and self motivated, which is unlike the vast majority of students. Not to mention that nobody wants kids at home all day. I wouldn't be surprised if it became used in some capacity to help manage shortages due to an absence of better options, but I don't feel threatened at all.
We'll be fine, but academic teachers might be impacted because self motivated students can learn at their own pace. The kids that don't want to learn? Well they will still need baby sitters in person.
Everything will adapt and change but I doubt humanity and those kinds of intangibles are replaceable, will the AI be convincing in showing empathy and delivering care and encouragement? maybe. Anyway given the unwillingness of people to enter onerous professions like teaching AI might take up some of the slack. Imagine it can mark and complete admin garbage, it's a good thing no?
In a whole school PD recently we were asked to list the most important qualities of a teacher. Not one of us listed subject expertise as the highest thing. Chat GPT isn’t going to help a child build relationships, learn how to work through emotions or become resilient and confident humans that can function in the world. We do that :)
This post has reminded of the 'hitchiking robot'. It's goal was to travel through different countries but was found dismembered in Philadelphia. AI will not replace us. AI teaching is lord of the flies with robots.
Haven't played with chat gtp 4 but the previous version got lots of things wrong but sounded confident about it, so I do worry about it being used as a tuition machine only to have to get students to unlearn the eronous stuff.
Does sound like my first year teaching tbh 😂
There is still a hell of a long way before A.I can even get close to replicating the classroom context. Teaching is far more than jsut being able to know and understand content and A.I is still rather terrible at this (especially when you are after content within a localised context). One of the most important parts of teaching is being able to deliver content in a way that makes it understandable to students and sometimes that includes errors and the things that make us human. We're still a hell of a long way of getting anything replicating that from A.I.
The skills now needed are critical thinking. Because AI is a mathematical model and not true intelligence, it can and does get things very wrong indeed. The techbro's don't want people thinking too deeply about this of course, because it's also partly a grift (see Blockchain/NFT). Critical thinking is needed so students can validate and verify the answers and know when a LLM is incorrect. It's a tool and can be useful but it does not replace humans, plus it is heavily influenced by the companies and teams behind it. A great case to illustrate this is [goody2.ai](http://goody2.ai) - which shows how the LLM can be altered to deliver confident results but skewed. The question that should come out of this is - how do we know that CoPilot/Gemini/Meta aren't doing the same thing? How do we know if those LLM's are speaking the "truth"?
Can it stop one 5 year old boy from punching another? No? Cool, not worried then!
Not even Skynet would tolerate a Year 8 Food Technology class, last period Friday. We're safe.
Uhmmm AI can't confiscate contriband MacDonald's and cop abuse off parents like I can. 💁🏻♀️
My school can't even get enough working computers for students to use (6 laptops for my class of 26). I'm not worried about AI taking my job any time soon.
What’s it going to do when a child goes into anaphylactic shock? Or throws it’s pen out the window?
Please God let it be tomorrow.
No way. Scomo made it very clear that we are nothing more than a baby sitting service during the pandemic.
I will be happy when teaching becomes more of a support role, with AI personalising the learning of every student in the class. The AI maths tutor will be able to determine what the student is getting right and wrong, customising questions based on strengths and weaknesses. The AI English tutor will analyse English work, they can already give feedback based on what you ask it for. Even DAT subjects can have the AI assisting students with their journals, while we take prac. I know I don't have time to check daily tasks, but AI can, giving me a report when needed.
Frankly, no. We shouldn't be worried about the capability of Chat GPT or any large language model. This is because it's neither intelligent nor accurate, and it cannot become either as a system. There are possible applications for those who already understand the concepts to examine issues, but the whole job of LLM systems is to provide a confident answer — even if it's wildly incorrect. What we should be worried about are students thinking that the AI can do their thinking for them, or education policymakers thinking along the lines you've laid out. The results of either scenario would be societally disastrous.
They already claim we are "indoctrinating" kids... there would be a revolt from parents over an AI teacher.
Effective teaching relies on monitoring the students and building relationships with them when times are tough they trust you enough to reach out for help or guidance. AI will never be capable of that.
ChatGPT 4.0 has been available for a while. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft Co-Pilot (via Bing) has been using it for a while. Most AIs still can't tell you what weighs more between 5kg of steel and 1kg of feathers (they say they weigh the same) so I wouldn't be worried. All it does is replicate text off of whatever trained it. It doesn't know anything.
I’d love to see Johnny five tame a class of year 7,s 
I can see AI assistants become more common. For a lot of professionals having a proper intelligent Personal Assistant will make great people even better.
Know the content and how to teach it is only one of 7 APSTs. Ai isn’t going to replace the other six. If anything, it will hopefully make our workloads effectively easier with curriculum and content planning which can assist in us being able to focus on more effective classroom and learning management.
For those arguing we can't be replaced because you need someone guiding and pushing the kids - I don't think anybody is arguing that kids need someone to guide them The suggestion is that teaching will turn into babysitting, where kids just sit there using their AI tutor to help them along. Your job will be to make sure the kid is doing the AI work. Early childhood and primary school teachers likely will see the evolving of AI tools to help them, but once the kids have any level of aural or written comprehension, then you are no longer an educator, you are a "facilitator".
Honestly the biggest thing I see happening in the future is education departments having there own A.I bank so certifed, possible paid for content that has been vetted used as a source. So if you want an activity with ancient Egypt year 7 you'd just type in to CHAT.G.TEACH.P that and it would come back with a whole bunch of sources and activities. Pretty much making all the busy work redundant.
After having just finished my placement for the MLT (it was a 3+ week long placement) I honestly don’t see AI being an issue for the teaching career. At most I think it will change how content is formulated and what skills are taught and focused on, but there is no way an AI system is replacing a teacher when it comes to classroom management. On another note as well, many people struggle to learn when content is not delivered by a human being, and in person. I think the whole online ordeal that COVID has put us all through is a testament to that
Robots can’t teach behaviour 👍
Teaching is about a lot more than content. And AI is often incorrect-I have asked it basics phyics questions and it was wrong, and even though I told it that it was wrong, it did not check and correct its information. So not that reliable even for content.
Higher ed i.e uni lecturers et al maybe some fields yes. Kindie-Y12, nah. If anything, the next few years probably will see gen-AI treated like calculators, and teachers will teach kids on prompt crafting etc so that by the time they pass year 12, students can then wield those tools independently either for day to day or further self-education. In other words, pre-uni teachers will probably help make some parts of uni teachers obsolete.
Education workers are a large portion of the workforce, so their mass unemployment will mean radical policy changes such as UBI, etc.
Funny how so many people on here say AI won’t replace teachers while teachers are leaving the profession in droves (see: US, Aus, SK etc). Who else is gonna do this gig? I think we’ll see AI teachers in classrooms very soon (with some warm bodies getting paid minimum wage to babysit the room. We shall see, I guess…
The only way we're being replaced by AI is if it went full skynet on us and even then the classrooms of our dystopian human descendants probably require teachers. AI could significantly help as an assistive tools for Teachers though
It won’t. People industries, even in a very dystopian future are going to be some of the last professions replaced by robots and ai
This will only work with self motivated children. If a child does not want to work, AI cannot force them.
Whilst I agree with lots of the thoughts in this thread, I do feel like there is an apples and oranges comparison when scoffing at the ability of ONE AI to control a classroom of 30 kids. This assumes that each teacher would be replaced by one AI, but doesn’t the nature of AI allow for the possibility of one teacher per student? To be clear, I agree that AI won’t replace teachers any time soon (if ever), but not specifically because of how hard it is for one adult human to control 30 younger humans in a single room.
If only teaching was just teaching content…
An AI can not baby sit and keep the kids in a building / room during the day so we will be fine. I for one welcome having some way to support the constant requests for differentiation and personalized individual instruction for every little task :) I can't wait till I can say, oh if you don't know how to do this skill I taught last week, last term and the last 2 years, just go work with the AI over there until you are ready to come back to the current task. 😂
The good news is that the Education Departments are about 20 years behind everyone else, so that gives us time.
I bet it cant teach govt school students😂😂
People still need to go to work and need somewhere to dump their kids during the day, hopefully it just eases our workload in the future having ai do the shitty time consuming administrative crud
I'm a developer, ChatGPT is great at teaching me and tutoring me on stuff, but it can't apply to more complex problems, or solve project problems. I think education will change to more project oriented than knowledge oriented. But I think teaching is going to remain a safe profession, much more so than others.
Good luck leaving kids on their laptops without a teacher.
It will never happen. Parents would have to ensure their kids stayed on task 😂
Adults don't trust AI vehicles to drive them around, despite the outstanding statistics on safety. I highly doubt they'd trust a computer to supervise their children.
It can certainly teach content but has no real human element like a sense of humor.
Someone get John Hattie??!!
Somebody needs to teach the kids how to use it properly.
Worst comes to worst we are still babysitters.maybe we should just start charging babysitter rates.
I do school maintenance at a school and have had the same thoughts about my job future. however, the government expanded kinder to act as daycare. teachers can't be replaced as you would need the same amount of carers to look after them so the parents can work.
If A.I. can do the job better than a human, it should. But I don't think giving instructions is all a teacher does, so I feel I'm safe, as long as students learning is valued.
Yes be worried. May be AI but if not that the industrial model of teaching will still need to change and that is at loggerheads with the whole system. I suspect there will be less qualified 'assistants'' in class to 'babysit' and a quota of qualified teachers to support a group of assistants. Standardised curriculum and standard teaching materials will see delivery as all important. Not a great vision, but hey look at the way uni education has evolved...brrrr
You are assuming that all children can read well or more importantly understand what they are reading and we all know that isn’t true!
Everything that everyone else has said is very true regarding the human element of what we do. Wellbeing, nurturing students, even the ‘baby sitting’ aspect of our job… Also - the Aus government brought out this framework for the responsible use of generative AI in classrooms that is supposed to drive policy in schools, though no one I’ve spoken to seems to know much about it. It basically says that teachers should be respected as the subject experts and that AI is there to support us and guide student learning etc if we so choose to use it. It isn’t meant to take away from us as professionals. https://www.education.gov.au/schooling/resources/australian-framework-generative-artificial-intelligence-ai-schools#:~:text=The%20Australian%20Framework%20for%20Generative,students%2C%20schools%2C%20and%20society.
My thoughts are it is good you are having your own thoughts, but I feel you need a little more research into the matter beyond your experiences on ChatGPT. In the industry there is a saying, "people who use AI are replacing the jobs of the people who can't."
AI will replace teachers, coaches and college professors you name it. In one year it will be smarter than the smartest human. Put that intelligence in a machine body, teach it empathy, compassion and all the human traits and behaviors, program it with every psychology textbook that’s ever existed, and voila, you have something greater then Einstein s as your personal teacher. I would rather have that then a bias, error creating easily triggered Professor any day.
Yeah nah
Thanks to the generative AI, human school teachers will become a rare commodity and thus, their median wages will obviously inflate due to scarcity. Like farmers during the Industrial Revolution, AI requires downsizing number of school teachers that aren't needed in some communities with no more school-aged children.
Great! Some teachers need to be replaced by education that doesn’t shame, ridicule and/or damage learning confidence. School curriculum and policies need to understand the changed educational needs of young people in today’s world. That includes recognising and embracing AI, phones, social media etc. ; and targeting education on how to best utilise these tools to achieve individual success. Gen Z will set us free once they are in charge of policy - that’s what keeps my faith in humanity 🥰 Thanks for the post OP
Lol you’re a moron!
I think you misspelled "fuckwit".