I had a chance to catch up with a range of #AI EdTech vendors targeting K12 (see image below) and I’m starting to see where we are and where we could go. Generative AI (GAI) adds a conversational interface to information and will impact learning significantly. It will provide more agency to students, provide more personalized learning journeys and extend the universe of resources available to students.
GAI will positively impact K12 learning in a number of ways. Today, it helps teachers create lesson plans and incrementally improve them (ie.e., “add some deeper problems”, “provide learning activities that include SEL”, “include prompts for students to reflect on their learning”, “provide examples of the concept being used in the real-world”). The lesson plan content will become more automated as teachers won’t have to manually create and curate content. Products are emerging that automatically generate slide decks, quizzes, and other common lesson plan components.
GAI will evolve from primarily a lesson planning tool to help alleviate another time-consuming activity for teachers — feedback. GAI assistants will be able to provide some rudimentary feedback to students and higher-level feedback will be provided by teacher assistants using “gold” work products and rubrics. The potential of each student having their own GAI assistant is extremely exciting. Imagine how much of each student’s learning journey will be known when they use GAI regularly!
Initially, schools will have challenges managing the GAI prompts and the disparate sources of content. Students will have access to a range of GAI sources and only some of them will be provided by the school. For example, students will get exemplars from their teachers and they will also have access to public problem sets.
GAI will be a boon for students. GAI assistants will increase the velocity of learning (24x7 conversations) and also the level of individualization (e.g., tailored content and learning activities). GAI could also create an extended support system for students. Students may have their own GAI assistant that gains content every year. When their own GAI assistant can’t provide the necessary assistance, students could chat with a teacher’s GAI assistant. If that doesn’t help, there could be a school or district-wide GAI assistant. As a last resort, there could be school-sanctioned third-party GAI third-party tutors. At any layer of GAI assistance, they could be programmed to pass the student onto a live person for assistance. I also expect companies with deep knowledge to market subject-specifc GAI products.
GAI products will face an unhill struggle that more conventional EdTech products face. I’ve written about these challenges before — training, integration with the curriculum, and UI/UX targeted at a narrow teacher persona. I hope that GAI vendors take into account the manageability of their product and consider the following recommendations to improve their products for K12:
