Will universities redesign education around AI as a tool?
"Princeton will now require instructors in exam rooms for the first time since 1893" - The House of El.
A former Yap campus instructor, used to say, "Tests don't test." The college president has encouraged the development of curricula that is inclusive of AI. I still have tests and quizzes in my courses, but they are done unproctored, outside of class, on the students' own time, in Moodle. The tests are obviously open book and open world. The tests are also not used to assess learning. More complex assignments and projects are used to assess learning.
I spent time during this between-terms break consuming videos on AI in education and upcoming developments in AI. I can see around me the issues El describes in the video: instructors, and institutions, trying to find ways to retain an educational structure that predates 1893. Proctors, lock down browsers, paper and pencil in class exercises and assessments.
A study on how to redevelop the college curricula called for the development of a 21st curriculum, a curriculum that prepares students for the working world they will be entering. Recommendation number five centered on technology and AI.
Areas of growth: 5. Strengthening technology use. While overall technology use ratings were positive, about 13% of programs received low or very low Technology Use scores. Only 27% of faculty members frequently incorporate AI tools, and fewer than half frequently train students on using spreadsheets or writing professional emails. The report recommends expanded faculty training in technology and AI integration, continued infrastructure improvements, and further transition to more mobile-friendly platforms.
The graduates will enter a workplace where AI skills amplify their capabilities. Yet this is only possible if the curriculum teaches the students to use technology and AI systems. A curriculum that teaches students the topography of a field of knowledge so that they know which tool to use and when to use it, and to determine whether to trust the output of the tool. How education transitions to teaching the terrain, landscape, cognitive map, and architecture of a field of knowledge is unclear.
Photographs used to require glass plates. Above a boomer baby holds what appears might be a manual slide shutter on a large format glass plate camera. Family photographs shifted from staged formal portraits to casual unposed shots during the boomer baby years. Roughly a year after this photograph was taken IBM would introduce the Selectric typewriter. The IBM Selectric would rise to dominate the office typewriter market over the next two decades. Once one became accustomed to an electric typewriter, using a manual typewriter was challenging.
Each generation accepts and uses the technology that surrounded them when they were children. Generation Z grew up using a computer mouse and the software that came with a computer, along with digital photography which captured this image. Electric typewriters were two decades past their heyday when this photograph was taken. The Gen Z seen above has never typed on a typewriter. The next generation will never see a typewriter.
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