What EdTech Is Getting Wrong About AI

Rethinking AI in EdTech: Beyond Menial Tasks

The EdTech community is abuzz with the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform education. The prevailing thought is that AI should take over menial tasks for teachers, freeing them up to spend more time with students one-on-one. While this idea is well-intentioned, it underutilizes AI's immense power. Reducing AI to handling mundane tasks is akin to using a Ferrari as a golf cart—an incredible waste of potential. At Leonardo Learning, we believe AI's true strength lies in tackling complex challenges and creating customized learning experiences beyond human capability. This blog will explore why focusing solely on menial tasks is a mistake and how AI can be leveraged for more transformative educational outcomes.

The Misapplied Potential of AI

AI is often seen as a tool to automate repetitive and administrative tasks, such as grading papers, scheduling, or lesson planning. While these applications can save time and reduce workload, they barely scratch the surface of AI's potential, let alone start to address the core challenges of our educational crisis. AI excels at processing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, and generating insights that can lead to truly personalized learning experiences. These well-intentioned ideals miss the opportunity because they focus on the needs of the teacher over the needs of the student.

Customizing Learning Experiences

At Leonardo Learning, we harness the power of AI to focus on the student, creating reading experiences customized for each reader based on their passions, preferences, and reading performance. This approach transforms how students engage with reading material by making it more relevant and engaging. Instead of a one-size-fits-all curriculum based on age, each student receives content that resonates with their interests and reading level, fostering a deeper connection with the material and promoting mastery learning.

Imagine a student who loves soccer but struggles with reading comprehension. Traditional methods might not engage this student effectively, leading to frustration and disengagement. With AI, we can tailor reading materials to incorporate soccer-related themes and vocabulary, making the content more engaging and accessible. This personalized approach improves reading skills and cultivates a love for learning by connecting with the student’s interests.

But personalization doesn’t stop at the surface level of interests and vocabulary. Our multi-modal approach to real-time assessment and adjustment ensures that each reading session is dynamically tailored to the student's current abilities and needs. By integrating AI with advanced multi-modal inputs such as gaze tracking, audio analysis, and touch interaction, we can gain a deeper understanding of each student's engagement and comprehension.

This continuous loop of assessment and adjustment creates a highly responsive learning environment that adapts in real-time. Instead of progressing through a static, pre-set curriculum, each student experiences a dynamic journey tailored to their evolving needs and abilities.

The Role of Teachers in an AI-Enhanced Classroom

Leveraging AI for more complex tasks does not diminish the role of teachers. On the contrary, it enhances their ability to teach effectively. By handling the heavy lifting of data analysis and content customization, AI allows teachers to focus on what they do best: building relationships with students, fostering critical thinking, and creating a supportive learning environment. Teachers bring empathy, creativity, and human connection to the classroom—qualities that AI struggles to replicate. They can inspire students, provide emotional support, and adapt their teaching methods based on real-time interactions. Integrating AI into the educational ecosystem creates a collaborative environment where technology and human expertise complement each other, leading to better outcomes for students.

Fear of Rocking the Boat

A significant factor constraining the incumbent EdTech populous is the fear of rocking the boat. Concerns about AI replacing teachers or becoming a tool for academic dishonesty are valid, but they are not entirely grounded in reality. Refer to my previous article, "Will AI Take All The Teacher's Jobs?" for further insights.

However, it's not just educators and administrators who are wary—investors also play a crucial role in this risk aversion. Many hesitate to support ventures that could be interpreted as anti-teacher, fearing that they might alienate a substantial portion of their existing target market. This cautious approach often leads to missed opportunities for innovation.

Investors who recognize AI's transformative potential in education can play a pivotal role in fostering innovation and supporting ventures that align with the best interests of teachers and students alike. By investing in AI-powered educational solutions, they can contribute to developing technologies that augment educators' capabilities, personalize learning journeys, and ultimately create a more equitable and effective education system.

Broadening Our Vision

Finally, we should look beyond AI-only solutions to broaden our vision. In my experience, AI is likely just one part of a solution, not the entirety. Instead of looking at large language models (LLMs) and envisioning great chatbots or lesson plan generators, we should look at the biggest problems that need solving and then reverse engineer the best solution considering all the tools available to us—teachers, content, AI, etc. This is a more powerful path to solving those problems in concert with all available technologies.

We should not be myopic in our application of AI. It can help us solve greater and more complex problems if we think of it as part of the solution in our quiver, not a self-contained single magic arrow. In our pursuit of transformative solutions, we must transcend the limitations of AI-centric approaches and embrace a broader perspective. AI, while undeniably powerful, is merely one component of a comprehensive solution. By identifying the most pressing problems that demand our attention, we can embark on a reverse engineering process, considering the full spectrum of tools at our disposal. Teachers, content, AI, and other resources should be synergistically combined to craft the optimal solution. 

This holistic approach, encompassing all available technologies, holds the promise of addressing complex challenges in a collaborative and effective manner. It is imperative that we resist the temptation to adopt a narrow and myopic view of AI's potential. AI can be a transformative force, enabling us to surmount formidable and multifaceted problems. However, we must recognize that AI is not a standalone solution. Instead, it should be regarded as a valuable component within a comprehensive quiver of tools. By embracing this perspective, we can leverage AI's capabilities to tackle grand challenges that transcend the limitations of any single magic arrow.