AI Research I’m Reading
I will get the caveat out of the way right now - this paper is a preliminary report and has not gone through the peer review process yet. As it says, the findings, ‘should not be considered conclusive…’ (Kestin et al.) thus, this is a great point of discussion. It seems to me that while the AI disruption that we saw shook the stock market this week is only one disruption. Another I am hearing about is the disruption that AI Tutoring will have on education. I went looking for research and this is the most interesting paper I came across.
Researchers at Harvard wanted to see how good AI tutors are at teaching compared to regular classroom teaching. They tested this in a physics class with a bunch of students. Some students learned from an AI tutor, while others learned in a typical classroom with a teacher and group activities. The AI tutor was designed to teach in the same way as the classroom teacher. They found that students who used the AI tutor learned way more in less time than those in the regular class. Plus, the students with the AI tutor felt more interested and excited about learning. This shows that AI tutors can be a super effective way to teach and could change how we learn, making personalized learning available to everyone.
Key Take Aways:
Learning More, Faster: Students using the AI tutor learned more than twice as much as those in the regular class, and they did it in less time.
Time-Saving: Students with the AI tutor spent a median of 49 minutes learning, while the regular class was 60 minutes long to get the same assessment completed.
More Engaging and Motivating: Students with the AI tutor felt more involved and interested in the lesson (Mean = 4.1 vs. Mean = 3.6, p < 0.0001). They also felt more driven to tackle tough questions (Mean = 3.4 vs. Mean = 3.1, p < 0.001).
Personalized Learning: The AI tutor gave each student specific feedback and help, which probably helped them learn better.
Learning for Everyone: AI tutors could give personalized lessons to tons of students at once, making education more accessible.
Sources and related content
Kestin, Gregory, et al. “AI Tutoring Outperforms Active Learning.” Research Square (Research Square), Research Square (United States), May 2024, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4243877/v1. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
AI Teaching & Instruction
This is the second time I have found myself writing about Flint K12. This week I created my first AI Tutor for myself (I have been working on learning the Thai Language). I see these types of personalized tutors as a major disrupter to education. However, I do not see them as a replacement, more as an additional tool in the learning process. It is a very simple process to set up individual tutors for your students in your class. I am working with my Language Department to show them how they can create AI Tutors that will provide their students with an opportunity to practice their conversations. Flint does this with ease, tracks what they say, and provides a rubric to show how each student is doing with the conversation. This makes the daunting process of assessing conversation for language very straightforward.
We will pilot this process to see what students think and then assess it to get an idea of its effectiveness. We tried something similar using VR where we did a full study on the effectiveness of practicing conversation as a language-learning tool in VR. We found that in short order the students reached the capacity of the VR. The AI Tutor seems to be different in that they are much broader. The key takeaway here was that to build these tutors to be accurate and robust we found that the Teacher’s knowledge of scaffolding was critical to the effectiveness. It is an easy process and something I would encourage you to try yourself.
AI Trick
Do you have one of those smartwatches that tracks everything from your sleep to VO2 Max, to your daily steps? I do and I have been wearing one for nearly 10 years now. Over the years the data has gotten more and more robust, however my knowledge of what it all means has unfortunately not grown at the same pace. For this AI Trick, I used Gemini Live so I could talk to it: PROMPT: I want to build a workout designed specifically for me. I am going to read off my stats from my smart watch one by one. I want you to explain the metric to me, and then keep that in mind while you build me weekly workouts to improve my weak areas. Gemini started out by confirming that I cannot diagnose or provide medical prescription however it can make general workout suggestions that should be practiced with care. It was spot on with suggestions. I love the workout. Here is where I got the idea.
John-Anthony Disotto. “Fitbit’s New Gemini-Powered AI Assistant Can Answer Questions about Your Health – Here’s How to Try It.” TechRadar, 9 Oct. 2024, www.techradar.com/health-fitness/fitbits-new-gemini-powered-ai-assistant-can-answer-questions-about-your-health-heres-how-to-try-it. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
AI Technology Tool
Staying with the theme of AI disruption, I love a good mind map exercise to get students brainstorming and ideation. Even though there are loads of tools out there for mind mapping, I have always found good old paper and pencil are the best way to get success. My sentiments on this topic have been disrupted by MyMap.ai.
While Poe and some of the other paid subscription AI tools will allow you to create mind maps for brainstorming MyMap.ai is purpose-built. Simply enter your idea into the box and it immediately generates a massive as well as beautiful map. You can expand ideas further by selecting an element and ‘ASK AI’ to dig deeper. It is subscription-based based but you get enough free ones to do most tasks. This is definitely worth a try and you will be surprised by the robustness of this tool.
AI Digital Citizenship
The beautiful thing about disruptions to the standard is the creative minds that approach issues differently. From EdTechEmma.com comes this amazing run down of how she tackled a load of digital citizenship issues in an organized manner through the lens of AI. I think that EdTechEmma has such a strong command of what Digital Citizenship was that going for it with AI threats in mind she was a pioneer!
Her unit and a bit of the story is linked in this Blog Post on her site titled, ‘Teaching Digital Citizenship in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’. She details how they attacked misinformation, ‘Armed with fact-checking swords’. It is not only written well but she covers the full gamut of digital citizenship issues. I would encourage you to support her efforts by purchasing her Unit Plan. It is a great set of tools and is ‘turn-key’ for an Advisory or Seminar class.
Pass, Emma. “Teaching Digital Citizenship in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” Edtechemma, 22 June 2023, www.edtechemma.com/single-post/teaching-digital-citizenship-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Book Review
Female boxing is something that is relatively new to most of us. It has been around for as long as boxing just not on the scale of male boxing. This book tracks the progress of several girls. It digs into the stories that brought these girls to major bout in Reno and its a unique look at what happens in the heads of a boxer, girl or boy.
There is of course the family of star-girl boxers who are second to none. However, I main character is battling more than just what happens in the ring. She has a history that is challenging her self-worth, and she doesn’t have much family support. Probably the most interesting thing is what goes through the girl’s heads as they are in battle against each other. This is a book that explores the intersection of family, life, and choices we make along the way.
Wow, great stuff, Chris. This Flint thing is really cool. I plan to give it a try and see what I can build. Thanks for the Mindmap AI as well.
Maybe you should do these postings 2x per week now? LOL
This is fascinating. The fear of Ai replacing teachers was the first reaction I had, but reading the rest of the article made it clear this is definitely a new and effective tool, especially with learning languages which, in my humble opinion, is something every child should do. Thanks again for your insight and hard work.