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by Asher Crispe, for Campaign for Vermont
Close your eyes. Imagine: What do you think education will look like in five years? How about in ten years?
For most of us, education, while having undergone incremental changes, has mostly stayed the same. We picture students sitting at desks with a teacher at the front of a classroom in a brick and mortar school. Students are grouped into grades largely by age. They may take yellow school buses to and from their homes. Minus the laptops, smart phones, and a few other tech gadgets, the environment would not be totally alien to someone from many decades past. We have an opportunity to change all of that and afford students an individualized learning experience that meets them where they are, regardless of age or grade level. And we can do it for little to no cost (maybe even with some cost savings).
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, just observed that while the growth of computer technology has improved 2x every 18-24 months for more than fifty years, AI performance has demonstrated a staggering 150x improvement over the last 18th months. Most strikingly, is that this trend appears to be accelerating even faster. Recently, the DeepSeek AI demonstrated recursive self-improvement. It was quite literally prompted to find a way to improve its performance and it managed an astonishing 2x speed increase almost immediately. We have a tool in our hand which knows how to improve itself. For many observers this is a milestone for even more rapid development of technology in general, and AI in particular.
The 21st century has already transformed the workplace and the tools we use every day. The information age has radically changed what skills are most valuable for many industries. Memorization is no longer the core skill and going forward into the AI age we will see another transformation. The education system was slow to adapt to the first transformation, we should be faster to adopt the second.
Estimates wildly vary as to the number of jobs this will displace or augment, but many think that AI will create more jobs than it destroys. Personally, as a technology futurist, I think these are conservative estimates. It is more likely that all jobs and aspects of life will be profoundly impacted–including schools and education. As Vermont taxpayers are struggling with massive costs due to excessive staffing, which place us as per-student spending in the Country, we could use some really disruptive thinking about how to control costs, while simultaneously delivering personalized world-class education. AI, in and out of the classroom, might be part of the solution.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Stephen Kosslyn, a psychologist and neuroscientist, who spent 30 years researching and teaching at Harvard University. Kosslyn has penned multiple books on the subject of online and AI-assisted learning. His approach advocates for having AI function as a cognitive amplifier. What this means is that the AI is not meant to think for us, but to draw out our capacity for deep learning and critical thinking – a personal learning coach as it were.
He advocates for a process of learning by using, capitalizing what is sometimes referred to as the generation effect. If I can employ what I’ve learned in real-world applications, if I can express it, not as a matter of rote memorization for a test, but I can use what I’ve learned again and again, then I’ve achieved mastery and retention.
Part of the problem with the traditional classroom is that it rests on the presumption that students of the same age should be able to cover the same material at more or less the same pace. Each student spends the same amount of time on a given learning lesson, but achieves variable results. This generates endless frustration as many areas of learning are cumulative, so if students missed something in math last month or last year, the gap in understanding may come back to haunt them as they attempt to move forward.
Personalized learning aims to find that sweet spot with each student, the middle ground which is a stretch and challenging, but not so overwhelming as to plunge the student into an anxiety-induced panic, nor too slow and easy as to be boring. Teachers under the current classroom configuration are forced to teach to the average student, leaving some students either overwhelmed (class is moving too fast) or disengaged (the class is moving too slow). But what if we freed up teachers to become guides who can walk around the classroom and check in on students who are all in different places, students being challenged with a pace that is tailored to where they are in their individual process?
AI assisted learning is now capable of becoming a lifelong copilot for every person. Imagine everything a person has ever attempted to learn being tracked with all of the difficulties and gaps in knowledge noted. By thinking of learning as modular, the AI could offer a timely refresher on fractions, or a much-needed review of the proper use of a semicolon, and then immediately provide that lesson using multiple teaching styles aligned with the student’s particular interests. It would essentially create individualized learning plans (IEPs) for each student. Gone would be the days of students hiding in the back row of the classroom or spacing out and daydreaming while other students or the teacher speaks.
Active learning means each student is prompted to engage the material throughout the lesson via their computer in or out of the classroom. There would no longer be any possibility of passivity. Performance would spike. In addition to this, Kosslyn has demonstrated in his work how critical thinking, creative problem solving, emotional intelligences, collaboration and communication may be cultivated in unprecedented ways.
Beyond achieving a more desirable student/teacher ratio, the price performance is the best part of this. Kosslyn informed me that aside from the curriculum creation, which can run from $10k to over $100k per course, (depending on length and if his team has to start from scratch or build off of pre-existing materials), the actual price per student achieves a near zero marginal cost. This means that it does not matter whether you provide the AI assisted learning to 1,000 students or 100,000. Once you have the material and computers, the addition of each new student may add less than $100 to a year-long course on any given subject.
All of this is not to suggest that AI will replace teachers. Far from it. Rather AI assisted learning can greatly extend what a single teacher can accomplish, focusing the teacher’s time on getting to know the students better, and spending less effort trying to control the classroom. Teaching has the potential to shed much of the repetitive drudgery and become refocused on the fine art and creativity of student mentoring, deepening personal connections and understanding, while fine-tuning the learning process.
What is most exciting is that this novel reality in education is not a distant dream which is five or ten years away. It is here now. At Campaign for Vermont, we believe it’s time to run a pilot program at a small group of schools to prove the application of individualized learning, via AI coaches, that is urgently needed to prepare us for the jobs of the future.
We can achieve new educational heights without draining our pocketbooks.
Author is a Technology Futurist who speaks and consults globally for a wide range of companies. In addition to being a policy researcher and advisor to Campaign for Vermont, he is also a ninth generation Vermonter.
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Categories: Commentary, Education
The gang in the state house will stay for the summer to get this problem solved. They need a full time job. Waiting for the comments.
AI will never understand humor, irony, satire, or love. After seven helpings of its own garbage, it vomits up a chocolate chip cookie blob as a reproduction of an image of a dog.
It is an energy-sucking grift. Students don’t need robotic monitors; they need teachers who are capable of comprehending and writing cogently about Shakespeare, or are fluent in algebra.
To reiterate the story I will never forget: a biology professor at a major state university informed me that the majority of students who scored on the bottom third of the Bio 101 bell curve went into Education.
The sooner organizations like Campaign for Vermont (from their website- “Together, these three founding officers formed Campaign for Vermont to be an independent, nonpartisan 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to building a broad coalition of Vermonters from across the political spectrum to focus on advancing nonpartisan reforms that are most important to the future of Vermont and the economic security and prosperity of every Vermonter” translation: blah blah blah, cha-ching!) wither and die on the vine, the better it will be for the intelligence and health of the citizenry.
“AI will never understand humor, irony, satire, or love.”
But Tyler, neither will a teacher stuck in the one-size-fits-all classroom of a centrally planned, public school understand either.
After all, AI can beat the world’s greatest chess players, a game in which feinting and deception are strategized.
The point is – you have your perception of what you see as a “Free and Appropriate Education”. And while I may agree with you, I will be the last person to tell anyone else what they can and can’t do in their search for understanding. Especially when the potential for financial savings is as significant as online instruction allowing one teacher (i.e., education guide or partner) to work with thousands of students at a time.
PS. Hey Asher, long-time, no see. Thanks for chiming in.
PPS. H.89 folks. It’s as simple as passing the H.89. School Choice bill.
I’m sorry, Jay;
Did I advocate a teacher in a one-size-fits-all classroom? No. I’m saying AI is not the solution to the education crisis, and that those looking to implement it as such are grifters. And teachers need to know their subject matter, whether they are in a public schoolroom or any other educational milieu. By all means, have at it with school choice. Another way to look at that is being able to shop for the best teachers and curriculum. Bravo.
AI isn’t ‘the solution’, Tyler. It’s one of many solutions. Technology is advancing so fast these days, most teachers can’t keep up. Students, Parents and Teachers are becoming learning partners. The 19th century Horace Mann educational day-care model has long since gone the way of the horse and buggy.
This is not to say that parents and their children can’t stay in the old education box. School Choice is, after all, a choice. But Asher and I are simply letting you and everyone else know where education is headed, sooner or later – unless, of course, the totalitarian 19th century stalwarts get their way.
Are electricity costs increasing or decreasing? This is why AI hasn’t been able to follow Moore’s Law, which WOULD make it twice as fast at half the cost, every 18 months.
When AI can solve the problem of creating the tremendous amount of energy it consumes, and when Vermont is willing to host, power, and cool the vast data center(s) it requires, then you can color me impressed. Until then, advocating for AI in education is wanting people to be PROGRAMMED by something that is incapable of feeding itself, let alone “critical thinking”.
Fusion, my friend. Fusion. It’s coming faster than we know, and while AI is driving the demand, it will also facilitate the supply.
My suspicion is that Fusion is already commercially viable. But the drill-baby-drill and green energy crowds don’t want their investments to depreciate too quickly.
Just imagine the ‘creative destruction/disruptive innovation’ with which the fossil fuel and green energy industries must cope. If we can stomach the ‘whines, bawls, and invectives’ from those being weaned from obsolete technolgy, our standard of living will, almost certainly, improve.
Crispe nearly describes homeschooling, except swap the IA for a Mom. Or a Dad. Learning by using – imagine that! Get kids out from underneath those LED or fluorescent lights in public buildings that look like prisons.
This is not an attempt to decide how AI should drive the future of education. I do think Big Picture Learning is a much more integrated and healthy learning experience than what is the norm for most.
20 years ago, I explored and was enamored by what I saw in BIG Picture learning. Every student I’ve ever discussed this with was enticed by it. No busy meaningless paperwork, but learning about something I’m interested in and you help me stretch as much as I care to stretch.
Instead of an overgrown babysitting setting where the busy work is – here is an assignment you should find fascinating… writings, posters, skits… – even if it is on contemporary topics does not rival consideration of multiple opportunities to have internship experiences 3 days a week with the only major task is to prepare a presentation for peers, parents, educators and community members on what they’ve learned working on the job. I’ve seen a 10th grader organize a major community health awareness day; a senior build a maple syrup production operation, pick up a CDL license and learn to grade the roads and do repairs; someone who’s friend died learned all the ins and outs at a funeral home… https://www.bigpicture.org/
I’m sorry, I can’t tell you how expensive this is compared to traditional classrooms. I can tell you it put the adults in the student’s lives on a teaming path of reaching goals the student set forth. There was trust and support instead of generational divides of don’t trust anyone over 30 mentality.
How AI plays into Big Picture or any model is anyone’s guess. Ensuring students have access to learn and experience AI settings is vital for everyone’s futures. While educational changes are in the air, I put forth the Big Picture model as something that maybe could and should become part of a future of education.
Thank you, Asher, for moving the dialogue forward for this revolutionary opportunity, not only for improved education for students but a reduction in tax slavery for the heavily beleaguered Vermont citizenry.
https://cdn.mises.org/Education%20Free%20and%20Compulsory_1.pdf Nothing has really changed since this book came out. It’s always timely!
The main flaw with “AI” is it’s enormously inefficient, and the results should never be trusted. People blindly trust the outputs of these systems, and people with low understanding of technology with the power to spend lots of money have and will use this as a weapons system against us. AI has already been perverted and curtailed with pro-establishment bias. These systems are being sold to you as a helpful tool, but have been created with the intent for use as a quasi Dr Watson spy grid death weapon.
This brings up a good point however, the current state of education is stuck in the Jurassic ages. It’s quite obvious that this Persian model of education needs to go in the age of the internet. Everyone with access to the internet has access to a MIT and Harvard level education for FREE! We live in an amazing time, and this bankrupt system is holding back humanity.