'We cannot be at war with AI': Schools grapple with the future of artificial intelligence
While views on the use of AI in schools vary, one belief is constant - the technology must be embraced because it cannot be stopped.
Of the many discussions about the future of education, artificial intelligence (AI) looms large.
Schools across the country are preparing young people for a world of work dramatically different to the workplaces we have now.
Up to 60 per cent of jobs could be affected by AI in the next decade and up to 30 per cent significantly disrupted.
So how do schools support young people to use these new tools ethically while also nurturing critical thinking, teamwork and creativity?
How a Bridge of Allan school is making use of AI
Fairview International School in Bridge of Allan is the only school in Scotland that offers the through programme International Baccalaureate (IB), running three IB programmes from age five to 18.
Newly appointed deputy head teacher Jane Barrowcliff says the school is excited about the use of AI. Inquiry, Mrs Barrowcliff says, drives the focus of Fairview’s education provision.
“We want learners that are curious and asking questions and challenging potential biases and really being very committed to being lifelong learners,” she said.
The school teaches young people to see AI as “a partner, not a shortcut”.
She said: “We want them to use these platforms to refine their understanding, so we would see AI best as a thinking partner, essentially a co-pilot in the thinking process, not a shortcut to the answer.”
AI is used in the school as almost a personal tutor that can give feedback on students’ own work in real time. Much work is being done on teaching pupils academic integrity and giving them the tools to spot bias and critically evaluate the information provided by AI.
“It's having those sceptical literacy skills that are a core responsibility of being a 21st-century education system that's preparing 21st Century learners,” Mrs Barrowcliff said.
Use of AI is carefully and age-appropriately woven into aspects of the curriculum across the school and is used in internal assessments.
Mrs Barrowcliff said: “If we were to take a subject like science or maths, AI might be able to support the modelling and the data analysis and engage students more deeply in how it might be used to step into their assessment frameworks and help them to understand the criterion referencing on their assessment rubrics.”
The IB has a compulsory focus on theory of knowledge, which encourages young people to look at why we think the way we do.
Mrs Barrowcliff added: “We would typically ask what counts as knowledge, if it's generated by a machine? Can AI ever be creative? How can it sharpen discussions around ethical or philosophical awareness that young people could carry forward?”
Schools ‘must integrate AI’
Schools, she said, must be prepared to integrate AI. “It's very easy to have the mindset of denial, or for a school to think we don't have time in a traditional curriculum,” she said, “But that’s isn’t the case of the IB at all.
“The young people of today are going to have to utilise it into their futures so they shouldn’t be scared of it.”
Antonia Berry, rector of the High School of Glasgow, said her school had made the most rapid advancements in using platforms that would tailor assessments through the use of AI.
While the High School is starting to teach AI explicitly, the rector adds: “It is that path, or route, in terms of direct teaching in the curriculum, that is fraught with difficulties, specifically related to the kind of restrictions that SQA [Scottish Qualifications Authority] put in place, and also the age limits in terms of usage.”
The contrast between the IB and the traditional National 5 and Highers system is striking.
Alarm from SQA message
Mrs Berry said she was deeply concerned to attend a recent presentation by Donna Stewart, the new chief examiner of the SQA, about the changes due to take place when the exams body becomes Qualifications Scotland.
“I was actually quite alarmed,” she said, “By the fact that AI wasn't mentioned.
“They have been made aware of the issues around AI. But I think they are nervous about taking any definitive steps yet AI should be driving the decisions about future qualifications.”
The recent Hayward review, Mrs Berry said she believed, was already out of date, having been commissioned when AI was in its infancy.
“Now AI has exploded,” she said, “I almost think that Hayward has to be torn up and the exercise needs to begin again.”
All head teachers surveyed agree that it is unrealistic to ask young people not to use AI in the coursework component of exams, particularly given how embedded AI is across the internet and search engines.
‘Sticking heads in the sand’
Mrs Berry goes further. She said she believed those in charge of the education system were “sticking their heads in the sand” and this would have a devastating long-term effect on both young people and education.
“The key figures in education are too nervous to take a definitive stand on on the topic, because it is difficult and complicated,” she said. “You risk having a situation develop here that I think developed with social media, where we didn't get ahead of the game, we didn't understand the dangers and risks, we didn't take control of unfettered access, and as a result, we have a generation of young people that have been damaged.
“We’re starting to have to untangle that mess and I worry that if we don't take a pro-active approach to AI, and we don't take a stance that advocates for explicit teaching of AI and ethical use of AI, then we're going to end up with something very similar happening.”
Mrs Berry said her school would like to be “far more innovative” in the use and teaching of AI, but was restricted by the position of the SQA.
“We can fiddle with things at the fringes, but we can't really develop the core of the curriculum, because it's dictated by the qualifications that young people have to sit at the end of those courses,” she said.
Academic integrity
Rector of Kelvinside Academy Dan Wyatt said his school was focused on “high-quality debates” about academic integrity and ethics across the school.
Kelvinside has an Innovation School, which is particularly keen to engage and adopt AI.
Mr Wyatt said the “very purpose” of education must be reviewed with a crucial focus on critical and creative thinking, which his school tackles by focusing on project based learning.
“All the statistics tell us that,” he said. “Whilst academic grades are important, they're not the most important thing that an employer is now looking for.
“They are looking for - will the person fit with the team? Are they problem solvers? Do they have a skill set which is either complementary or desirable in that workplace?
“So for me, the purpose of education has to always be future facing and AI does change the game completely.”
The school’s director of educational technology and innovation is drafting a code of ethics for the use of AI in Kelvinside.
Difficult conversations must be had, he said, with some pupils whose work is clearly not their own. But he said young people had always had outside help, whether from a private tutor, parents or an older sibling.
AI ‘makes things more equal’
“So in some ways, AI makes things more equal,” Mr Wyatt said.
“Inherently children are amazing at wanting to be positive for the future, to be the generation that makes the change and makes the difference. But they need regulation. They need frameworks to support them doing that.”
Headteachers, as they might well, believe AI will not diminish the role of the teacher. But Mr Wyatt is particularly keen to avoid the sorts of teaching scenes that are developing in other countries.
In some US school districts, for example, classes of around 50 pupils spend the morning with a laptop and headphones taking part in individual AI-generated learning.
“We know from Covid that online learning was really hard and it wasn't the experience that children should get,” Mr Wyatt said.
“Learning is a human experience with humans, for humans and the AI needs to be there to enhance the teaching experience and not become the teaching experience.”
Mrs Barrowcliff said she firmly believed the use of AI would amplify the role of the teacher, not lessen it.
“It can free teachers from the repetitive tasks and give more time to the human side of education, so building relationships inspiring curiosity and supporting critical thinking, as well as supporting interdisciplinary learning so that we can critique test and reflect on the global impact that comes from that,” she said.
“We don't need to be in a war with AI, rather see it as a critical friend.”
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