In this blog, I will only focus on the university education system which is the lecture-based one that we are currently following in our master’s. We, the students, listen to lecturers, the course teachers, with the goal of capturing knowledge that would be valuable for our future. We will sit in a lecture hall for three hours, sometimes with very few interactions. Then we will have some assignments, and the course will end with a written exam. That same education system structure is almost exactly the same as 800 years ago. I think this will change and adapt to new emerging technologies such as GenAI (Giftedmagazine, 2024).
My first-ever use of GenAI was mind-blowing to me, I had the opportunity to spend less time on my written assignments. New ideas would come to mind just by brainstorming with ChatGPT. It became way more efficient to rely on it entirely when doing small written projects. On top of that, all my questions could be answered easily and in no time.
But with such technologies can our educational system stay the same as it is? I don’t think so, I think it needs to adapt, it will need to learn how to leverage the power of GenAI. For instance, that is what happened at first with computers in the classroom, individuals were against the idea of using such machines. However, nowadays a majority of students will use a computer in a lecture hall. The same could be said about GenAI. Most teachers are against using ChatGPT as a source of information or relying on it for writing text such as this blog for example. I could have probably prompted a text like: “Create a well-written post blog in 300 words that has a strong positive opinion on GenAI and the current educational system”. ChatGPT would have probably done a good job in writing such text in less than 5 seconds.
Is there still a place for such assignments in the future? Where is the educational system going? Is it about to shift drastically because of this new emerging technology? Or resist and keep it as it is right now?
Giftedmagazine. (2024, January 19). The History of Lectures: Evolution and Significance. Medium. https://giftedmagazine954.medium.com/the-history-of-lectures-evolution-and-significance-in-education-5650571633d0
Cool thoughts! I strongly agree with you that the current education system is outdated and you nicely pointed out that it has barely changed in 800 years. Moreover, I think your comparison with the rise of computers is extremely relevant and the resistance those technological changes received. Leveraging genAI in the future of education will be essential in my opinion, I think some suggestions of how that could be done would make your essay a bit stronger.
I completely agree with your argument on how the nature of education is changing with GenAI. I believe education will adapt, just as it did with the rise of the internet (as you mentioned). I think what is crucial in order for GenAI to be a bigger part of our educational journeys is for it to be more reliable. We still have mistrust in the tool which is why I believe there is still some resistance from using it in educational systems. Also, there needs to be a way for our work to remain original while using GenAI tools. Just like we developed guidelines for referencing papers, so as to not copy the work of others, I think there needs to be something similar for GenAI. We should not take accountability for someone else’s work, whether that be a human or a GenAI tool. I think once we figure out a way to integrate it in our studies in an ethical and reliable way, there is no stopping GenAI from becoming a crucial part of our education system. I think we as a generation are super lucky to have seen this rapid digital transformation, from the emergence of the internet to GenAI. It is super exciting to see where technology will take us next. I sometimes even wonder whether we will have AI teachers/ lecturers for some courses.
I think it’s almost impossible to deny that GenAI will change the way of education at a university level. But once we have reached this point its also almost impossible to prevent this transformation from happening in high schools and elementary schools.
I recently came across a Dutch news article that mentioned that children nowadays are forgetting how to read an analogue clock. This is obviously because of the abundance of digital clocks available everywhere, especially on smart phones.
This highlights the problem of lost knowledge ‘irrelevant knowledge’. What I am worried about is how governments are going to address these developments in the education system. The average age of a Dutch politician is about 45 years now, and their decision on what they find important will most likely be outdated in 5-10 years. So the only way for drastic changes is by eliminating the bureaucracy attached to this, and I don’t know how feasible this is?