❤️ Why AI won't replace teachers

📚 6 books to support teaching with tech

I’ve authored (or co-authored) six books that can help you level up teaching and learning with tech …

• Ditch That Textbook: Lots of ideas for teaching with tech in the 21st century

• Ditch That Homework: If homework doesn’t give you the results you want, here’s what you can try instead.

• Don’t Ditch That Tech: Use tech to differentiate instruction, engage students, and meet them where they are

• Do More with Google Classroom: Go beyond the basics with Google Classroom to create better assignments

• Tech Like a Pirate: Create fun, memorable learning activities with tech to engage students

• AI for Educators: A primer on AI in the classroom, translating it for teachers and suggestions ways to use it

Check them out on Amazon in paperback or Kindle ebook here.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

❤️ Why artificial intelligence won’t replace teachers

Lots of us have lots of questions when it comes to AI in education.

• Can it save me time — and how?

• Can it help students learn — and how?

• Are students using it to avoid thinking and skill development?

And then there’s the quiet one that we don’t really want to ask …

Is AI going to put me out of a job?

Here’s my super short answer to this question …

Nope.

Not any time soon anyway.

In our new post, Why artificial intelligence won’t replace teachers, I share six reasons why (and a final point!) …

1. 🐢 Education is slow-moving. It takes forever for any sort of widespread change (for good or for bad). We thought COVID-19 would force instructional change with technology. But for the most part, it hasn’t.

2. 👩‍👧‍👦 Parents still want human teachers for their kids. We learned this post-COVID. After remote teaching, parents begged for their kids to go back to class face-to-face. Now, pandemic-forced remote teaching isn’t the most compelling case for more tech, but that parent response says something. (At least for now.)

3. 🏭 Education isn’t an information delivery system. If it was, we would have been out of jobs a long time ago. The internet. YouTube. Wikipedia. Khan Academy. William Butler Yeats was attributed with saying: “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”

4. 🏔 AI technology has a long, long way to go. We can clearly see a path to an education system where AI models play a big role in instruction. But as of right now, they’re still very inaccurate. And biased. And not very good at parsing real-time information from the internet.

5. 🥳 AI can’t provide the entire human experience. An AI chatbot can say the words that a human says when it feels a certain emotion. But it still hasn’t felt that emotion. The whole pantheon of the human experience goes beyond the words that an AI bot can replicate.

6. 👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏾 Learning is social. Even if school were delivered through AI tutors, what about the social element? Playing on the playground. Telling jokes with friends. Being in a club or a sports team. As long as those are around, we’ll need humans to lead, to supervise, to encourage.

Final point: Teaching is a work of heart. ❤️

Tying a shoe. Opening a milk carton. Wiping a tear. Giving a high five.

Giving that glance that says, “I’ve seen your hard work, and you finally got it. I’m proud of you.”

To call back to that Yeats quote, AI can fill a pail. It can give us knowledge. 🪣

I’m not sure it’ll ever light a fire the way we humans can. 🔥

Read and share the whole post (instead of just this summary!): Why artificial intelligence won’t replace teachers

🎯 Quick Teaching Strategy

⬜️ Use student whiteboards for quick check-ins

Sometimes, in our tech-filled world, we forget about the simple tools we can use in a variety of ways in the classroom. One tool that is tried and true (and cheap!) is the personal student whiteboard.

Using personal whiteboards in the classroom can be highly effective and engaging. Sharing their thinking on whiteboards allows students to actively participate in lessons, solve problems, and demonstrate their understanding. They provide a low-stakes way for students to practice and receive immediate feedback from their teacher or their peers.

Whiteboards also promote engagement, as they encourage all students to be involved in the lesson, rather than just a few who raise their hands.

I’ve been back in the classroom for a month and a half. I have lap whiteboards and use them a LOT!

💡 Ideas for using whiteboards in the classroom:

• Use whiteboards for a quick formative assessment. Have students demonstrate the answer on their whiteboard and either have them hold it up to take a quick check or walk around and give them quick feedback as you pass by.

• Utilize whiteboards for a think-pair-write-share activity. Pose a question and have students share ideas with their partner, then have them write their answers or thoughts on the whiteboard to share with the class.

• Use your whiteboards as a quick beginning-of-class temperature check. Have students share a 1-5 or a simple smiley, straight-line face, or sad face to show how they are feeling.

🛒 Cheap whiteboard ideas:

• You can make cheap DIY whiteboards by purchasing white panel boards from stores like Lowe's or Home Depot and having them cut into smaller pieces.

• The Dollar Store is a hot spot for finding great supply hack resources! Try getting a stack of plastic plates to have on hand as extra personal whiteboards (an idea shared by Laura Steinbrink in our post on 20 brilliant teacher hacks).

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!