💡 AI Tutors Make Mistakes

To err is human. To forgive, machine-like? I see many journalists and teachers deriding AI because it makes mistakes. And it’s true, AI tools and especially language models and chatbots, can make mistakes. Big ones. And sometimes they flat-out lie. Not unlike humans, though. Right? These things make for sensational headlines, and absolutely they are a cause for caution and perhaps more deliberation with how quickly we roll new things out to students. I’ll write a separate edition on that important topic soon. But I don’t think mistakes mean we should stop. The power of AI to bring a personal tutor to every student (one of the most effective educational interventions that research has ever found) is too promising. And with small-language-model chat-based “tutors” capable of running on even less beefy smartphones, the opportunity for equity is more than enticing. It’s irresistible. At least for those of us working at the intersections of education and technology. And parents struggling with “new math” homework. And teachers teaching out of their subject-areas due to shortages, like I used to.

Years ago as a high school teacher in the Bronx, I was assigned to co-teach a math class in a CTE health program. With my English teaching license. I volunteered to teach history (which I’d minored in), science, arts, technology, health, or anything other than math. So… they gave me an 11th grade math class. And guess what? I made mistakes. Sometimes big ones that the lead Math teacher eventually had to correct (to my chagrin and the students’ good natured amusement). 

Tools made by imperfect humans will never be perfect. And there are some important reasons to interrogate and be skeptical of AI in education. But the fact that AI currently makes mistakes in math problems or other areas isn’t something I think we should dwell on (beyond improving the tools and fixing the problem, of course). Because there are still millions of parents and some teachers out there making mistakes on the daily. And over time–and not that much time in the scheme of things–the AI tools will improve. The mistakes will become fewer. And parents and teachers everywhere will have gained a superpowered support-system to help young people succeed. 

To address some who say this will lead to more inequity because the “haves” will be the ones with access to human tutors which no doubt will have superior aspects (since learning, after all, is often socially and relationally mediated): I’d rather have ALL kids have a tutor in their pockets and wealthy kids also have a paid human tutor (like they already have), than only the latter. Which is the current set-up. How about you? How do you see individualized tutoring-on-demand for youth and adult learners playing out in our education and adult training programs? How might this affect the way we structure, scaffold, and sequence learning programs at school and at work?

💡PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Using AI as a Tutor for Any Subject

Tools like Khanmigo that used to come with a monthly or annual subscription per student are going free. This has massive potential implications for schools, colleges, and other training programs!

Instead of just relying on Sal Khan’s clunky demo (no offense to Sal and his son), why not try the tool out yourself? I’ll write a separate edition soon on the power of Khanmigo and similar tools to supercharge the work of teachers and trainers, but for now, let’s look at its capabilities as a tutor. An AI Tutor can be Khanmigo or a variety of other tools with conversational abilities built on top of a large language model. Like ChatGPT. See my prompt and some excerpts of my AI tutoring session below.

Each week I read 50+ articles on these topics. Here were my recent favs.

🎓 LEARNING IN THE NEWS
1 on 1 tutoring leads the pedagogical pack

•  Are AI Tutors the Answer to Lingering Learning Loss? (EdTech Magazine)

  • Pros: available 24/7, cheap or free, multilingual, doesn’t require scheduling, individual attention at scale

  • Cons: still early stages, can make mistakes, harder for younger students to prompt on their own, biased (*like humans, but “AI doesn’t need background checks like human tutors”…)

• Why IBM Watson made a lousy tutor (The 74 Million)

• Yes AI Can Be Dumb, But It’s Still A Good Tutor (New York Times)

• AI, Personalized Tutoring, and the 2 Sigma Problem (Martin Hall, University of Cape Town)

  • A long but interesting look at the 2 Sigma Problem (1 on 1 tutoring advances student learning better than other interventions); Prof Hall believes there is much potential for AI to solve this problem.

• AI Tutors Can’t Solve Bloom’s 2 Sigma Problem (The Absent-minded Professor, Substack)

  • I agree with many of Josh’s core points about AI bots never replacing teachers (and don’t ever want to see that happen), but disagree that AI tutors won’t solve Bloom’s 2 sigma / massively advance student learning. I’d bet the house on it! A good, long read, though.

💼 WORKFORCE ROUNDUP
AI will change the mix of skills we need for work

• How Will AI and Automation Affect Career & Technical Education? (American Enterprise Institute)

• AI at the Intersections of Workforce Development, Education, and Equity (DevEx)

• New U.S. Commission Targets Skills in AI for Workforce Development and Education (eSchool News)

• The Race to Deploy Generative AI and Raise Skills for the Future of Work (McKinsey)

• A Case for a Robot Tax in the Future of Work and the Era of AI (Brookings)

• How AI is Supercharging Work Right Now (Fast Company)

🏆 TOOLS, TERMS, & TIPS

🛠️ Tool of the Week:
Synthesis, an interactive math tutor for K12 students. If you are looking for a more interactive Khanmigo alternative, check this one out. There’s some excellent pedagogy at play here.

📖 Term of the Week
Hallucinations: Hallucinations in AI occur when the system generates information or responses that are incorrect, nonsensical, or entirely fabricated, despite appearing confident and authoritative. It's like a student who loudly answers a question with complete confidence but their response is totally made-up. These inaccuracies arise from limitations in the AI's training data or models… or mistakes made by humans that the machine then learns and regurgitates. 

🤖 GenAI Tip of the Week
AI Prompt Writing for Other AI - before you send your AI bots off on tasks throughout the day, you can ask the tools (eg ChatGPT) to re-write your instructions to be more gen-AI friendly. Ask it to rewrite your input or question in a format more easy for your AI assistants to understand. You can also prompt it to “ask me 3 questions to help ensure you fully comprehend what I’m asking of you.” There are already tools and plugins out there that will do this for you. And here’s an entire guide if you want to skim it for prompt writing tips you can use yourself.