Almost three years ago to the day, I’d written a post on The Long, Slow, but Inevitable Death of the Classroom:
When the pandemic ends, whenever that may be, do we swing back to the other end of the spectrum? Does everybody sit in a classroom once again, and listens to a lecture being delivered in person (and therefore synchronously)?
Or does society begin to ask if we could retain some parts of virtual classrooms? Should the semester than be, say, 60% asynchronous, with the remainder being doubt solving sessions in classroom? Or some other ratio that may work itself out over time? Should the basic organizational unit of the educational institute still be a classroom? Does an educational institute still require the same number of in person professors, still delivering the same number of lectures?
In other words, in the post-pandemic world…
How long before online learning starts to show up in the learning statistics?
https://econforeverybody.com/2021/01/28/the-long-slow-but-inevitable-death-of-the-classroom/
And three years later, we have our answer, from the Economist:
The sector remains a digital laggard: American schools and universities spend around 2% and 5% of their budgets, respectively, on technology, compared with 8% for the average American company. Techies have long coveted a bigger share of the $6trn the world spends each year on education
https://www.economist.com/business/2024/01/11/ai-can-transform-education-for-the-better
Higher education is a bundle, of course. When you enrol with a university, you are purchasing an education, a degree and the ability to build the kind of networks with your peers that you’re never ever going to be able to build again. And online education takes away the misery of having to listen to bad professors drone on in classrooms, sure, but does nothing to solve the problem of having a degree that very few other people have. And it is really, really bad at helping you build out good peer networks.
So the death of the physical classroom isn’t imminent just yet – not because we fell in love with bad professors and musty classrooms with “smart” boards after the pandemic, but because the degree continues to matter, and because nothing (nothing!) beats bunking classes with friends.
But the answer to the question implicity posed by The Economist article – why did classes resume much as before post the pandemic – is quite simple. Because in addition to the lure of being one among a select few who gets to clutch a degree from a hallowed university and the awesomeness that is hanging out with friends IRL, online education simply meant that you got to listen to the same bad professor, except it was online.
And that is worse! The prof is as boring, but you are listening to that boring prof in your PJ’s, in bed. Which is very welcome one day out of five, sure, but for two long years? Fuhgeddaboutit.
But a fun prof who gives you customized, tailored teaching and mentoring? A prof who customizes their teaching style, their pedagogy and their problems tailored to how well you seem to be learning? A prof whose lectures you can pause and resume, as needed, on a 24/7 basis – maybe that will work?
Two-fifths of undergraduates surveyed last year by Chegg reported using an AI chatbot to help them with their studies, with half of those using it daily. Indeed, the technology’s popularity has raised awkward questions for companies like Chegg, whose share price plunged last May after Dan Rosensweig, its chief executive, told investors it was losing customers to ChatGPT.
https://www.economist.com/business/2024/01/11/ai-can-transform-education-for-the-better
The Economist article goes on to point out how education specialists might end up doing a better job than plain vanilla GPT. They argue how education specialists, such as Chegg’s and their like know the ins and outs of the education business, and will therefore likely do a better job at customizing and deploying AI in education. This is, the Economist says, because of the following reasons:
- Pearson, McGraw Hill and some other publishers haven’t made their data available to ChatGPT, and are instead incorporating AI into their own products
- Chegg’s and friends are following a similar approach, and have years of mentoring related data ready to deploy.
- Firms in this sector have “an in” with educational institutes already, and that will make their pitches about deploying AI more palatable to educational institutes.
Maybe so, and I honestly don’t know how this will play out. Maybe ChatGPT will get better, especially with the launch of their store. Maybe the competition will be definitively better than ChatGPT.
But us boring ol’ profs have competition, and lots of it. As The Economist mentions, we may have to “shift our attention to motivating students and instructing them on how to best work with AI tools”.
That last bit I agree with most passionately. The job of educators in the age of AI isn’t to teach, but to mentor. Our job is to help students learn, not teach them. This statement is banal to the point of being a platitude in education, but with AI, there may well be an “iota of truth” in there now.
Along with – for now – an iota of inevitability.
EconForEverybody 