What was surprising about this initiative was the strong reaction of outrage and dismissal. It is only 20 people at GCSE level, in a fascinating experiment but you’d think it was Armageddon. We have seen a rise in home schooling and school absences post-Covid. Not all are happy with the current schooling for their children, especially those with special educational needs. Why wouldn’t we want some experimentation in this area and AI is an obvious area to look.
Learners are not good or bad but fast and slow
The pedagogy is sound for some, perhaps not all. Rather than a one-size-fits-all direct instruction, each learner goes at their own pace. Sitting in rows in a classroom, rows in a lecture - that's the model this challenges. The myth is that the traditional model did what many claim it does.
Bloom researched this 50 years ago. Not his famous 2 Sigma paper, which over-egged the effect, but the idea of time to competence. He is best known for his ‘taxonomy’, but he never did draw a pyramid and his taxonomy was radically altered by subsequent researchers, as it was too primitive, rigid and far from representative of how people learn. His more important work in self-paced learning, led him to believe, in ‘Human Characteristics and School Learning’ that learners could master knowledge and skills given enough time. It is not that learners are good or bad but fast and slow. This recognises that the pace of learning varies among individuals rather than being a measure of inherent ability
The artificial constraint of time in timed periods of learning, timetables and fixed-point final exams, is a destructive filter on most. The solution was to loosen up on time to democratise learning to suit the many not the few. Learning is a process not a timed event. Learning, free from the tyranny of time. allows learners to proceed at their own pace.
Bloom proposed three things could make mastery learning fulfil its potential:
1. Entry diagnosis and adaption (50%) - diagnose, predict and recommend
2. Address maturation (25%) - personalise and adapt
3. Instructional methods (25%) - match to different types of learning experiences and time
That is what they are doing here. Lesson plans focus on learners rather than the traditional teacher-centric model. Assessing prior strengths and weaknesses, personalising to focus more on weaknesses and less on things known or mastered. It’s adaptive, personalised learning. The idea that everyone should learn at the exactly same pace, within the same timescale is slightly ridiculous, ruled by the need for timetabling a one to many, classroom model.
Learning coaches
There are three learning coaches, that’s one per 7 pupils, quite a good staff/pupil ratio compared to almost all schools. They are trained to oversee and encourage, rather than teach directly. That’s fine, as the direct instruction is done online.
By outsourcing subject matter expertise to the technology – AI has a degree in every subject, speaks many languages, can be adjusted to any level. It is this access to any subject that is so compelling. I have written about the realisation of a Universal teacher before. It is getting ever nearer.
It is also available 24/7, anyplace, the advantages over a strictly timetabled school are obvious. Holidays can also be taken at any time. These are simply practical advantages.
On top of this are the opportunities to make learning e accessible through adjusting the level of the language and opportunities for T2S and S2T, along with help on dyslexia and other disabilities, at a level way above normal school environments.
Criticisms
One criticism is that this will not developing emotional intelligence, as if single-age groups, sitting 30 or more in a small room encourages this more than smaller groups. They have learning coaches and are still speaking and interacting with each other. Do we say that working remotely from home has the same effect? Yet that has been normalised. At least these students are together in one place.
There is this idea that the only way to develop critical thinking is sitting in a row in a classroom or lecture theatre. Critical thinking is not some isolated skill taught on its own, it needs domain knowledge and this is what this approach encourages. AI can already critique a claim, debate with you and critique your own work. It will also unpack its own reasoning.
There is also plenty of opportunity for creating safe spaces for discussion and debate. Debate and discussion can be fostered formally and informally in this environment. There is even the possibility of debating online adversaries. The learning coaches deal with behaviour, public speaking and debate.
Costs
At an eye watering £27.000 a year, it’s a rich person’s game. With 20 start-up pupils, that’s over half a million revenue straight off the bat. But the cost to the state per pupil is £8500 in Scotland and £7200 elsewhere in the UK. One can see economies of scale emerge quickly if it works. But before spitting out the withering criticism, let’s see if it works.
Conclusion
For the first time in the history of our species we have technology that performs some of the tasks of teaching. We have reached a pivot point where this can be tried and tested. My feeling is that we’ll see a lot more of this, as parents and general teachers can delegate a lot of the exposition and teaching of the subject to the technology. We may just see a breakthrough that transforms education.
