The Massachusetts Institute of Technology released earlier this month a report on “AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training.” MIT is one of the pioneers in the development of AI and a leading educational institution. So their views on the subject are worth a read.
There’s a lot to unpack in the report, including:
- The value of residential learning
- Questioning grades as a measure of academic excellence
- Where AI is appropriate and not as a part of teaching and learning
For me the most interesting part is the re-affirmation of learning as a human-to-human, social exercise. The report leans away from education as just “content delivery and acquisition” and toward helping students to “make meaning, exercise judgment, form identities, and participate responsibly in community.”
We’ve all seen the reports about how employers are looking for people with both technical knowledge and the “soft skills” to work effectively. In my view, this undersells the value of “soft skills” like collaboration, multi-modal communication, negotiation, and leadership. Those are not skills that AI can teach you. But a good educational institution can.
Read the whole thing at this link.
IMAGE CREDIT: By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15550635