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New opportunities have accelerated the growth of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, 3D printing. The Internet is available in our daily lives.
To handle this, we have to bring amendments to our educational systems that cater to the new area. It is thus necessary for educators to strongly support the education system that promotes learning of science with other fields under the umbrella of “STEM”. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. This is because it prepares professionals to transform society to innovation and sustainable solutions.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.
Cognitive Interaction and AI
Due to technology innovation and growth in the knowledge-related economy, there is a need for teaching targeted and strategic skills. That STEM responds to the changing technological world and the use of AI. However, to circumvent its few shortcomings. We should strengthen STEM in the curriculums. We believe STEM enhances the student systems thinking ability to build alternative, creative solutions for the global energy crisis and then choose between them.
A study published in 2022 divided the student-AI Interactions into three types: cognitive, socio-emotional, and artefact-mediated interaction.[1]
- Firstly, cognitive interaction refers to task-focused interaction about the content or learning process. This includes interactions about domain-focused content to be learned, such as sharing, elaborating, and processing knowledge. For instance, a student talks with a chatbot about the characteristics of rocks suggested by a teacher infers the types of stones and learns about different criteria for classifying rocks in a geology class.
- Second, socio-emotional interaction involves purposeful interchanges among group members that shape perceptions of emotions and socio-emotional climate. A range of studies investigated the effects of socio-emotional interaction between a student and AI on learning performance. For example, polite web-based tutors induce more learning than regular web-based tutors. In addition, an adaptive learning model using emotional and cognitive performance analysis was effective in elementary school students’ mathematical learning outcomes by reducing their math anxiety.
- Lastly, it should be noted that the core of AI is algorithms and engines. AI, therefore, interacts with students through artefacts such as interfaces. The characteristics of an AI system’s interface and how students interact with AI through the interface have a significant impact on learning with AI. For instance, the AI’s social presence, accurate speech recognition, and peer influence affect language learners’ continuous interaction with AI-enabled automatic scoring applications.
The study concludes [1] that in line with the IA-directed AI development in education, it directs teachers to pay more attention to instructional strategies for integrating AI to improve students’ thinking skills (e.g., CT, critical thinking, creativity and imagination, and analytical thinking), rather than merely focusing on coding/programming and creating neural networks. Teachers highlighted a digital capacity such as programming literacy and data analysis. Their underlying notion around understanding AI operations and concepts and applying them to gather, evaluate, and use information enhanced students’ higher-order thinking. Teachers actively support students with computer-related activities (e.g., debugging AI models and error analysis). This is to better understand AI, interact with AI and solve problems collaboratively with AI. The study reflects that the teachers perceive ICT as a cornerstone for students’ cognitive development and a logical way of thinking for learning and acting with AI.
The study [1] recommends teachers’ training programs to build substantial understanding and experience on subject-specific AI applications integrated with AI-driven instructional design. Developing teachers’ instructional competencies would help students augment high-level thinking with AI and have educationally meaningful interaction with AI. Generally, using technology for drill and practise is less effective than more creative writing, research, collaboration, analysis, and publication.
Promoting STEM and Creativity
There is a growing trend of promoting STEM education and work with creativity. STEM and creativity can contribute to a cross-disciplinary ability to create artefacts that solve the problems of humankind and serve human needs. There is increasing attention to promoting AI literacy education for students’ ability to solve problems through computers for automating parts of the problem-solving processes in a manner comparable with humans’ functions. This creates an emerging need for planning curriculum initiatives across different educational sectors to meaningfully engage students in co-developing AI literacy and STEM knowledge together with creativity for their success in the digital era.
References
[1] Jinhee Kim, Hyunkyung Lee & Young Hoan Cho, Learning design to support student-AI collaboration: perspectives of leading teachers for AI in education, Springer 2022
Lucubrate Magazine February 2022
The photo on the top of the article: Adobe Stock
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