October 11, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I recently attended ChronFest 2024, an annual virtual conference hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Similar to last year, the event had a strong focus on AI and technology. Of course, AI has disrupted many practices common to educators. For my purposes, I’m most interested in how we will continue to assess a student’s understanding of subject matter. As an educator, I feel that it is okay for AI to assist in polishing an essay, but not in the writing. I truly feel that the painful work – the researching, writing, organizing, and editing – is best done by the person who wants to gain understanding. In other words, I think that the student must know the content themselves. I cannot understand how the content would be beneficial to a student who has no understanding of it. I also believe the writing process, painful as it may be, is a really useful human exercise. (Maybe one of the most useful, and perhaps a defining feature of what it means to be human.) I hesitantly put forward my opinion because, at this point, opinions abound and real data is negligible. I admit that life feels a little bit like living in a science fiction novel and something that I never actually expected to experience.
Having said all of that, I do believe that AI will result in various types of profit. I put a lot of time and energy into understanding contemporary society, particularly with regards to education. Perhaps this is why I felt drawn to a discussion between George Siemens, Chief Scientist and Architect of Southern New Hampshire University’s Human Systems, and Taylor Swaak, a Senior Reporter with the Chronicle of Higher Education. They touched on ethics, theory, and practice as they focused on how education can keep pace or compete in a world of rapid change. Because this change is primarily driven by the corporate world, which may or may not worry about ethical implications of proposed technologies, Siemens believes that higher education has an opportunity to ask the ethical questions. Furthermore, if colleges and universities want to remain competitive, he believes that they must give students the skills which will make them successful in these changing conditions. Siemens was not entirely sure what this might look like, but he mentioned the university being an appropriate place for ethical discourse. As educators, we can be both practically grounded and philosophically oriented. Universities, he said, should provide space for thinkers to be vocal advocates of bettering the human condition. Sometimes technology will be at odds with the findings, and sometimes it will support improved conditions. Higher education institutions often lean into resources provided by tech companies, which Siemens felt is a worthwhile partnership, but he reiterated that these partnerships must still involve ethical discussions.
When asked about potential conflicts of interest between universities and the companies that they rely upon, Siemens affirmed the potential for conflict. Due to the fact that universities build slowly, however, he thinks that it’s necessary to take advantage of corporate resources. In fact, the university lifestyle is privileged with time for thought, a deficiency of the corporate sector. In other words, universities and corporations both have valuable parts to play in the future of technology. The bottom line is that higher education institutions are meant to teach students skills to create a path toward building a stable future. This doesn’t mean a future without change, rather, it means that students will have skills to make them successful in all futures. Siemens felt it important that students understand technology, in addition to how technology affects society.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation, for me at least, was the way that Siemens addressed knowledge. He said that universities are currently experiencing a “fundamental rearchitecting” of what it means to have knowledge. In other words, humans must again contemplate the human experience and then try to outline what knowledge is necessary for our best existence. As educators, we must then translate that information into skills that will allow students to attain positive outcomes.
I left the session wondering how technology will change our idea of knowledge in the very real and imminent future. At present, Merriam-Webster defines knowledge as: the sum of what is known: the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind. I feel very much like the fish in water, unable to define water itself, but swimming along with a current.
As always, I’m grateful to The Chronicle of Higher Education for the excellent conversations.
You can access a TED talk by George Siemens here.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ Deemerwha studio
