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The Fourth Education Revolution: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Face of Learning
Not yet published
Expected 14 Sep 17There is no more important issue facing education, or humanity at large, than the fast approaching revolution in Artificial Intelligence or AI. This book is a call to educators everywhere to open their eyes to what is coming. If we do so, then the future will be shaped by us in the interests of humanity as a whole - but if we don’t then it will be imposed by others.
Britain and the US have an excellent education system in their schools and universities - excellent, but tailored to the twentieth century. The factory mass teaching methods of the third revolution era have failed to conquer enduring problems of inequity and unfairness. Students have to make progress at a set rate which demotivates some and bores others. And for all the new technologies, teachers remain weighed down by routine administration and only a narrow range of our aptitudes are encouraged. Will the fourth AI revolution be able to remedy these problems? We have allowed ourselves to believe that teaching can uniquely be done only by the teacher, but might it in fact be better carried out by AI machines? Or at least in concert with teachers?
The evolution of AI, still in its infancy, raises a range of issues of enormous importance as we grapple how we as humans will interact with it. AI will be an altogether new way spreading quality education across the world especially to those hundreds of millions who do not have it. And coming it is - the final part of the book stresses that we have to embrace AI and ensure that we shape it to the best advantage of humanity. If we get it wrong, there may be no second opportunity.
The conclusion....
“nothing matters more than education if we are to see AI liberate not infantilise humanity.”
Britain and the US have an excellent education system in their schools and universities - excellent, but tailored to the twentieth century. The factory mass teaching methods of the third revolution era have failed to conquer enduring problems of inequity and unfairness. Students have to make progress at a set rate which demotivates some and bores others. And for all the new technologies, teachers remain weighed down by routine administration and only a narrow range of our aptitudes are encouraged. Will the fourth AI revolution be able to remedy these problems? We have allowed ourselves to believe that teaching can uniquely be done only by the teacher, but might it in fact be better carried out by AI machines? Or at least in concert with teachers?
The evolution of AI, still in its infancy, raises a range of issues of enormous importance as we grapple how we as humans will interact with it. AI will be an altogether new way spreading quality education across the world especially to those hundreds of millions who do not have it. And coming it is - the final part of the book stresses that we have to embrace AI and ensure that we shape it to the best advantage of humanity. If we get it wrong, there may be no second opportunity.
The conclusion....
“nothing matters more than education if we are to see AI liberate not infantilise humanity.”
- GenresEducationNonfiction
200 pages, Paperback
Expected publication September 14, 2917
29 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Seldon
85 books73 followersSir Anthony Francis Seldon, FRSA, FRHistS, FKC, is a British educator and contemporary historian. He was the 13th Master (headmaster) of Wellington College, one of Britain's co-educational independent boarding schools. In 2009, he set up The Wellington Academy, the first state school to carry the name of its founding independent school. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham from 2015 to 2020. Seldon was knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to education and modern political history.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 6, 2019
The Fourth Education Revolution is about likely impact of Artificial Intelligence on society. Sir Anthony Seldon, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham and previously Headteacher of two top HMC boarding schools, Brighton and Wellington Colleges, not only discusses the (AI) on education, but, perhaps more importantly, explores the philosophical and moral debates about the place of AI in society. Thus, this is an important book not just for those of us in education, but also beyond the profession. We could not be in better hands.
The book forms a logical structure argument for change. The first six chapters set the context for the debate by:
reviewing the first three educational revolutions;
discussing what it means to be an educated person;
discussing Five Intractable Problems with Conventional Education:
discussing What is Intelligence?
discussing What is Artificial Intelligence?
reviewing the state of AI in the USA and the UK
(Each of these chapters is worthy of consideration and is an interesting introduction and summary of these important areas)
The key chapter for secondary school educationists is his discussion of ‘The future of AI in Schools’ (Chapter 7). Here Seldon’s methodology (after Suskind and Suskind) is to establish a ten-part model for education by aggregating the tasks of the teacher and the student:
Five Traditional Tasks in Teaching:
Preparation of material;
Organisation of the classroom/ learning space;
Ensuring that all students are engaged in learning;
Setting and marking assignments;
Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports;
Five Traditional Activities in Learning;
Memorising knowledge;
Applying the knowledge;
Turning knowledge into understanding;
Self-assessment and diagnosis;;
Reflection and the development of autonomous learning.
He then argues how each of five traditional factors in teaching will be transformed by AI over the coming decades:
Preparation of material will be done by ‘Curation specialists . . whose job it is to work with AI machines to author and identify the most appropriate material for particular student profiles.’ p.189;
Organisation of the learning space: ‘Separate classrooms will disappear in time and replaced by pods and wide open, flexible spaces which can be configured for individual and flexible collective learning. Sensors will monitor individual students, measuring their physiological and psychological state, picking up on changes faster and more accurately than any teacher could.’ p.191;
Presentation of material to optimise learning/deeper understanding: ‘The flexibility of visual representation with AI allows material to be presented to students which renders much teacher exposition redundant.’ p.192
Setting assignments and assessing/self-assessing progress: ‘Advances in real-time assessment enabled by AI will virtually eliminate this waiting period [the time lag between students being assessed and them receiving feedback on their performance} and ensure feedback comes when most useful for learning.’ pp.194-5;
Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports: ‘All this will be swept away by AI. . . . In its place will be attention to continuous data reporting, and real time feedback that will help students discover how to learn autonomously and how to address any deficiencies on their own.’ p.196;
And so to the $100.000.000 question: Will we need teachers in the future? Seldon is clear ‘We do not believe that it is either possible or desirable for AI to eliminate teachers from education’ but he goes on to point out that ‘the application of AI places more responsibility for learning in the hands of the student, for how their time is spent and on what, even from a young age.’ p.205. ‘AI will change however the job of the teacher forever. By supporting teaching in all their five traditional tasks, AI will usher in the biggest change the profession has ever seen.’ p.206. Interestingly Seldon recognises that remote teaching is a distinct possibility: ‘Imminent advances in virtual technologies will mean too that teachers no longer have to be physically present to offer their services.’ p.206
This is well drafted and highly informed argument. It was a joy to read. The only surprise and disappointment for me was that he did not address the 'Elephant-in-the-room' questions of how the traditional examination structures (especially GCSE and A-level in the UK) will be dismembered and on what time-scale. We can all see that the direction of travel is that GCSE and A-level will probably 'will be swept away by AI;' in twenty years' time, but how we get there and what the drivers will be is one of the greatest questions facing UK education over the coming years. These are essentially political questions and ones on which he, given his intimate knowledge of UK politics, Sir Anthony is uniquely qualified to comment - let's hope he does in due course.
The book forms a logical structure argument for change. The first six chapters set the context for the debate by:
reviewing the first three educational revolutions;
discussing what it means to be an educated person;
discussing Five Intractable Problems with Conventional Education:
discussing What is Intelligence?
discussing What is Artificial Intelligence?
reviewing the state of AI in the USA and the UK
(Each of these chapters is worthy of consideration and is an interesting introduction and summary of these important areas)
The key chapter for secondary school educationists is his discussion of ‘The future of AI in Schools’ (Chapter 7). Here Seldon’s methodology (after Suskind and Suskind) is to establish a ten-part model for education by aggregating the tasks of the teacher and the student:
Five Traditional Tasks in Teaching:
Preparation of material;
Organisation of the classroom/ learning space;
Ensuring that all students are engaged in learning;
Setting and marking assignments;
Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports;
Five Traditional Activities in Learning;
Memorising knowledge;
Applying the knowledge;
Turning knowledge into understanding;
Self-assessment and diagnosis;;
Reflection and the development of autonomous learning.
He then argues how each of five traditional factors in teaching will be transformed by AI over the coming decades:
Preparation of material will be done by ‘Curation specialists . . whose job it is to work with AI machines to author and identify the most appropriate material for particular student profiles.’ p.189;
Organisation of the learning space: ‘Separate classrooms will disappear in time and replaced by pods and wide open, flexible spaces which can be configured for individual and flexible collective learning. Sensors will monitor individual students, measuring their physiological and psychological state, picking up on changes faster and more accurately than any teacher could.’ p.191;
Presentation of material to optimise learning/deeper understanding: ‘The flexibility of visual representation with AI allows material to be presented to students which renders much teacher exposition redundant.’ p.192
Setting assignments and assessing/self-assessing progress: ‘Advances in real-time assessment enabled by AI will virtually eliminate this waiting period [the time lag between students being assessed and them receiving feedback on their performance} and ensure feedback comes when most useful for learning.’ pp.194-5;
Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports: ‘All this will be swept away by AI. . . . In its place will be attention to continuous data reporting, and real time feedback that will help students discover how to learn autonomously and how to address any deficiencies on their own.’ p.196;
And so to the $100.000.000 question: Will we need teachers in the future? Seldon is clear ‘We do not believe that it is either possible or desirable for AI to eliminate teachers from education’ but he goes on to point out that ‘the application of AI places more responsibility for learning in the hands of the student, for how their time is spent and on what, even from a young age.’ p.205. ‘AI will change however the job of the teacher forever. By supporting teaching in all their five traditional tasks, AI will usher in the biggest change the profession has ever seen.’ p.206. Interestingly Seldon recognises that remote teaching is a distinct possibility: ‘Imminent advances in virtual technologies will mean too that teachers no longer have to be physically present to offer their services.’ p.206
This is well drafted and highly informed argument. It was a joy to read. The only surprise and disappointment for me was that he did not address the 'Elephant-in-the-room' questions of how the traditional examination structures (especially GCSE and A-level in the UK) will be dismembered and on what time-scale. We can all see that the direction of travel is that GCSE and A-level will probably 'will be swept away by AI;' in twenty years' time, but how we get there and what the drivers will be is one of the greatest questions facing UK education over the coming years. These are essentially political questions and ones on which he, given his intimate knowledge of UK politics, Sir Anthony is uniquely qualified to comment - let's hope he does in due course.
November 11, 2019
A book for every educator, and anyone else who has an interest in the future of our young people. Keeping with my theme this holiday, the book is focussed on the impact AI (Artificial Intelligence) will have on the educator sector and questions why the education sector is lagging behind. Seldon’s claim is that when it comes to education we are all prisoners of our own experience. AI can transform schools, enabling education to be personalised to each student, removing the need for exams and allowing every child access to the same technology.
He has singled out five main problems with the system which make it unfit for purpose. These are: “the lack of social mobility; the fact that in the current education system all students move at the same pace; an excess of teacher administration (which, he says, is ‘surely responsible for the enormous crisis that we have in teacher recruitment’); the fact that it focuses on a narrow area of skills and knowledge; and finally, the fact that the current system homogenises pupils, rather than being tailored to the individual.”
He says it will be technology that can change and impact all of these. I don’t think I’ve ever saved as many notes from one book before and I can see I’ll be referencing this one for a number of years to come.
He has singled out five main problems with the system which make it unfit for purpose. These are: “the lack of social mobility; the fact that in the current education system all students move at the same pace; an excess of teacher administration (which, he says, is ‘surely responsible for the enormous crisis that we have in teacher recruitment’); the fact that it focuses on a narrow area of skills and knowledge; and finally, the fact that the current system homogenises pupils, rather than being tailored to the individual.”
He says it will be technology that can change and impact all of these. I don’t think I’ve ever saved as many notes from one book before and I can see I’ll be referencing this one for a number of years to come.
March 10, 2021
This book had the right ide - it’s just very dated at this point. And he misses totally looking at technology founders who are building great innovations,
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews