AI - Maintaining Community in an Era of Personalisation

We have come from all the divisions, ranks and classes of society... To teach and be taught in turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered... In the parties and sects into which we are divided, we sometimes learn to love our brother at the expense of him whom we do not in so many respects regard as a brother... We may return to our homes and fireside with kindlier feelings toward one another, because we have learned to know one another better

So spoke Thomas Green at the opening of a community lyceum in Massachusetts in 1829, as quoted in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone.

It is a quote that has remained with me since reading it a few years ago, and one that I feel needs to be borne in mind for the years to come as the talk of how education will shift in response to the growing impact of AI.

I am an enormous proponent for AI and how it will help our teachers and students in so many ways. I can see room for wariness in how we adopt it, and what shortfalls it might bring, but remain optimistic that it will be a powerful tool for all of us.

The one element that is worth reminding ourselves of, is the power of education to form communities. For our students and our teachers, the very act of bringing them together and providing opportunities to share opportunities, debate new ideas and learn from one another is a fundamental fact of education that can be too easily overlooked.

I am excited to see how the use of artificial intelligence will foster more personalised learning opportunities and pathways for our students. In doing so we must also not forget the part that each individual has to play in something bigger than themselves. Much of the joy in learning is to be found in sharing our newly discovered knowledge with our peers, revelling in the ability to refine ideas or have our horizons broadened by new perspectives.

Being within a community does not mean solely looking to create moments of Durkheimian collective effervescence, powerful though they are. It’s just as important to find ways for students to share their stories and their perspectives, to make their individual note heard among the wider chorus. We should bear this in mind when we seek to use AI to individualise the journeys of our students; the paths we may walk are always more rewarding the moments we come together and share the views we have experienced.

I started with Greene, and I will end with the words of Biesta:

For?students to learn from a teacher is to see only the teacher as a resource. To be taught is to receive something beyond the I - from the outside. Schools should not just be seen as places where learning takes place, for learning can take place anywhere. Rather, they should also be recognised more explicitly as places where teaching happens.?