What Has the Education System Learned from EdTech

How can EdTech change the education system and the role of the teacher or lecturer? This was one of the topics discussed at the NES Educational Days in memory of Gur Ofer. The School’s Professor Olga Kuzmina recognized the possibilities that EdTech opens for higher education; and two NES graduates, Natalia Pereldik, co-founder and director of Funexpected Math, and Maxim Predtechensky, founder and president of EdTech startup Cognitive Entertainment, talked about how these possibilities are used.

Long live the tech revolution?

Olga Kuzmina: There are two polar opposite ways of how we get education: the standard and non-standard. And the further away we are from the standard one (for example, it may be some basic math formulas), the less opportunity there is to use online and EdTech. Delivering some knowledge blocks in the format of gamified apps or pre-recorded videos can work well. But when it comes to topics that have no single correct answer, in which the big picture, critical thinking, and active learning are important, we understand the need for live communication and discussion with an expert. Online learning also lacks the energy exchange that stimulates the teacher and the student. However, there are some advantages: for example, while someone is speaking, say, in Zoom, other class members can hold a discussion of his or her speech, which is impossible during a live seminar.

As is often the case, there are pros and cons. We should make use of the possibilities that technologies provide us and try to understand how to solve the problems that arise. Reducing the costs of obtaining standard knowledge will allow more people to get access to it. And even with a decrease in the return on this knowledge, in the event that AI would take over some professions, it will still remain the foundation for further education, which would allow people to move into new professions.?

Natalia Pereldik: EdTech has not made a revolution in education, although the shift of the past 10-15 years is clear. It opens up great opportunities for cost redistribution. What do schoolteachers spend most of their time on? They say the same things in class year after year. To do that in an interesting and exciting way, they must have a number of personal and professional qualities: know the subject perfectly, be charismatic and a good public speaker who can hold the audience’s attention, etc. Few people have all of these qualities, despite the fact that teaching is a very popular profession. It would be nice to hand over part of their routine work to technological solutions so that teachers can spend more time on individual work, say, classes with laggards, and on motivating students. And, there are already schools that have purchased EdTech products that allow them to transform the teacher’s work so that they become rather organizers of the learning process, acting as a coach, working with laggards and motivating them.?

Technology can help scale great content, give students access to, for example, a Stanford professor in the comfort of their home. But very few will complete such a course because, so far, the best motivation is a person who keeps track of deadlines and asks whether the student’s work has been done. It works flawlessly. Getting the ability to motivate users is the next stage in the development of educational platforms.

Meanwhile, if the need for teachers decreases, the question arises: where would talents in this field, including the star Harvard professors, come from? There is no answer yet.

Maxim Predtechensky: The education system is very rigid and adapts very slowly. It still does what it did before, but more efficiently. It was a revolution when almost 100 years ago Harvard began teaching based on business cases, which was something absolutely new. Today, technologies allow us to create from scratch new categories of educational materials, which can be even cooler than Harvard cases. But so far, everyone is slowly evolving and rejoicing that it is possible to deliver content faster and cheaper.?

The question of whether we will still need so many teachers does not have a definite answer. Let's say that scaling content will make a long-held dream come true, and a Harvard star professor will teach dozens or even hundreds of thousands of students at once. We understand that automation allows teaching staff to be freed up from some of the routine work. In this case, would we still need so many professors? Or wouldn’t they rather play the role of a coach or mentor, who would be working with students more individually? If so, would they be able to work efficiently with 10,000 students? That is unlikely. So we come to the conclusion that in order to maintain the quality of education, the number of students per professor should not change much, but the approach to students will become more individual.

Will technology lead to a division of universities???

Olga Kuzmina: There is a division of universities already today. Top universities focus on research and may be less competitive in teaching techniques. Others are focused on just teaching.?

I am not familiar with any research on the impact of automation on universities, but there are many studies concerning firms. Some show a leveling of the corporate hierarchy: the number of top managers becomes relatively smaller and the number of junior employees increases. Other research shows that the return on education received at leading universities is growing, which means that the incentives to get there are becoming stronger. It is now difficult to understand how the wave of new technologies will affect inequality in society and in different sectors of the economy and business. Low-skilled workers may be displaced in some sectors; in others, it will not make sense to invest in the automation of cheap jobs, so medium-skilled workers will be affected.?

EdTech vs. university degree

Maxim Predtechensky: There has long been a class of professions that do not require a university degree but pay a relatively huge salary at the start. They are related to web development and programming. Did this fact reduce the popularity of higher education? I don't think so. I think that with the help of EdTech people will just start spending these years of studying at a university in a different way. The question of how well you spent these years and what you get is not about technology.

Natalia Pereldik: I do not think we should set higher education and? EdTech in opposition to one another; rather, the education system should learn how to use the possibilities of technologies. If you can learn a profession in 2-3 months, it is unlikely that it will be among the highest paid. To earn well you need to study for 4-5 years, which is a barrier that is not easy to overcome. For an employer, a diploma from a leading university is also a sign showing what a young specialist is capable of. What other thing can reveal the abilities of a person who is just entering the labor market? The fact that one was able to graduate from a strong and respectable university says quite a lot about the person.

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