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Yes, you read that correctly. A new charter school in Tucson, AZ will not only be completely online, the “teachers” will be Artificial Intelligence as in AI bots.
Just before the holidays, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools became the latest to approve an all-virtual, AI-driven school pitched by Unbound Academic Institute. Unbound Academy, set to open in August, will use personalized AI to teach fourth- to eighth-grade students via online platforms like Khan Academy and IXL.
For two hours each morning, students will take science, literature, and math lessons while AI tracks their progress, adapting elements such as difficulty level and style based on each student’s needs.
“The AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues [via webcam] to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” Unbound’s charter application states. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”
What this new charter school means by personalized AI is that there will NOT be a human teacher in any of the classrooms. Only ‘guides’ to help keep the kids on task.
While AI is already the big GIANT popular thing, there are problems. As in, AI isn’t perfect. There’s already been reports in the last year or so of AI getting all sorts of things wrong, from medical to legal to who knows what else. I absolutely do NOT want AI diagnosing anyone’s medical problems. There are limits to AI and those in education need to understand that. But obviously they haven’t learned lessons from the last few years.
Schools were locked down for months to YEARS because of the political hysteria driven Covid mess. What happened after that? We are only on the tip of finding out how significant the learning loss was for our kids.
https://twitter.com/AIamSCtrojan/status/1874530669654937806
Those 4th-8th graders that would go to the AI-driven Tucson charter school? They were right in the middle of the lockdowns as kindergartners to 4th graders. Masks were enforced, distances were enforced, infuriatingly too many teachers phoned it in, and energetic young children were forced to sit in front of a computer to learn…NOTHING.
Yet supposedly this new charter school, that only teaches for two hours via artificial intelligence, brags that the kids will master the subjects at least two times faster than regular schools. All without any human teachers present.
What could possibly go wrong? It’s a serious question on multiple levels.
The kids are interacting with a computer. These kids are at the age when human interaction is a critically important component to their social learning. We already know that important social cues were lost during the great Covid mask-up, is sticking them in front of a computer and keeping human interaction out of the equation any different?
I do understand that each student learns differently from the other. However, is taking human interaction out of the equation truly the answer? This charter school seems to think so.
By integrating this innovative model into our curriculum, Unbound Academy also addresses the socio-emotional aspects of student development. Our life skills workshops not only focus on practical knowledge and interdisciplinary tasks, but also prioritize emotional intelligence, resilience, and collaborative problem-solving.
They plan to use AI to figure out how to “personalize” the instruction for each of the students so they can provide not only a holistic approach, but one that democratizes high quality education. All this to ‘prepare them for the challenges of the modern world.’
How does a computer teach someone to handle adversity or failure when it involves the humans around him or her? How does a computer teach one to step back and assess and then engage in critical thinking? Oh no, that might be too stressful!
Will homework be assigned, or will the Unbound Academic Institute follow California’s lead in recognizing that homework is such a drain.
Denise Pope, the cofounder of Challenge Success and a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, said in testimony in support of the legislation earlier this year: “We believe it is important to bring student voices into conversations about policies that affect their well-being.
“For example, 45 percent of students reported overall workload and homework as a major source of stress. This was selected over several other stressors, including future plans, college, and relationships.”
Will there be homework at Unbound? It doesn’t seem like it. Then again, other than the students and the so-called ‘guides’ there are no human teachers involved. Unbound claims that this model will bring about MORE critical thinking. I fail to see how that can be accomplished when your only interaction is with a computer.
Here’s another question: where does this leave the special needs students? Many need and benefit from human interaction in order to navigate not only the classroom, but the environment around them. Can an AI only education do that? I don’t think so.
It may brief well, but I see a variety of pitfalls in not having a human teacher present in the classroom, especially given the ages of the kids.
Feature Photo Credit: little girl looking at hologram computer via iStock, cropped and modified
Cameron says: Basically, the people backing this think that the job of a teacher can be outsourced to a machine.
Scott says: Have you seen the teachers that show up regularly on “libs of tik tok”? given those examples, this might not be such a bad idea.. just saying.. At least Ai will be less likely to recruit kids into the trans cult..
Cameron says: Pushing homeschooling and making it more enticing than state run schools would be a vast improvement. Chinese Lung AIDS already proved that point.
Scott says: Agree 100%
GWB says: Ummm, based on some things I’ve seen the LLMs generate, they very well might recruit them into queerdom. Then they will tell them they should commit suicide. LLMs are all GIGO, because they learn on Progressive swill. (And they’re not really intelligent in any sense of the word.)
Hate_me says: The human interaction is a solid point, but that can be facilitated through other means and should really fall under parental jurisdiction than that of the school.
Academically, it can’t get much worse than human teachers have done, in recent years. We should be wary of potential pitfalls, but something needs to change and that will involve iterations of imperfection and correction.
Cameron says: Academically, it can’t get much worse than human teachers have done
I disagree. I’ve seen too many instances where AI refuses to answer a question or makes up information. I would trust human teachers more than a machine and I barely trust human teachers.
Bob says: You are right to be skeptical. Has anything like this been at least partially tested? Carrying out experiments on plant and rockets is good science and engineering, but on children mental development?
When some educator worries about “stress” from homework, that is a red flag.
Let us hope there are prompt unbiased evaluations before more young minds are calcified.
GWB says: For two hours each morning, students will take science, literature, and math lessons while AI tracks their progress, adapting elements such as difficulty level
So, we really need to back up the “AI teaching kids” bus for a moment. Because what they’re doing is standard video teaching (like Khan Academy has done for a couple of decades), while the AI tries to decide if the kid is getting it or not, and should they accelerate or decelerate the teaching. Which you could already do with algorithms… which is really all this is. It’s algorithms re-branded as “AI.”
Only ‘guides’ to help keep the kids on task.
Which is a progressive philosophical choice. Progressives for ages have said the child doesn’t need their head filled with facts, but “guided” into enlightenment. How much you want to bet NJ jumps on this with their “You don’t need to be able to read to teach kids to read” philosophy?
As in, AI isn’t perfect.
Oh, Nina, honey, AI isn’t even “I“. It’s a pile of algorithms, pretending to be a person. Just like “technical support” chatbots have done for ages, but using more “learning” and OODLES more electricity. Not even remotely “intelligent.”
AI getting all sorts of things wrong
I don’t even like this formulation. Because they don’t have any idea what “right” or “wrong” IS. That people want them in their search engines and other places is akin to me watching people ACTUALLY eat Tide pods. Why do you need AI to “summarize” your emails for you? You can’t read them yourself? (If you get so many you can’t possibly read them yourself, then how will the “AI” agent even remotely be able to summarize them for you?) (Oh, and I sure as heck am going to spot “AI” writing a reply to mine, and then wonder why you don’t think I’m worth actually replying to. And if I’m your boss, I’m going to fire you – because you’re obviously not needed.)
that only teaches for two hours via artificial intelligence, brags that the kids will master the subjects at least two times faster than regular schools
Well, they’re probably right about that. At least compared to public schools. Homeschoolers do it in about 1/3 the time, usually. Or they use the whole time but learn about 3x as much. That’s not because AI is so smart, but because almost ANYTHING is an improvement over regular public schooling in most places.
is sticking them in front of a computer and keeping human interaction out of the equation any different?
But they are NOT keeping human interaction out of the equation. They have those “guides” or whatever. See, this is where they’re selling the snake oil. They aren’t getting rid of people, just certified teachers. They’re going online and adding proctors back in to the mix – but you don’t have to pay proctors what you pay teachers.
Will homework be assigned
Homework is a totally weird thing. It comes from the Prussian model of schooling – because you just can’t ever get enough drill and practice. But it violates the Progressive ideal of “shouldn’t have to work hard to get ahead.” So they eliminate it, instead of figuring out why the kids can’t get the drill done in class time. (BTW, I was one of those people who did my homework – with the exception of papers and such – as the class was starting in most cases. It did not teach me good study habits, but it was good enough for most of the classes.)
overall workload and homework as a major source of stress
No kidding. Because that’s what it’s SUPPOSED to be. The stress of doing the work helps to implant it in the brain. It also keeps you focused on what is your major job* as a kid, of growing up. And that includes learning.
(* Admittedly, it’s a luxury job in a rich society like ours. As opposed to helping dad with the farm, because otherwise you might not live long enough to grow up.)
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