Category Archives: AI in Schools

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Halloween’s Over But This School’s Still Scary

The “school of the future” is here – and the teacher is an iPad.

Katya Schwenk takes a deeper dive into this horror-scape.

Academic instruction in Price’s schools is delivered via a suite of online education apps for two hours per day, leaving the afternoons free for Cybertruck construction and tech CEO make-believe. This is the brand around which her work revolves: 2 Hour Learning, which is billed as an “AI tutor” that can entirely replace all classroom teachers via a few hours spent glued to a laptop screen.

And, this bad idea is multiplying:

Buoyed by the hype, 2 Hour Learning is seeing rapid expansion. In January, Price was approved to launch a virtual charter school in Arizona, 2 Hour Learning’s first foray into public education. The company claims that this fall, seven new brick-and-mortar private schools, from New York to Florida to California, will open their doors to students.

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Cell Phone Bans Show Positive Impact

Data suggests improved test scores, attendance

Over the last several years, school districts around the country have begun to enact cell phone bans or cell phone restrictive policies.

The thinking is that decreasing use of phones during the school day decreases distractions and increases student focus.

But, does it work?

Data from one district in Florida suggests positive results.

“Interestingly, we observe significantly improved student test scores in the second year of the ban (about 2-3 percentiles higher than the year before the ban) when suspensions revert to pre-ban levels.”

The study, which is not peer-reviewed, also noted a decline in unexcused absences, which researchers say may have contributed to the higher academic performance.

The data indicate that a ban may initially cause disciplinary challenges as students and families adjust. However, the study notes that those issues resolve in a second year – Researchers did suggest that as much as half of the improvement in student scores may be the result of improved attendance.

It will be interesting to see results in other districts to see if similar results are shown – and what, if any, negative impacts occur.

person holding iphone showing social networks folder
Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

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Learning Social Skills in a School Without Teachers

I’ve written a bit before about the coming age of schools without human teachers.

Peter Greene takes a deeper dive into AI-based schooling and comes away with a lot. Particularly this salient bit:

And how the hell are students supposed to feel about being required to get their grade by chatting with a bot? What would they learn beyond how to talk to the bots to get the best assessment? Why should any student make a good faith attempt to speak about their learning when no responsible human is making a good faith attempt to listen to them?

person holding iphone showing social networks folder
Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

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