According to news reports, the country is banning mobile phones in schools, and a new grant for purchasing textbooks is underway. The reason is falling reading scores and a growing belief that constant screen access has damaged concentration and comprehension. That reversal should worry anyone who thinks AI is the answer to education's problems.
The technology is different. We adopt a tool because it is new and efficient, and we assume it will improve learning. Then we discover that students who use it to skip the work of thinking do not learn to think.
The evidence is already there. A study of about 27,000 students aged 12 to 18 in China, led by researchers from Stockholm University and the University of Hong Kong, tracked the students for 30 months. After adopting generative AI, their homework scores rose by 18 percent.
The time spent on each assignment fell by about 30 percent, from 64 minutes to 45 minutes on average. But when the same students sat for monthly exams without AI, their scores fell by 20 percent within six months, according to Al Jazeera. Their performance in high-stakes entrance exams also declined, with the full effect emerging over a longer period.
The students had not learned the material. They had learned how to produce the appearance of learning. The researchers called it a "learning penalty." This is the risk I see in education right now.
The danger is not that AI will become smarter than students. The danger is that students will stop practicing the skills that make them smart. When a machine can generate an answer in seconds, the temptation to skip the struggle of understanding is enormous.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
