Teacher-designed AI puts learning first
Readers of the upcoming edition of IE will notice IEU member Perri Winter discussing the beneficial use of artificial intelligence in schools.
Perri, an art teacher and Digital Learning Coordinator at Presbyterian Ladies’ College, has explored how AI tools designed by educators can support effective teaching.
Presenting her findings at the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools (ICGS) Global Forum in Toronto, she demonstrated how a bespoke AI tool helped Year 12 art students prepare for VCE examinations by encouraging deeper thinking rather than simply providing answers.
Perri says, ‘If you’re going to bring AI into your classroom, the teacher has to be embedded’.
‘The teacher-student relationship is the most important thing ever and always will be.’
While teachers ‘don’t have to know every single thing about AI’, she says, ‘we absolutely are doing our students a disservice if we stick our heads in the sand and don’t teach them how to use it well’.
Like any educational tool, AI requires guidance.
‘You would never give a 10-year-old a film camera and say, “Here, go figure it out.” We need to take the same approach with AI: teach students how to use the tool effectively and responsibly.’
Perri’s background in graphic design still shapes her approach: whether improving learning materials, supporting colleagues or researching new technologies, she believes good systems should help people, not get in their way.
That is even more important as schools embrace digital learning systems.
‘I was noticing that we just weren’t using the platforms in a way where the students could access the information really clearly.
‘I really wanted to demystify... and stop teachers from investing in things that actually weren’t necessary.
‘I’m all about less clicks.’
She compares poorly designed learning systems to walking into an unfamiliar supermarket.
‘There’s nothing worse than going to a different supermarket and the cheese and the milk is in a different place and it takes extra time to do your job.
‘I was very passionate about clarity and also thinking about the cognitive load of students and the fact that our students have inboxes overflowing with emails.’
Empowering colleagues
Perri believes some of the best professional learning comes from teachers sharing ideas with one another.
‘I love the idea of empowering staff and showing staff what they can do alongside their IT staff.
‘When anyone gets excited and runs with it, I say to them, ‘Go and tell the rest of your department.’’
She says when new technologies are introduced, teachers can invest their time and energy in the wrong places.
‘We’ve got to support staff in this transition.’
A former school chaplain, Perri says, ‘For better or for worse, I speak up for justice at school.’
‘I’ve been in the union from the very beginning.
‘It’s something that I’m passionate about.’
She wants to help colleagues see AI as an opportunity rather than a problem.
‘I wouldn’t want to see teachers reinventing the wheel and adding more to their workload by having to build all these kinds of things.
‘But I definitely want teachers to embed how to use AI well in their pedagogy and in their classroom.’
Student makers, not consumers
Perri says she is no ‘coding whiz’, and that a key part of her role is demystifying technology that doesn’t require advanced technical skills.
Used well, she says, AI can become a teaching ‘superpower’.
Perri teaches her art students to build their own AI tutors for specific topics.
‘If the student writes, ‘I don’t know, just tell me the answer,’ it would say, ‘I’m not going to give you the answer. Let’s go back to the question.’
‘I think getting the students to be builders rather than just users is a good way forward. ‘Our students will be better off when they know how the sausage is made rather than just consuming it.’
She believes AI has enormous potential as a learning partner when it is used to challenge students’ thinking rather than simply provide answers.
‘It’s about actually showing students, ‘Here’s how you can use it to become a better learner.’’
