Will AI Replace Teachers?

Author: ASEFEdu

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been significantly permeating our societies over the past years. While people have been relying more and more on AI technology on a daily basis, intentionally or unintentionally, the number of diverse views and concerns about AI have been growing concurrently. The dominant question in this discourse, however, is: To what extent will AI take over jobs and replace humans?

Prof Colin de la HIGUERA, Co-Trustee of the Knowledge for All Foundation and UNESCO Chair for Technologies for the Training of Teachers by Open Educational Resources at University of Nantes, France, during his joint Keynote on “Teaching and Learning in the AI Era” at the ASEF ClassNet15 Conference in Tokyo, Japan

This question also prevails in the education sector, where many teachers & educators express their reservations towards the usage of AI. To raise awareness about the topic and to facilitate a dialogue in a larger, multi-stakeholder context, ASEF organised the 15th ASEF ClassNet Conference on “Education for Sustainable Development and AI: Role and Readiness of Teachers” from 25–29 November 2019 in Tokyo, Japan. The Conference addressed three key questions:

1) What roles do teachers need to play in classrooms to transform teaching and learning practices for ESD in the AI era?

2) What level of knowledge on ESD and AI do teachers need to develop appropriate pedagogies?

3) What kind of capacity building and partnership support do teachers need to integrate ESD meaningfully in the school curriculum and to enhance their readiness for the AI era?

The conference was a partnership between the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and Sophia University, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology — Japan (MEXT) and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Development Education Association & Resource Center (DEAR), Ochanomizu University Senior High School and The Open University in the United Kingdom supported the event.

As part of the overall conference programme, ASEFEdu conducted a 6-week Virtual Knowledge Building Phase to prepare the teachers and participants from all 51 ASEM[1] countries for the discussions on-site in Tokyo. During this phase, teachers participated in webinars and worked on individual and team tasks. One of the team tasks was a peer collaboration to write a short essay on “Will AI replace Teachers?”

In the coming months, ASEFEdu will publish this series of essays where Asian & European teachers share their perspectives and opinions on the role of teachers and AI. Below are the links to the various essays:

1. Views from Malta and Mongolia
2. Views from Australia and Slovenia
3. Views from Lithuania and Romania
4. Views from Ireland, Luxembourg, and Singapore
5. Views from Portugal and Viet Nam
6. Views from China and Slovakia
7. Views from Finland
8. Views from Austria and Bangladesh

Prof John SHAWE-TAYLOR, UNESCO Chair for AI and Director of The Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML), University College London (UCL), the United Kingdom during his Keynote on “Teaching and Learning in the AI Era” at the ASEF ClassNet15 Conference in Tokyo, Japan

Curious to know more about the the 15th ASEF ClassNet Conference? Click here!

[1]https://www.aseminfoboard.org/about/partners