Why we are not using AI to become better teachers
A large library of information in summary within your hand
“The purpose of AI is to save teachers time on the things a computer can do so teachers have more time to focus on the things a computer cannot do.”
Dr. Jamey Heit
I have used AI to help me speed up administration work, such as drafting emails, drawing pictures for my blog and creating professional-looking presentation slides within seconds. It even helps me to check for spelling and grammatical errors in every blog I write. Thanks to AI, I have more time to read and write reflections, which I believe are the most important in our work if we want to become better teachers.
Imagine AI is a librarian of a super huge library where it stores all the best teaching strategies in the world. The librarian works supersonically to help you summarise the information you want in short bite-sized sentences. And the best part is you do not need to take the bus to the library.
As such, if we want to become better teachers faster, wouldn’t it be better if we just asked ChatGPT every day to find good strategies?
Too much information within a short time
If you understand cognitive overload, then you will think that this super-efficient librarian may not be a better coach than a human being.
To explain cognitive overload, every time we see a piece of information, it is stored in our working memory (short-term memory). The information must be processed before it can be stored in our long-term memory. If we are given too much information at once, resulting in not being able to process the information, we will have a cognitive overload (Khan, 2022).
For example, if you ask ChatGPT, “How to use an inquiry-based approach to teach badminton serve”, you will get at least eight possible steps within seconds. Because they are so concise, you need to figure out what each step looks like in the classroom. You need to consider the students’ motivation, readiness level and how to do it without spending too much of their skill practice time.
Teaching is the application of sophisticated and complex pedagogical content knowledge (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2015). Therefore, there are so many things to consider for each bullet point which ChatGPT gives us, and we may soon get cognitive overload if we try to look at the suggestions as a whole. Similarly, to be better teachers, we still need to work hard to make AI’s suggestions work.
We learn using two systems (declarative and procedural)
Imagine you are a cab driver whose dream is to know most of the routes in Singapore. You know that over-reliance on GPS would weaken your navigation abilities. And that will be a big problem if your phone is not working.
Every day, you set aside some time to test yourself on the route to different destinations. You started by reciting the directions to somewhere nearby and then increasing the distance of the destination, one kilometre at a time. After a few months, you could remember the route to almost all popular destinations.
However, you also realised that although you could memorise the route, you still need the on-the-road practice. If you drive and have occasionally missed an expressway exit or are unable to make a left turn because you move to the left lane too late, you will understand why on-the-road practice is important.
Over time, the routes of most destinations are stored in two of your long-term memories. One long-term memory is your declarative memory, which is a collection of knowledge such as names of streets, destinations and directions. The other long-term memory is your procedural memory, which is the implicit knowledge that allows you to drive to the destination without much conscious effort (Cherry, 2023).
Similarly, we must develop declarative and procedural memory so that we can make better decisions in the classroom. Developing our pedagogical content knowledge (Declarative) is like the cab driver memorising the routes to various destinations. Putting in many hours to apply what we know in our teaching practice (Procedural) is akin to the cab driver practising the route without using GPS.
Developing our long-term memories one small step at a time
As discussed earlier, trying to improve in too many areas using the declarative and procedural learning system may cause frustration due to cognitive overload (Place, 2022). Hence, to avoid seeing professional development as daunting, we need to develop each learning system one step at a time. And we need to be mindful that we can only assimilate new information from our prior knowledge (Hailikari et al., 2008).
Suppose you want to improve your skills in using a games-based approach to teaching basketball. To prevent yourself from cognitive overload, you decided to focus on getting the students engaged in the modified game, which you have prior experience with.
To develop your declarative knowledge, you read about modifying a 2v2 game to exaggerate dribbling. You also asked your colleagues if they think asking the students to dribble the ball for at least five seconds before they can pass the ball is doable. After a few rounds of discussion with colleagues, you decided to explain to students why the rules are needed in the game.
You tried one lesson and felt it was ok, but students tend to break the rules. You read up on the Internet and had more conversations with your colleagues. Some reasons you gathered were that the students might not know how to dribble well. Hence, they wanted to pass the ball to their teammates quickly. The students also may not have the habit (procedural memory) of dribbling the ball hence, they might forget to dribble.
To solve these two problems, you started the lesson with a warm-up dribbling drill with passive defenders to help them develop dribbling habits. You also constantly reminded them of the rationale of dribbling for at least five seconds during the game.
After four lessons, you got used to modifying games that exaggerate a certain focus, and the students also got used to playing modified games. You felt that you had developed both declarative and procedural knowledge of game exaggeration, and so you decided to take yourself to the next level — developing the habits of team talk.
Level up — developing habits of team talk
By building a habit of team talk, your students would constantly discuss and help one another improve their skills. In the long run, the habits would develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills (Penwarden, n.d.).
Again, mastering the ability to get students to talk and discuss with one another during short team talks requires both declarative and procedural knowledge.
To develop your declarative knowledge, you read and talk to colleagues frequently about what motivates students to discuss with one another. You also learn from your previous experiences that the students may not be used to discussion (like they were not used to dribbling).
Hence, in the lesson, you asked them to discuss a very simple question, “What was successful in the game just now?” And you told them that there are no wrong answers. However, you noticed only about one-third of the class was comfortable with sharing, so you decided to talk to more people and read up more about students’ motivation.
In the following lesson, you had more ideas. Not only did you change the question to, “What is one thing your partner can do to improve?” you also asked them to co-construct the ideas on the whiteboard. This makes everyone discuss, and you could also use the opportunities to praise everyone’s effort in helping their friends.
Conclusion — The 1% rule
Every time we want to improve in a certain approach, it is better to break down the process into simple, achievable steps so that it will not cause cognitive overload. If we focus on improving 1% daily, the compound effect will make us 37 times better in a year (Clear, 2022)!
The not-so-good news is that we still need the hard work to develop both our declarative and procedural knowledge. We still need to spend many hours of reading, conversations and reflective practice. That is why I have decided to set aside some time every day to read and write to develop my declarative knowledge.
The good news is that, unlike in the past, when we needed to go all the way to the library or bookstores, we can now ask ChatGPT or Google for suggestions. We can also easily borrow or buy ebooks using our phones and computers without moving from our seats.
A cab driver can still choose to follow the GPS instructions throughout the whole journey, but teachers have to constantly observe and assess the student’s learning and make decisions in split seconds. We cannot be looking at our phones all the time!
If you think cab drivers who can remember all the routes are inspirational, then I believe you also aspire to be a teacher who has a deep understanding of how students learn and is able to make use of a variety of strategies to help students of diverse learning needs learn.
At the end of the day, not only do we want to help students develop the joy of learning, we also want to be happy in our job. Research has shown that constantly developing ourselves, or life-long learning, is one of the best ways to develop happiness on the job (Sung, n.d.). As long as we do not overload our working memories with so many new approaches and believe in the process, we will become better and happier teachers!
References
Cherry, K. C. (2023, March 30). Procedural Memory: definition, examples, and how it works. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-procedural-memory-2795478
Clear, J. (2022). Atomic habits. Editura Trei SRL.
Hailikari, T., Katajavuori, N., & Lindblom‐Ylänne, S. (2008). The relevance of prior knowledge in learning and instructional design. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 72(5), 113. https://doi.org/10.5688/aj7205113
Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (2015). Professional capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. Teachers College Press.
Khan, A. (2022, November 3). What is cognitive overload? eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/what-is-cognitive-overload
Penwarden, M. (n.d.). The importance of PE Games in developing critical Thinking Skills | SportsEDTV. SportsEdTV. https://sportsedtv.com/blog/the-importance-of-pe-games-in-developing-critical-thinking-skills
Place, S. (2022, September 16). When too much becomes too much: the impact of cognitive overload at work. Cogito. https://cogitocorp.com/blog/the-impact-of-cognitive-overload-at-work/
Sung, S. (n.d.). Lifelong learning as a path to happiness? DVV International. https://www.dvv-international.de/en/adult-education-and-development/editions/aed-832016-skills-and-competencies/section-3-utopia/lifelong-learning-as-a-path-to-happiness
