Issues
Resisting the digital automation of teaching By Professor Neil Selwyn Monash University
COVID-19 has certainly pushed teachers and technology into the headlines. In the short term, technologies such as Zoom, Google Docs and Microsoft Teams are proving invaluable ways for educators to continue doing their jobs as best as possible. However, the sight of TAFE teachers, lecturers and tutors hastily turning to remote teaching methods has also triggered renewed calls for the longerterm radical rethinking of education. As Frederick Hess observed in the initial weeks of the lockdown: “a few education analysts have started to sound positively giddy about this exciting opportunity to spitball ideas and try out nifty new programs”. Since then, EdTech gurus have been quick to talk of the silver lining of COVID-19 and “the genie [being let] out of the bottle”. Andrew Cuomo – state governor of New York – perhaps best encapsulated this sentiment when arguing for a permanent switch-over to sophisticated remote learning across the education system: “The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom and the teacher is in front of that classroom, and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms ... why, with all the technology you have? … It’s hard to change the status quo. But you get moments in history where people say, ‘OK I’m ready. I’m ready for change. I get it’. I think this is one of those moments.”
Reimagining teaching, again As with many aspects of the pandemic, these arguments for change are not new. Technologists have long been calling for the radical digitisation and automation of teaching – especially across the tertiary sector. These visions move well beyond what most teachers might currently understand as digital education (for example, managing student learning through the 18
Western Teacher
September 2020
college learning management system). Instead, the development of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, driven by powerful advances in computational processing and big data generation, continues to fuel arguments for a radical reboot of how teaching and learning takes place.
without coming into direct contact with human teachers.
Crucially, neither the expert teacher nor the bricks and mortar classroom tend to be central components of these reimaginings.
Facial recognition systems can be used to verify each students’ attendance as they study at home, as well as continuously monitor their attention and engagement. Powerful AI-driven systems can provide personalised learning provision – analysing each student’s past performance to calculate bespoke recommendations for what they should learn next.
Such arguments are certainly ambitious, but they are not without substance. Indeed, the technology already exists for student cohorts to go through much of their college day working fully online and
Helpful software-based chat bots and conversational agents can appear at any time to answer queries, offer guidance and support. At the end of the day, students can be assessed through
