Conversational AI and Experiential Learning
Enhancing Environmental Education on Ecosystems in Schools.
**entered in a scholarship contest for ConfidentWriters – might be shady
Voltairine de Cleyre has a vision for the future
In 1908, the writer Voltairine de Cleyre gave a lecture titled “Modern Educational Reform” at a New York City conference, declaring the education system a conveyor belt to grind individual students down for the service of state industry. Experiential learning, away from the classroom and its confines, was her solution.
Students learn geography through drawing maps of their neighborhoods, environmental science through stewardship over the flowers and bees. Over a hundred and fifteen years later, as civilization barrels towards a climate crisis, we are realizing the way we pass on knowledge and demonstrate that knowledge is outdated.
Personalized AI-assisted learning offers an opportunity to bridge the gap between current education systems and experiential-based learning of the future, which has profound implications on how humans pass on knowledge of the environment.
DBTS Systems and Conversational AI
Conversational AI systems engage student learning through conversation as experience. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) have been studied for forty years, and the latest innovation is dialogue-based tutoring systems (DBTS) of AI technologies. As if everyone had a private Aristotle to evaluate their responses and develop further learning opportunities, and unlike the real-long passed Aristotle, conversational AI technology gives feedback.
Perceiving AI-derived feedback as objective, students are shown to have an increase in positive emotions and interest when learning a subject. This aligns with the values of UNESCO on learning goals for students in the age of AI: framing problems, formulating questions, making judgements, fitting pieces of a puzzle together beyond simple pattern-recognition or data categorization.
In 2018, the UCL Knowledge Lab highlighted the benefits of AI in learning with their experimental DBTS-AI program, iTalk2Learn. The conversational program guided elementary students through an “experiential” digital experience to teach fractions with adaptive AI systems; the program spoke to students, monitored student learning, and charted a course for further learning, changing the difficulty based on individual students. Back in the classroom, students were found to enjoy fractions more, and therefore, derive greater knowledge from the subject.
What is Experiential Learning?
“Experiential learning” , characterized by reflection, application, and real-world engagement, is significantly enhanced by conversational AI.
In Taiwan, a study found elementary students who engaged with mobile experiential learning-technology showed greater problem-solving competencies than students learning from conventional teaching methods. Facilitated and reviewed by a teacher, the designed mobile system asked students questions such as, “How do we offer ecological environmental protection for ecological pods?”; students applied their answers to an actual hydroponics farm. The greatest development? The students’ understanding and appreciation for the environment increased.
By integrating iTalk2Learn’s personalized learning, students could engage in a variety of environmental studies.
For example, solution-oriented environmentalism benefits greatly from AI in informing research, deploying solutions, and shifting operations to optimized, clean energy consumption in electrical infrastructure and technology; research on how teachers can implement solution-based environmentalism into curriculum, such as conducting a survey of bird populations in an area and conversational-AI guiding conservation methods, would create new opportunities for innovation in the classroom.
What about the ethics of AI in the classroom?
Two major ethical concerns for AI-education technology are: data security and carbon footprint.
It took 502 tonnes of CO2 to merely train ChatGPT, and the International Energy Agency estimates AI and its data infrastructure will use the equivalent energy consumption of Germany by 2026 AI. This places a major cost on the environment and financial strain on school systems.
Furthermore, “big-tech” stakeholders storing data from personalized-AI interactions are now brought to the table, raising concerns of student-data security. Teachers, policy-makers, and schools need to reevaluate with AI-developers why we make these tools and for whom.
The professional ethics of a teacher is to steer learners through life, encourage fairness, and have respect for each person’s dignity; AI-developers and tools need to be on the same ethical framework if the technology will ever see a classroom.
Is the sum-total of AI good for classrooms
AI can be a powerful aide in the fight against climate change by increasing education and environmental awareness in the following generations. DBTS-AI can suffer from “hallucinations”, consumes high amounts of energy, and poses questions about student security; however, the technology offers opportunities to further learning experiences in the environment and develop a students appreciation for the environment. Ultimately, the technology works best alongside a human teacher trained in AI and facilitates new student interactions with the technology. I imagine Voltairine might be pleased in building the future of the classroom with ethical-AI, as a ethical and novel technology to bring classrooms to greater innovation, empathy, and global stewardship.
