March 25, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode we hear from teachers around the world about their perceptions on artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom. Are they more excited or sceptical? And where do they think it can provide the most value to teaching and learning?
Our host for this episode is our very own Education Futures Manager, Laura Kahwati. She is joined by two special guests. Rachel Logan, School Liaison & Insight Manager, and Andrew Field, Senior Education Manager, both from the Insight, Ideation & Impact team at Cambridge.
Show notes
Cambridge learner attributes - https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/support-and-training-for-schools/leading-learning-and-teaching-with-cambridge/curriculum/cambridge-learner-attributes
Getting started with AI in the classroom guide from Cambridge - https://www.cambridge-community.org.uk/professional-development/gswaic/
Getting started with AI in the classroom Cambridge Schools Conference session video - https://bit.ly/GSWAI_conference
Artificial intelligence in education: Working with our Cambridge community of schools to explore the opportunities and challenges in classrooms - https://blog.cambridgeinternational.org/artificial-intelligence-in-education-working-with-our-cambridge-community-of-schools-to-explore-the-opportunities-and-challenges-in-classrooms/
Cambridge Outlook magazine issue 45: Digital Exams and AI special edition - https://www.calameo.com/cupeducation/read/006433997b541737cb1b1
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(cheerful music)
- I used to be a littlereluctant about AI,
but we cannot fight against it
because you don't stop evolution.
- Every big company, everyorganization now is using it
and so we can't really avoid it.
- I really need guidance from experts
on using GenAI for education.
(00:24):
- Hello, welcome to our latest episode
of the "Brighter Thinking Pod" from
the International Education group
of Cambridge UniversityPress and Assessment.
Today, I'm your host.
My name is Laura Kahwati,
and I'm an education futuresmanager at Cambridge.
We created our "Brighter Thinking Pod"
to support teachers and schoolleaders around the world.
(00:45):
Each episode brings you helpful advice
and interesting conversation from authors,
teachers, and academics.
As you may have guessedfrom the teacher voices
we heard in the intro, todaywe're going to be talking about
artificial intelligence, specifically,
teachers changing perceptionsof the technology.
(01:06):
Remember, all the links andinfo that we discuss today
are available in theshow notes for your ease.
(cheerful music)
Let's meet our guests.
(01:28):
Today I'm joined by Rachel Logan,
school liaison and insight manager,
and Andrew Field, senioreducation manager,
both from the Insight,Ideation and Impact team
here at Cambridge.
So welcome both.
- Hello.
Hello, thank you verymuch for having us here.
- Yeah, thank you.
(01:48):
Great to be here and excited
what we can about to talk about.
- Oh great, well it's lovelyto have you both here as well.
I'm hoping that you won't mind
if I start by asking you for a definition.
So could you define for me generative AI?
- Over to Andrew with this one.
- Well, we've had loadsof explorations with this
and we know now that peoplewere initially inspired
(02:11):
and enthused about AIin late 2022 into '23.
And generative AI, as we're all emerging,
all understand now isfar more focused about
specific area of AI rather than
the wider aspects about machine learning.
Generative AI, as we're seeing it emerging
within teaching and learning,
(02:32):
is all about using AI creatively
to throw educational challenges, problems,
exciting and in interesting areas
to then see what can begenerated to support us.
So in terms of defining generative AI,
it's an interesting one becauseany definition we give you
right now will change in the next minute.
So I'd far rather focus it much more about
(02:54):
what we're looking at atCambridge, exploring things
like the educationalimpact of these things.
And from the history of technology
and the impact of items like this,
we don't want generative AI to be seen as
one of these historical tech things
that get thrown at teachers to explore
and then see what value might it be.
Actually here, teachers needto be rigorously analyzing
(03:16):
all of these tech promisesto see what's the difference
is it really gonna make for my classroom.
- Oh, great.
Okay, so there's actually,there's a lot of nuance there.
And there's also lots oflittle pockets of expertise
that we want to look into,including, like you say,
teachers in the classroom.
Rachel, is there anything you want to add
to that definition?
- No, that sounds good.
(03:37):
Sounds good to me.
- Oh, fantastic.
So we go from thinking about a definition
of generative AI toactually thinking about
how people respond to this.
So from your research with ourCambridge teacher community,
would you say that there's more excitement
about generative AI at themoment or more skepticism?
(03:57):
- Well, I've got some greatstats to tell you about that.
So last year when we ran abig survey with teachers,
a lot of them felt very anxious about
what generative AI meant in education
and what it meant to them.
And we were really curious to see
if their attitudes hadchanged over the last year.
So we just ran a really great activity
with our panel of Cambridge teachers
(04:17):
and I also used some AI to dosome sentiment analysis on it.
And I was really impressedwith the results.
So 27% of our responses were optimistic,
which I thought was really encouraging
compared to where they were last year.
But also the AI analysis said that
they were determined,hopeful, appreciative,
(04:41):
confident, accomplished, but also that
they were doubtful, frustrated,
and curious in different measures.
And I thought that was a reallynice way of picking up that,
like you said, it's nuanced.
They're not just all optimistic.
They want to know what it means for them.
What can they do with it?
What does, you know,what does it really mean?
(05:01):
And they're still notkind of fully confident.
You know, people didn't rush into that
and say, "Yeah, I've got this.
I know what I'm doing."
So that was really interesting.
- And so linked to that,it really does come back to
sort of perhaps grandiose terms that
we might throw around sometimes about
what's the consequential validity of AI
as we move towards the 2030s.
(05:22):
But actually I want teachersreally to be saying, "So what?"
If someone says to them,"AI is gonna be fantastic,
it's gonna transform the world."
They actually need to beable to say, "So what?"
In a polite and positiveand enthusiastic way.
But what we've reallygot to explore here is
why generative AI specificallyis fundamentally different
(05:43):
to all of the previous technologies
that have been promised to teachers.
It is really, really easy to be cynical,
and that's the lovelyaspect I've seen about
all of the great researchRachel and the wider team
have been involved in,where we've actually seen
teachers saying, "What can this do for me?
How can it help my learners?
How can it help me with my planning?"
(06:04):
And beyond that, what'sthe actual transformative,
impactful difference of generative AI?
It isn't just a thing that'sgonna make our lives easier
because we can organize our data better
or create a lesson plan faster.
This is actually about thingswe've never even been able
to consider about large data models,
exploring and developingsolutions that way,
(06:26):
analyzing data in ways thatpreviously weren't possible.
And that's where it's exciting.
If you considered wherethings like the internet was
way before many of you were even born,
we're talking sort of late'90s, let's go for that then.
If you consider some of those things
where people first saw Google,
teachers were concerned about it,
(06:47):
and from an absolute source of validity,
they felt that learnerswould be typing in questions,
they'd get the answer straight off Google,
and then homework wouldn'tbe able to exist anymore.
Now there's obviouslydiscussions about homework
and its importance andits practical reality,
but it's all really focused on the skill
(07:08):
and attitude and approachesand general brilliance
of teachers around the world.
Teachers love generative AIwhen it can make their lessons
more interesting, more attention-grabbing.
There's loads we can do with it,
and what it's absolutely vital we do
and we're gonna explore insome of the discussions today
is actually, what is thedifference it can make?
(07:31):
And also, how can I bestmake use of it in my class?
Or when do I actually open itup to my own learners to say,
you choose, do you want to use AI?
Do you not want to use AI?
And take us on that journey'cause it's the journey
that is the most important there
about where we can see whydid you choose to use AI there
or why when you used AIto source your materials
(07:53):
or your writing and it changedwhat you were about to write,
was that a good thing oractually a negative influence?
Some of the experiments you find that
it may turn it into much more effective
and long words or longer paragraphs,
but does that actually get the job done
that you're trying to achieve?
So it's trying to light the fires
within all these colleagues to explore
(08:14):
how can generative AIreally make a difference.
- Absolutely, and I thinkthere's a couple of things
I want to pick up on therebecause like you said,
it's really about how we use it
in terms of making a difference.
And that's why I reallylike the way that Rachel,
you framed that researchthat's been put out
(08:34):
in terms of all those lovelyemotion, adjectives used,
whether the teachers feelhopeful or anxious or confident.
And I think that's really important that
that human element added tothe kind of preconceptions
that Andrew may have been talking about.
But the other thing thatI think is really great
is that so what question,because you're absolutely right.
(08:57):
Like anything when it comesto education or teaching
and learning, we want to be able to say,
"Well, what does it look like?"
And I really love the fact that
what that seems to come down to for you
is empowering teachers toactually be able to do something
really successful in the classroom.
If you don't mind, I just wanna ask you
a follow up question there.
(09:18):
How do we empowerstudents not to feel like
it's something that theymight want to just say,
"Oh, I'll just put it into AI."
- For me, it comes down tothe skill of the teacher.
If you look at it at itsvery most basic level,
generative AI could beconsidered merely a tool.
So just as your classroompreviously was filled
(09:39):
with fantastic books, greatresources, opportunities
for reading nooks and differentspaces for creative writing
and art and anythingelse you wanted to do,
you could see generativeAI as part of that toolbox.
What it really has gotto be is the focus on
my absolute favorite thing that Cambridge
has been involved in, theCambridge Learner Attributes,
(10:01):
Those absolutely brilliant attributes
where we're focusing on encouraginglearners to be creative,
helping learners really be inquisitive
to explore what they could do.
So just like a great teacherdoesn't tell learners
what to do, they inspire them to explore
and see what might they do.
We want to enable teachersto be confident enough
(10:24):
to open those doors forthose learners to see,
"Okay, here's a challenge for you.
What might you do?"
And it's not necessarily even just saying
take it or leave it,it's doing things like,
take your currentquestion, put it into AI,
and then us together, we'regonna explore the output,
(10:44):
critically evaluate that.
Because where some of the areas
where there is genuineconcern is, are we offsetting
these great critical evaluationanalysis skills to AI?
And what we should bedoing is looking to explore
some of the more mundane tasks
and getting AI to take care of those.
So the learners themselvescan be exploring
(11:06):
the creative elements,the adding the value.
But just as people used Clippy years ago
in Microsoft Word, that'swhere AI can be used here.
It's inspiring people tosee what might be possible.
- I want to jump in on that as well about
the point about criticalthinking and ownership as well.
And I think like studentsreally want to feel proud
(11:28):
of their work and reallyconnected and engaged with it.
And you can use AI as a critical friend
to help them build those kindof critical thinking skills.
Like, is this good enough?
What else would you do?
Is this accurate?
And they kind of wantto catch it out as well.
They want to prove thatthey're better than it,
a bit like, you know,playing a chess computer
and you want to get it, youknow, make sure that you win.
(11:49):
And I think that, you know,I've yet to meet a student
that didn't want to feel proud
of their work and kind of, yeah.
And it's that thing as well,like, if they're gonna use it,
they're just going to...
If they're gonna use it to like cheat,
they're gonna be self-penalizing.
And it's learning how touse it, it's learning to,
maybe you're not that greatat setting up a writing frame,
(12:12):
but you could use AI togive you a starting point
rather than a blank pieceof paper and then go in
and, you know, make it your own,
change words around, back up your sources.
If you haven't read the book,it's not gonna help you.
It's kind of like making surethat you're using it as a tool
and that ultimately your student voice
is the important thingthat's coming through here.
- But what a great pointabout reflective practice,
(12:34):
the absolute best way todevelop your expertise,
exploring ways to, better next steps,
your formative developmentis to reflect effectively.
Now the AI tutors thatwe're seeing emerging,
I'm far more interested inactually learners themselves
choosing to, let me putthat to this AI assistant,
(12:55):
this Copilot, to explore what is of value.
So when they are drafting something,
actually we need to beexploring the effective ways
where you can use Copilot tothen reflect back and consider.
The aspect with a lotof the commercial offers
at the moment though isthey're very good at saying,
"Yes, of course I'll do that,"
and then maybe not quite doing it.
(13:17):
Now some might say that's alimitation of the current offer.
I would also say we'vegot to make sure that
the educational impactof all of these things
comes at the forefront.
It's so important that alearner is able themselves
to critically evaluate the whole process.
Does it take longer to ask the questions
of AI than it would've been just for them
(13:37):
to answer the question themselves.
Now that will change as technology
and other things get embeddedand we can explore further.
But it fundamentally does come down
to the Cambridge Learner Attributes,
helping learners to explore and inspire
to see what amazing things they can do.
That will be significantlyempowered and enhanced with AI.
(14:00):
- Absolutely.
And I have heard you usethe phrase before, Andrew,
that it is always about theteacher and not the technology.
And I always like to think of
the Cambridge LearnerAttributes as something that
teachers hold withinthem as well as students.
So what I'm getting fromboth of you here today
is that when it comes to the use of AI,
it is about encouragingteachers to use good judgment
(14:23):
about how and when it's best used,
but also encouragingstudents to use good judgment
and in terms of how andwhen it's best used.
- Definitely, definitely.
And using it to make space
for the really important conversations.
So you know, if you'respending a lot of time
copying big chunks of information
from one document toanother, that could be AI.
And then that means thatyour time in the classroom
(14:45):
talking to people, the studentsthat you know really well,
that's where the value is, isn't it?
So using it to do your boring tasks.
- A lot of what we do,we're always thinking about
busy teachers and the amount of work
that they have on their hands.
So I think many would beexcited about the idea
of ways in which they can use AI
to actually free up their time
for their own creativity and thinking.
- Just as long as that freedup time then isn't identified
(15:09):
by a management individual in their school
to say now to do some more admin.
It's really important that we continue
these quite rigorous conversations
about best use of teacher time.
The teachers, if they'regiven time to explore,
can do amazing things.
We're not about adding morebureaucracy for teachers.
(15:30):
We're about using AI, as Racheland others have mentioned,
about actually getting thosemore mundane tasks done faster
so you can focus onhaving a creative space.
AI is gonna do amazing things that
we're not even sure ofyet, but it's not about
these images of robots takingover the world and things.
(15:54):
This is about teachers beingempowered even more than ever
to do inspirationalthings for their learners.
- Now speaking of AI doing amazing things
and teachers doing an amazingand inspirational things,
can I ask you both,what in your experience
are teachers most excited about?
Where do you think AI can provide value
(16:17):
to teaching and learning?
- I've got some lovelyquotes actually about that.
So one of our teacherssaid that they thought that
an AI language assistant would be amazing
that a conversational languagetool that you could speak to
and it would speak back to you
and it would give youtips on your pronunciation
and that kind of thing.
And I think when we're talking about
(16:38):
our international schools,we're often talking about
bilingual learners as well.
So something like that, that takes the,
perhaps the pressure offthe teacher having to
be the person giving thefeedback all the time,
but also the studentsmight feel more confident
to practice with an AI tool.
They maybe feel not judgedin any way, or you know,
(16:58):
more confident to talk toit in a more natural way.
So that's kind of, that wasa suggestion from my teacher
about what kind of tool they'dlike to see in the future.
- I think what we're exploring here is
how teachers can empower
their current practice even further.
That's kind of the firstlevel of adoption of AI
and it's also being willingto explore and try things out.
(17:23):
Like some of the best activitiesI remember from way back
when I was at school was whenyou were set these challenges
without actually beinggiven the tools to use it.
The part of the work was toexplore what was the best tool
to evaluate where the best use was.
Was it worth using acomputer in those days
to program something when
(17:44):
there's some other way of doing it?
I think that's where this Copilot,
this co-intelligence of AIcan really assist learners.
And it's not about presenting problems
and then saying, you'vegot time to solve this now.
It's actually aboutexploring how we can use AI
with real impact in the classroom.
(18:04):
Helping learners to say, "I did use AI,
and here's the difference it made
and here's why I would useit in this way in the future.
But also having tried this,why I wouldn't use it."
I think that the itemswe've explored already today
where it's about thiscoaching opportunity,
this ability to throw ideas out there
and get some suggestions back.
(18:25):
the current AI chat bots and assistants
are really anxious toplease, which is good,
but if I throw out an idea
which is maybe slightly contentious,
you want an AI coach toreally come back to you
and say, "Well that's not a bad idea,"
with a praise sandwich and,"I like that suggestion,
but perhaps you mightconsider these ideas too."
(18:45):
Helping learners reflect in that way
is a really impactful way of doing things.
If you think about this at scale,
with a large class of learners,
each of them could havetheir own interactions
with the tools that they can then use.
And then it leads into farmore effective discussion
in smaller groups than whole groups.
(19:06):
So it's about not necessarily buying
or investing hugely in expensive
or massively costly additional tools.
It's about encouraging thosecompanies selling those offers
to actually embed theminto existing offers.
A lot of things we've beenexploring at Cambridge
is about adding value towhat we've already got.
(19:28):
The Cambridge Content is amazing.
We're all aware of theenormous history there,
almost the quality, theabsolute research-based items.
Now imagine these things being able
to present themselves on demand.
You've got a request,you've got a suggestion,
but if you're logged in with Cambridge,
then you can get the suggestionsfrom the Cambridge Content.
(19:51):
There's aspects there whichwe're still exploring,
but that's where a lot ofthe research we've done
with teachers has been, youknow, I know I can use ChatGPT,
but where's the Cambridge Content there?
How do I know I can trust it?
I used to say when I was teaching
that Wikipedia was the mosttrustworthy website ever
because no one trusts it,
(20:11):
which means you alwaysdouble check your sources.
Oh, you got that from Wikipedia, did you?
Well, you must make sure youcheck that twice further.
And it's interesting and innovative ways
of using current AI toolsthat we need to explore.
It's about always asking those questions,
how do I know it's right?
Where's the source material come from?
Who's paid for this?
(20:32):
Where's it really come from?
And those are not existentialquestions of 2024,
they're humanities questionsfrom 500 years ago.
So it's about bringingall of this together.
- All of that soundsreally exciting to me.
And also in terms of thinking about it
when I hear you talk about it
from being a former teacher myself,
(20:54):
but can I ask you whatkind of fears there are
around generative AI for education
and also how well-founded those fears are?
- Well, I think if we comeback to the skepticism as well,
like teachers, you know,we've already talked about 'em
not having a lot of time,this is just another thing
for them to get to grips with.
(21:14):
They've got to keep on top of, you know,
keep a step ahead of the students
and they're not reallyconvinced it's actually gonna be
all that great in the end.
And I was just thinking aboutthe kind of level of skills
that we expect from our teachers now
because they've got, whileAndrew was talking about
the things to do with generative AI
and the types of tools, I was thinking
we were expecting these people to have
really strong data visualization skills,
(21:37):
which, you know, they'renot leaving school without.
They're not getting thatfrom teacher training.
Why do we think that they'regonna walk into the classroom
amazingly brilliant atdata analysis and reporting
and tracking and being ableto give feedback to students?
Like that's where AI can help them.
And once they start to seewhere it can help them augment
what they're doing, do things even better,
do things quickly, thenthey start to shift
(22:00):
towards thinking, oh, actuallythis could be really useful.
And the skepticism,like now they're saying,
"All right, I know thatit's not gonna replace me.
Like it's, you know, it's useful
but I'm still the most important thing.
And if everything in the classroom,
the students come to me first.
They trust my judgment overa piece of generative AI.
They trust me more than ChatGPT,
(22:20):
therefore I still know my value.
So I think it's kind oflike skepticism, anxiety,
and then a kind of a quiet confidence
that they are still the human in the loop
and the most important personin the education system.
So yeah.
- And Cambridge has a real role there
in the international community
(22:41):
to reinforce the importance of teachers.
We did so in May 2023 when we published
the thoughts and ideas aboutthe impact of generative AI.
And actually even though our research
and obviously our findingsand discoveries continues,
it still is fundamentally focused on
supporting that teacher.
(23:01):
There are gonna be amazingthings with generative AI
and if you'd flown back 10 years ago
exploring differentopportunities with technology,
it was emerging then.
Technology types always promise
that it's gonna be a better tomorrow
with all these great opportunities.
Actually it's the teacherswho create that conditions
(23:23):
for that better tomorrow,
the teachers who theninspire their learners.
So I'm nervous to justsay that technology,
that AI is another toolbecause it's clearly not.
It is transformative in its potential,
but it's the teachers whoare gonna make that happen.
So we're not here about selling
technical products and services.
(23:45):
What we're selling here is highquality Cambridge education
with real impact for now and, well,
for the continuing years.
- I think that sounds really exciting
the way that you put it like that.
And it makes me come backto Rachel's wonderful phrase
of the human in the loop being the thing
that is the most valued all of the time.
(24:06):
And speaking of the human in the loop,
whether that be a student or a teacher,
can I ask you, what is the most innovative
or impressive use of AI thatyou have seen as an example?
- Can I respond with a different question
to start with though, slightlydifferently from that?
- Absolutely.
- It's in terms of AI experts.
(24:30):
We're not AI experts and wewere never pretending to be,
and I would be so bold as to say anyone
who says they're an AIexpert actually isn't
because it's such a fast-moving
and transformative time at the moment that
singling out items for,that's the best use of AI
(24:51):
is actually putting thetechnology before the learning.
So what we've perhaps gotta do with this,
the most impressive useof AI that we've seen
has hardly got anythingto do with AI at all.
It's where there's beenreally good structures,
really good setup, reallygood creative opportunities
that perhaps have been empowered by AI.
But actually when it comes down to it,
(25:13):
AI has been the enabler, the tool
and the opportunitythat's allowed a teacher
to do more amazing things.
For me, Rachel and I wereinvolved, there was a discussion
with two brilliant teachersfrom our Cambridge community
where they had differentlevels of confidence.
Actually they were both brilliant,
(25:34):
but one felt that they hadhardly any skills with AI
and kept talking about allof these cognitive load
and the skills and thediscussion opportunities
and all these things theywere doing in their classroom.
And we were thinking, this is brilliant.
They're doing all of these things,
but they weren't even able to step back
and realize that AI had enabledthem to do those things.
The other colleague was fullyaware of the impact of AI
(25:57):
and was doing brilliant suggestions
and ideas in a mathematical focus.
But again, it's about using AI
to get things done to open upthese further opportunities.
So I think the question isperhaps a challenging one for us
in that I don't think you should
or we should ever separatewhat's a great use of AI.
(26:20):
It's actually where'sthe educational impact
in what we're doing?
- And I would agree actually in terms of
thinking about teachingand learning in general.
Sometimes when we use thosesuperlatives like most and best,
we're actually missing out on considering
what might be effective, whatmight be good for one person,
what might be good for another person.
(26:40):
Is there anything you'dlike to add, Rachel?
- I just was thinking about research
and that kind of methodology
and that it's often we measure things
that are easy to measure.
And I think that AI, you know,
improving your report writing,
your emails is an easy tomeasure thing, isn't it?
(27:02):
And that's where we might end up saying,
"Oh, this was really good at this."
And not saying, "Oh,the impact then was that
I didn't feel as stressedwalking into this situation.
I was more confident.
I thought more about the language
that I used when I wasquestioning my students."
Like that's not as easy to measure,
but they're kind of, you know,
(27:22):
this tool saved me 15 minutes,
therefore it costs me, costbenefit to my business is this.
You know, let's kind of think about
just what you've kind ofsaying that the good ones,
you won't even know that it's there.
You won't even know it's got AI in it
'cause it'll just be sogood, it'll just work.
You know, let's just makeall of our stuff work,
like, number one.
(27:43):
- And with that, one ofthe best pieces of feedback
we got a number of years ago
was this brilliantteacher in Porto who said,
"If you could save me five minutes a day,
that's a golden amount oftime for me over a week,
over a month and so on."
And it's that view thatI'm really focusing on,
helping the existing materials
(28:04):
that we have and alsodeveloping new products
and services, which may be powered by AI.
But actually, and we've doneloads of research on this,
teachers don't really care aboutknowledge graphs or the LLM
or the RAG analysis.
They care about saving five minutes a day
because they've been ableto log in effectively,
find data they need, findthe support materials,
(28:25):
find the textbook items,find the resources they need,
and it's that which is theempowerment enriching item.
And no one ever phonesup IT support to say,
"Just wanna let you know it'sbeen a fabulous day today.
Thank you for your efforts."
That's where we're gonna seethe real transformative nature
of AI where it just hasenabled these things to happen.
(28:49):
- And like you say,that five minutes a day,
doing it in little ways here and there
and often and building up.
Now my last question is arguablyquite a controversial one
and a big question anddefinitely hard to measure.
So do you think that we are,
and I put in quote markshere, breeding a generation
(29:10):
of well-informed idiotsas one teacher put it,
and what do we mean by thisand what are the consequences?
- So we loved it when that teacher
put that rhetorical question to us,
because obviously that isn'tthe situation we want to be in.
And what we want to bebreeding is a generation
(29:31):
of students that are reallyconfident to articulate
what they want, to be ableto express themselves,
to be able to question things,
to use those higher ordercritical thinking skills,
you know, to back uptheir sources, to kind of,
and we talked alreadyabout owning a journey,
owning the fact that it's your own work.
So definitely Cambridge isdefinitely not doing that.
(29:53):
We're definitely makingsure that our students
are ready for the world andcan use the different tools
in the right way that kindof come across their path.
And then, you know, we're also,
our Cambridge students are the teachers
of the future as well.
So we want to make surethat they're well-informed,
well-grounded, articulate.
- And that challenge of thatquestion is a really good point
(30:16):
because if you look atit in a simplistic way,
you could say, well, now I canChatGPT anything on my phone
and appear like a complete genius.
But as we know, that isuseless without the ability
to talk about things further,the ability to analyze
your thinking that thecritical thinking skills
that we've been talking about,
(30:38):
it's about empowering ourlearners with all the items
that we've been repeatedly mentioning.
But the Cambridge approaches to teaching
and learning is about challenging things.
Why has someone said that?
What might their viewpoint be
and what might the considerations be?
And there's a danger, andthis is this fear about AI
(30:58):
that it's gonna take awayall of our creativity.
And what we need to do is actually use AI
to enable even more creativity,
helping organize datasets more effectively.
All of these potentiallyquite boring technology items
about information architecture.
But imagine you haveeverything available to you,
what do you then do?
(31:19):
What you actually do is you still do
your traditional teaching and learning,
but then you can inspire and explore
new ways of doing things.
Spoke a lot about VR andthings like that previously
where you pop on a headset and then
your learners in yourclass could be exploring
anywhere in the world.
But someone walking past that classroom
would just see a load of people
(31:40):
with looking like sortof funky headsets on
just moving their head around,and like, it's all about
how we actually use thistechnology for impact.
And it's actually the completeopposite of what was posed
by that questionnaire, generationof well-informed idiots.
It's actually a generation ofinspired, enthusiastic people
(32:02):
who are gonna do amazingthings in the next century.
And that's the area thatwe're really focusing on.
So no way is it a generationof well-informed idiots.
What we're talking abouthere is a generation
of learners who've been inspired
by the Cambridge LearnerAttributes and actually willing
to make a significantdifference to the world.
And we're talking the climate impact,
(32:24):
we're talking the impact they can have
in their local community,the global community,
and AI is a part of that,
but none of that happenswithout that well-rounded,
experienced, highlytrained Cambridge teacher.
- I think that's awonderfully reassuring answer
to the creatively posed questionthat we were given there
(32:46):
by that teacher who took part.
Thank you both.
This has been really insightful
and it's been wonderful tohear you both talk about
how we can empower teachers and students
to feel really good aboutgenerative AI in the classroom.
At the heart of everything you have said,
you have talked aboutthe value of the teachers
and the value of the students.
(33:07):
And if that means that they canbe helped with generative AI
and empowered by it, thenthat's a wonderful thing.
That's all we have time for today.
Thank you to Rachel and Andrew
for being such fantastic guests
and sharing some really useful insights.
Don't forget to tell yourfriends and colleagues about us
and rate our show on whateverplatform you're listening on.
(33:29):
Our show notes have lots of useful links
that we've discussedthroughout this episode,
so be sure to take a look at them.
You can also follow us on Xand Instagram @CambridgeInt.
We're going to leave you with some more
of those fantastic quotes fromteachers around the world.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you join us again soon.
(33:50):
- I used to be a littlereluctant about AI,
but we cannot fight against it
because you don't stop evolution.
As educators, we have tolearn how to deal with AI
and how we can use it wiselywhen teaching learners.
- Every big company, everyorganization now is using it
(34:10):
and so we can't really avoid it.
And what we're doing is justto support this generation.
In fact, we had aninsight on how to use AI
in our teaching and learning.
So it is something that weneed to accept, it is with us.
We just need to see how wecan support them and lead them
or guide them to use it correctly
(34:32):
in their teaching and learning.
- Teachers are also using AI to save time
on tasks by grading so thatwe can focus more on students.
Overall, AI is becoming ahelpful tool in our classrooms.
- Obviously AI is notgonna replace teachers,
(34:52):
but then the best thingas teachers, as educators,
is to just get thisgeneration to use it wisely.
- Using AI responsibly andwith the right frame of mind
to develop learning will enable us
to produce the best lessons.
Not to let AI take over,but to work alongside
the emotional intelligencethat we as a human brain
(35:15):
and as teachers have.
- GenAI is really new to me.
I only know a little bit about GenAI,
so I really need guidancefrom experts on using GenAI
for education, preferablyif they are science-related
and also education-related.
(35:36):
(cheerful music)
(cheerful music)
- I used to be a littlereluctant about AI,
but we cannot fight against it
because you don't stop evolution.
- Every big company, everyorganization now is using it
and so we can't really avoid it.
- I really need guidance from experts
on using GenAI for education.
(00:24):
- Hello, welcome to our latest episode
of the "Brighter Thinking Pod" from
the International Education group
of Cambridge UniversityPress and Assessment.
Today, I'm your host.
My name is Laura Kahwati,
and I'm an education futuresmanager at Cambridge.
We created our "Brighter Thinking Pod"
to support teachers and schoolleaders around the world.
(00:45):
Each episode brings you helpful advice
and interesting conversation from authors,
teachers, and academics.
As you may have guessedfrom the teacher voices
we heard in the intro, todaywe're going to be talking about
artificial intelligence, specifically,
teachers changing perceptionsof the technology.
(01:06):
Remember, all the links andinfo that we discuss today
are available in theshow notes for your ease.
(cheerful music)
Let's meet our guests.
(01:28):
Today I'm joined by Rachel Logan,
school liaison and insight manager,
and Andrew Field, senioreducation manager,
both from the Insight,Ideation and Impact team
here at Cambridge.
So welcome both.
- Hello.
Hello, thank you verymuch for having us here.
- Yeah, thank you.
(01:48):
Great to be here and excited
what we can about to talk about.
- Oh great, well it's lovelyto have you both here as well.
I'm hoping that you won't mind
if I start by asking you for a definition.
So could you define for me generative AI?
- Over to Andrew with this one.
- Well, we've had loadsof explorations with this
and we know now that peoplewere initially inspired
(02:11):
and enthused about AIin late 2022 into '23.
And generative AI, as we're all emerging,
all understand now isfar more focused about
specific area of AI rather than
the wider aspects about machine learning.
Generative AI, as we're seeing it emerging
within teaching and learning,
(02:32):
is all about using AI creatively
to throw educational challenges, problems,
exciting and in interesting areas
to then see what can begenerated to support us.
So in terms of defining generative AI,
it's an interesting one becauseany definition we give you
right now will change in the next minute.
So I'd far rather focus it much more about
(02:54):
what we're looking at atCambridge, exploring things
like the educationalimpact of these things.
And from the history of technology
and the impact of items like this,
we don't want generative AI to be seen as
one of these historical tech things
that get thrown at teachers to explore
and then see what value might it be.
Actually here, teachers needto be rigorously analyzing
(03:16):
all of these tech promisesto see what's the difference
is it really gonna make for my classroom.
- Oh, great.
Okay, so there's actually,there's a lot of nuance there.
And there's also lots oflittle pockets of expertise
that we want to look into,including, like you say,
teachers in the classroom.
Rachel, is there anything you want to add
to that definition?
- No, that sounds good.
(03:37):
Sounds good to me.
- Oh, fantastic.
So we go from thinking about a definition
of generative AI toactually thinking about
how people respond to this.
So from your research with ourCambridge teacher community,
would you say that there's more excitement
about generative AI at themoment or more skepticism?
(03:57):
- Well, I've got some greatstats to tell you about that.
So last year when we ran abig survey with teachers,
a lot of them felt very anxious about
what generative AI meant in education
and what it meant to them.
And we were really curious to see
if their attitudes hadchanged over the last year.
So we just ran a really great activity
with our panel of Cambridge teachers
(04:17):
and I also used some AI to dosome sentiment analysis on it.
And I was really impressedwith the results.
So 27% of our responses were optimistic,
which I thought was really encouraging
compared to where they were last year.
But also the AI analysis said that
they were determined,hopeful, appreciative,
(04:41):
confident, accomplished, but also that
they were doubtful, frustrated,
and curious in different measures.
And I thought that was a reallynice way of picking up that,
like you said, it's nuanced.
They're not just all optimistic.
They want to know what it means for them.
What can they do with it?
What does, you know,what does it really mean?
(05:01):
And they're still notkind of fully confident.
You know, people didn't rush into that
and say, "Yeah, I've got this.
I know what I'm doing."
So that was really interesting.
- And so linked to that,it really does come back to
sort of perhaps grandiose terms that
we might throw around sometimes about
what's the consequential validity of AI
as we move towards the 2030s.
(05:22):
But actually I want teachersreally to be saying, "So what?"
If someone says to them,"AI is gonna be fantastic,
it's gonna transform the world."
They actually need to beable to say, "So what?"
In a polite and positiveand enthusiastic way.
But what we've reallygot to explore here is
why generative AI specificallyis fundamentally different
(05:43):
to all of the previous technologies
that have been promised to teachers.
It is really, really easy to be cynical,
and that's the lovelyaspect I've seen about
all of the great researchRachel and the wider team
have been involved in,where we've actually seen
teachers saying, "What can this do for me?
How can it help my learners?
How can it help me with my planning?"
(06:04):
And beyond that, what'sthe actual transformative,
impactful difference of generative AI?
It isn't just a thing that'sgonna make our lives easier
because we can organize our data better
or create a lesson plan faster.
This is actually about thingswe've never even been able
to consider about large data models,
exploring and developingsolutions that way,
(06:26):
analyzing data in ways thatpreviously weren't possible.
And that's where it's exciting.
If you considered wherethings like the internet was
way before many of you were even born,
we're talking sort of late'90s, let's go for that then.
If you consider some of those things
where people first saw Google,
teachers were concerned about it,
(06:47):
and from an absolute source of validity,
they felt that learnerswould be typing in questions,
they'd get the answer straight off Google,
and then homework wouldn'tbe able to exist anymore.
Now there's obviouslydiscussions about homework
and its importance andits practical reality,
but it's all really focused on the skill
(07:08):
and attitude and approachesand general brilliance
of teachers around the world.
Teachers love generative AIwhen it can make their lessons
more interesting, more attention-grabbing.
There's loads we can do with it,
and what it's absolutely vital we do
and we're gonna explore insome of the discussions today
is actually, what is thedifference it can make?
(07:31):
And also, how can I bestmake use of it in my class?
Or when do I actually open itup to my own learners to say,
you choose, do you want to use AI?
Do you not want to use AI?
And take us on that journey'cause it's the journey
that is the most important there
about where we can see whydid you choose to use AI there
or why when you used AIto source your materials
(07:53):
or your writing and it changedwhat you were about to write,
was that a good thing oractually a negative influence?
Some of the experiments you find that
it may turn it into much more effective
and long words or longer paragraphs,
but does that actually get the job done
that you're trying to achieve?
So it's trying to light the fires
within all these colleagues to explore
(08:14):
how can generative AIreally make a difference.
- Absolutely, and I thinkthere's a couple of things
I want to pick up on therebecause like you said,
it's really about how we use it
in terms of making a difference.
And that's why I reallylike the way that Rachel,
you framed that researchthat's been put out
(08:34):
in terms of all those lovelyemotion, adjectives used,
whether the teachers feelhopeful or anxious or confident.
And I think that's really important that
that human element added tothe kind of preconceptions
that Andrew may have been talking about.
But the other thing thatI think is really great
is that so what question,because you're absolutely right.
(08:57):
Like anything when it comesto education or teaching
and learning, we want to be able to say,
"Well, what does it look like?"
And I really love the fact that
what that seems to come down to for you
is empowering teachers toactually be able to do something
really successful in the classroom.
If you don't mind, I just wanna ask you
a follow up question there.
(09:18):
How do we empowerstudents not to feel like
it's something that theymight want to just say,
"Oh, I'll just put it into AI."
- For me, it comes down tothe skill of the teacher.
If you look at it at itsvery most basic level,
generative AI could beconsidered merely a tool.
So just as your classroompreviously was filled
(09:39):
with fantastic books, greatresources, opportunities
for reading nooks and differentspaces for creative writing
and art and anythingelse you wanted to do,
you could see generativeAI as part of that toolbox.
What it really has gotto be is the focus on
my absolute favorite thing that Cambridge
has been involved in, theCambridge Learner Attributes,
(10:01):
Those absolutely brilliant attributes
where we're focusing on encouraginglearners to be creative,
helping learners really be inquisitive
to explore what they could do.
So just like a great teacherdoesn't tell learners
what to do, they inspire them to explore
and see what might they do.
We want to enable teachersto be confident enough
(10:24):
to open those doors forthose learners to see,
"Okay, here's a challenge for you.
What might you do?"
And it's not necessarily even just saying
take it or leave it,it's doing things like,
take your currentquestion, put it into AI,
and then us together, we'regonna explore the output,
(10:44):
critically evaluate that.
Because where some of the areas
where there is genuineconcern is, are we offsetting
these great critical evaluationanalysis skills to AI?
And what we should bedoing is looking to explore
some of the more mundane tasks
and getting AI to take care of those.
So the learners themselvescan be exploring
(11:06):
the creative elements,the adding the value.
But just as people used Clippy years ago
in Microsoft Word, that'swhere AI can be used here.
It's inspiring people tosee what might be possible.
- I want to jump in on that as well about
the point about criticalthinking and ownership as well.
And I think like studentsreally want to feel proud
(11:28):
of their work and reallyconnected and engaged with it.
And you can use AI as a critical friend
to help them build those kindof critical thinking skills.
Like, is this good enough?
What else would you do?
Is this accurate?
And they kind of wantto catch it out as well.
They want to prove thatthey're better than it,
a bit like, you know,playing a chess computer
and you want to get it, youknow, make sure that you win.
(11:49):
And I think that, you know,I've yet to meet a student
that didn't want to feel proud
of their work and kind of, yeah.
And it's that thing as well,like, if they're gonna use it,
they're just going to...
If they're gonna use it to like cheat,
they're gonna be self-penalizing.
And it's learning how touse it, it's learning to,
maybe you're not that greatat setting up a writing frame,
(12:12):
but you could use AI togive you a starting point
rather than a blank pieceof paper and then go in
and, you know, make it your own,
change words around, back up your sources.
If you haven't read the book,it's not gonna help you.
It's kind of like making surethat you're using it as a tool
and that ultimately your student voice
is the important thingthat's coming through here.
- But what a great pointabout reflective practice,
(12:34):
the absolute best way todevelop your expertise,
exploring ways to, better next steps,
your formative developmentis to reflect effectively.
Now the AI tutors thatwe're seeing emerging,
I'm far more interested inactually learners themselves
choosing to, let me putthat to this AI assistant,
(12:55):
this Copilot, to explore what is of value.
So when they are drafting something,
actually we need to beexploring the effective ways
where you can use Copilot tothen reflect back and consider.
The aspect with a lotof the commercial offers
at the moment though isthey're very good at saying,
"Yes, of course I'll do that,"
and then maybe not quite doing it.
(13:17):
Now some might say that's alimitation of the current offer.
I would also say we'vegot to make sure that
the educational impactof all of these things
comes at the forefront.
It's so important that alearner is able themselves
to critically evaluate the whole process.
Does it take longer to ask the questions
of AI than it would've been just for them
(13:37):
to answer the question themselves.
Now that will change as technology
and other things get embeddedand we can explore further.
But it fundamentally does come down
to the Cambridge Learner Attributes,
helping learners to explore and inspire
to see what amazing things they can do.
That will be significantlyempowered and enhanced with AI.
(14:00):
- Absolutely.
And I have heard you usethe phrase before, Andrew,
that it is always about theteacher and not the technology.
And I always like to think of
the Cambridge LearnerAttributes as something that
teachers hold withinthem as well as students.
So what I'm getting fromboth of you here today
is that when it comes to the use of AI,
it is about encouragingteachers to use good judgment
(14:23):
about how and when it's best used,
but also encouragingstudents to use good judgment
and in terms of how andwhen it's best used.
- Definitely, definitely.
And using it to make space
for the really important conversations.
So you know, if you'respending a lot of time
copying big chunks of information
from one document toanother, that could be AI.
And then that means thatyour time in the classroom
(14:45):
talking to people, the studentsthat you know really well,
that's where the value is, isn't it?
So using it to do your boring tasks.
- A lot of what we do,we're always thinking about
busy teachers and the amount of work
that they have on their hands.
So I think many would beexcited about the idea
of ways in which they can use AI
to actually free up their time
for their own creativity and thinking.
- Just as long as that freedup time then isn't identified
(15:09):
by a management individual in their school
to say now to do some more admin.
It's really important that we continue
these quite rigorous conversations
about best use of teacher time.
The teachers, if they'regiven time to explore,
can do amazing things.
We're not about adding morebureaucracy for teachers.
(15:30):
We're about using AI, as Racheland others have mentioned,
about actually getting thosemore mundane tasks done faster
so you can focus onhaving a creative space.
AI is gonna do amazing things that
we're not even sure ofyet, but it's not about
these images of robots takingover the world and things.
(15:54):
This is about teachers beingempowered even more than ever
to do inspirationalthings for their learners.
- Now speaking of AI doing amazing things
and teachers doing an amazingand inspirational things,
can I ask you both,what in your experience
are teachers most excited about?
Where do you think AI can provide value
(16:17):
to teaching and learning?
- I've got some lovelyquotes actually about that.
So one of our teacherssaid that they thought that
an AI language assistant would be amazing
that a conversational languagetool that you could speak to
and it would speak back to you
and it would give youtips on your pronunciation
and that kind of thing.
And I think when we're talking about
(16:38):
our international schools,we're often talking about
bilingual learners as well.
So something like that, that takes the,
perhaps the pressure offthe teacher having to
be the person giving thefeedback all the time,
but also the studentsmight feel more confident
to practice with an AI tool.
They maybe feel not judgedin any way, or you know,
(16:58):
more confident to talk toit in a more natural way.
So that's kind of, that wasa suggestion from my teacher
about what kind of tool they'dlike to see in the future.
- I think what we're exploring here is
how teachers can empower
their current practice even further.
That's kind of the firstlevel of adoption of AI
and it's also being willingto explore and try things out.
(17:23):
Like some of the best activitiesI remember from way back
when I was at school was whenyou were set these challenges
without actually beinggiven the tools to use it.
The part of the work was toexplore what was the best tool
to evaluate where the best use was.
Was it worth using acomputer in those days
to program something when
(17:44):
there's some other way of doing it?
I think that's where this Copilot,
this co-intelligence of AIcan really assist learners.
And it's not about presenting problems
and then saying, you'vegot time to solve this now.
It's actually aboutexploring how we can use AI
with real impact in the classroom.
(18:04):
Helping learners to say, "I did use AI,
and here's the difference it made
and here's why I would useit in this way in the future.
But also having tried this,why I wouldn't use it."
I think that the itemswe've explored already today
where it's about thiscoaching opportunity,
this ability to throw ideas out there
and get some suggestions back.
(18:25):
the current AI chat bots and assistants
are really anxious toplease, which is good,
but if I throw out an idea
which is maybe slightly contentious,
you want an AI coach toreally come back to you
and say, "Well that's not a bad idea,"
with a praise sandwich and,"I like that suggestion,
but perhaps you mightconsider these ideas too."
(18:45):
Helping learners reflect in that way
is a really impactful way of doing things.
If you think about this at scale,
with a large class of learners,
each of them could havetheir own interactions
with the tools that they can then use.
And then it leads into farmore effective discussion
in smaller groups than whole groups.
(19:06):
So it's about not necessarily buying
or investing hugely in expensive
or massively costly additional tools.
It's about encouraging thosecompanies selling those offers
to actually embed theminto existing offers.
A lot of things we've beenexploring at Cambridge
is about adding value towhat we've already got.
(19:28):
The Cambridge Content is amazing.
We're all aware of theenormous history there,
almost the quality, theabsolute research-based items.
Now imagine these things being able
to present themselves on demand.
You've got a request,you've got a suggestion,
but if you're logged in with Cambridge,
then you can get the suggestionsfrom the Cambridge Content.
(19:51):
There's aspects there whichwe're still exploring,
but that's where a lot ofthe research we've done
with teachers has been, youknow, I know I can use ChatGPT,
but where's the Cambridge Content there?
How do I know I can trust it?
I used to say when I was teaching
that Wikipedia was the mosttrustworthy website ever
because no one trusts it,
(20:11):
which means you alwaysdouble check your sources.
Oh, you got that from Wikipedia, did you?
Well, you must make sure youcheck that twice further.
And it's interesting and innovative ways
of using current AI toolsthat we need to explore.
It's about always asking those questions,
how do I know it's right?
Where's the source material come from?
Who's paid for this?
(20:32):
Where's it really come from?
And those are not existentialquestions of 2024,
they're humanities questionsfrom 500 years ago.
So it's about bringingall of this together.
- All of that soundsreally exciting to me.
And also in terms of thinking about it
when I hear you talk about it
from being a former teacher myself,
(20:54):
but can I ask you whatkind of fears there are
around generative AI for education
and also how well-founded those fears are?
- Well, I think if we comeback to the skepticism as well,
like teachers, you know,we've already talked about 'em
not having a lot of time,this is just another thing
for them to get to grips with.
(21:14):
They've got to keep on top of, you know,
keep a step ahead of the students
and they're not reallyconvinced it's actually gonna be
all that great in the end.
And I was just thinking aboutthe kind of level of skills
that we expect from our teachers now
because they've got, whileAndrew was talking about
the things to do with generative AI
and the types of tools, I was thinking
we were expecting these people to have
really strong data visualization skills,
(21:37):
which, you know, they'renot leaving school without.
They're not getting thatfrom teacher training.
Why do we think that they'regonna walk into the classroom
amazingly brilliant atdata analysis and reporting
and tracking and being ableto give feedback to students?
Like that's where AI can help them.
And once they start to seewhere it can help them augment
what they're doing, do things even better,
do things quickly, thenthey start to shift
(22:00):
towards thinking, oh, actuallythis could be really useful.
And the skepticism,like now they're saying,
"All right, I know thatit's not gonna replace me.
Like it's, you know, it's useful
but I'm still the most important thing.
And if everything in the classroom,
the students come to me first.
They trust my judgment overa piece of generative AI.
They trust me more than ChatGPT,
(22:20):
therefore I still know my value.
So I think it's kind oflike skepticism, anxiety,
and then a kind of a quiet confidence
that they are still the human in the loop
and the most important personin the education system.
So yeah.
- And Cambridge has a real role there
in the international community
(22:41):
to reinforce the importance of teachers.
We did so in May 2023 when we published
the thoughts and ideas aboutthe impact of generative AI.
And actually even though our research
and obviously our findingsand discoveries continues,
it still is fundamentally focused on
supporting that teacher.
(23:01):
There are gonna be amazingthings with generative AI
and if you'd flown back 10 years ago
exploring differentopportunities with technology,
it was emerging then.
Technology types always promise
that it's gonna be a better tomorrow
with all these great opportunities.
Actually it's the teacherswho create that conditions
(23:23):
for that better tomorrow,
the teachers who theninspire their learners.
So I'm nervous to justsay that technology,
that AI is another toolbecause it's clearly not.
It is transformative in its potential,
but it's the teachers whoare gonna make that happen.
So we're not here about selling
technical products and services.
(23:45):
What we're selling here is highquality Cambridge education
with real impact for now and, well,
for the continuing years.
- I think that sounds really exciting
the way that you put it like that.
And it makes me come backto Rachel's wonderful phrase
of the human in the loop being the thing
that is the most valued all of the time.
(24:06):
And speaking of the human in the loop,
whether that be a student or a teacher,
can I ask you, what is the most innovative
or impressive use of AI thatyou have seen as an example?
- Can I respond with a different question
to start with though, slightlydifferently from that?
- Absolutely.
- It's in terms of AI experts.
(24:30):
We're not AI experts and wewere never pretending to be,
and I would be so bold as to say anyone
who says they're an AIexpert actually isn't
because it's such a fast-moving
and transformative time at the moment that
singling out items for,that's the best use of AI
(24:51):
is actually putting thetechnology before the learning.
So what we've perhaps gotta do with this,
the most impressive useof AI that we've seen
has hardly got anythingto do with AI at all.
It's where there's beenreally good structures,
really good setup, reallygood creative opportunities
that perhaps have been empowered by AI.
But actually when it comes down to it,
(25:13):
AI has been the enabler, the tool
and the opportunitythat's allowed a teacher
to do more amazing things.
For me, Rachel and I wereinvolved, there was a discussion
with two brilliant teachersfrom our Cambridge community
where they had differentlevels of confidence.
Actually they were both brilliant,
(25:34):
but one felt that they hadhardly any skills with AI
and kept talking about allof these cognitive load
and the skills and thediscussion opportunities
and all these things theywere doing in their classroom.
And we were thinking, this is brilliant.
They're doing all of these things,
but they weren't even able to step back
and realize that AI had enabledthem to do those things.
The other colleague was fullyaware of the impact of AI
(25:57):
and was doing brilliant suggestions
and ideas in a mathematical focus.
But again, it's about using AI
to get things done to open upthese further opportunities.
So I think the question isperhaps a challenging one for us
in that I don't think you should
or we should ever separatewhat's a great use of AI.
(26:20):
It's actually where'sthe educational impact
in what we're doing?
- And I would agree actually in terms of
thinking about teachingand learning in general.
Sometimes when we use thosesuperlatives like most and best,
we're actually missing out on considering
what might be effective, whatmight be good for one person,
what might be good for another person.
(26:40):
Is there anything you'dlike to add, Rachel?
- I just was thinking about research
and that kind of methodology
and that it's often we measure things
that are easy to measure.
And I think that AI, you know,
improving your report writing,
your emails is an easy tomeasure thing, isn't it?
(27:02):
And that's where we might end up saying,
"Oh, this was really good at this."
And not saying, "Oh,the impact then was that
I didn't feel as stressedwalking into this situation.
I was more confident.
I thought more about the language
that I used when I wasquestioning my students."
Like that's not as easy to measure,
but they're kind of, you know,
(27:22):
this tool saved me 15 minutes,
therefore it costs me, costbenefit to my business is this.
You know, let's kind of think about
just what you've kind ofsaying that the good ones,
you won't even know that it's there.
You won't even know it's got AI in it
'cause it'll just be sogood, it'll just work.
You know, let's just makeall of our stuff work,
like, number one.
(27:43):
- And with that, one ofthe best pieces of feedback
we got a number of years ago
was this brilliantteacher in Porto who said,
"If you could save me five minutes a day,
that's a golden amount oftime for me over a week,
over a month and so on."
And it's that view thatI'm really focusing on,
helping the existing materials
(28:04):
that we have and alsodeveloping new products
and services, which may be powered by AI.
But actually, and we've doneloads of research on this,
teachers don't really care aboutknowledge graphs or the LLM
or the RAG analysis.
They care about saving five minutes a day
because they've been ableto log in effectively,
find data they need, findthe support materials,
(28:25):
find the textbook items,find the resources they need,
and it's that which is theempowerment enriching item.
And no one ever phonesup IT support to say,
"Just wanna let you know it'sbeen a fabulous day today.
Thank you for your efforts."
That's where we're gonna seethe real transformative nature
of AI where it just hasenabled these things to happen.
(28:49):
- And like you say,that five minutes a day,
doing it in little ways here and there
and often and building up.
Now my last question is arguablyquite a controversial one
and a big question anddefinitely hard to measure.
So do you think that we are,
and I put in quote markshere, breeding a generation
(29:10):
of well-informed idiotsas one teacher put it,
and what do we mean by thisand what are the consequences?
- So we loved it when that teacher
put that rhetorical question to us,
because obviously that isn'tthe situation we want to be in.
And what we want to bebreeding is a generation
(29:31):
of students that are reallyconfident to articulate
what they want, to be ableto express themselves,
to be able to question things,
to use those higher ordercritical thinking skills,
you know, to back uptheir sources, to kind of,
and we talked alreadyabout owning a journey,
owning the fact that it's your own work.
So definitely Cambridge isdefinitely not doing that.
(29:53):
We're definitely makingsure that our students
are ready for the world andcan use the different tools
in the right way that kindof come across their path.
And then, you know, we're also,
our Cambridge students are the teachers
of the future as well.
So we want to make surethat they're well-informed,
well-grounded, articulate.
- And that challenge of thatquestion is a really good point
(30:16):
because if you look atit in a simplistic way,
you could say, well, now I canChatGPT anything on my phone
and appear like a complete genius.
But as we know, that isuseless without the ability
to talk about things further,the ability to analyze
your thinking that thecritical thinking skills
that we've been talking about,
(30:38):
it's about empowering ourlearners with all the items
that we've been repeatedly mentioning.
But the Cambridge approaches to teaching
and learning is about challenging things.
Why has someone said that?
What might their viewpoint be
and what might the considerations be?
And there's a danger, andthis is this fear about AI
(30:58):
that it's gonna take awayall of our creativity.
And what we need to do is actually use AI
to enable even more creativity,
helping organize datasets more effectively.
All of these potentiallyquite boring technology items
about information architecture.
But imagine you haveeverything available to you,
what do you then do?
(31:19):
What you actually do is you still do
your traditional teaching and learning,
but then you can inspire and explore
new ways of doing things.
Spoke a lot about VR andthings like that previously
where you pop on a headset and then
your learners in yourclass could be exploring
anywhere in the world.
But someone walking past that classroom
would just see a load of people
(31:40):
with looking like sortof funky headsets on
just moving their head around,and like, it's all about
how we actually use thistechnology for impact.
And it's actually the completeopposite of what was posed
by that questionnaire, generationof well-informed idiots.
It's actually a generation ofinspired, enthusiastic people
(32:02):
who are gonna do amazingthings in the next century.
And that's the area thatwe're really focusing on.
So no way is it a generationof well-informed idiots.
What we're talking abouthere is a generation
of learners who've been inspired
by the Cambridge LearnerAttributes and actually willing
to make a significantdifference to the world.
And we're talking the climate impact,
(32:24):
we're talking the impact they can have
in their local community,the global community,
and AI is a part of that,
but none of that happenswithout that well-rounded,
experienced, highlytrained Cambridge teacher.
- I think that's awonderfully reassuring answer
to the creatively posed questionthat we were given there
(32:46):
by that teacher who took part.
Thank you both.
This has been really insightful
and it's been wonderful tohear you both talk about
how we can empower teachers and students
to feel really good aboutgenerative AI in the classroom.
At the heart of everything you have said,
you have talked aboutthe value of the teachers
and the value of the students.
(33:07):
And if that means that they canbe helped with generative AI
and empowered by it, thenthat's a wonderful thing.
That's all we have time for today.
Thank you to Rachel and Andrew
for being such fantastic guests
and sharing some really useful insights.
Don't forget to tell yourfriends and colleagues about us
and rate our show on whateverplatform you're listening on.
(33:29):
Our show notes have lots of useful links
that we've discussedthroughout this episode,
so be sure to take a look at them.
You can also follow us on Xand Instagram @CambridgeInt.
We're going to leave you with some more
of those fantastic quotes fromteachers around the world.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you join us again soon.
(33:50):
- I used to be a littlereluctant about AI,
but we cannot fight against it
because you don't stop evolution.
As educators, we have tolearn how to deal with AI
and how we can use it wiselywhen teaching learners.
- Every big company, everyorganization now is using it
(34:10):
and so we can't really avoid it.
And what we're doing is justto support this generation.
In fact, we had aninsight on how to use AI
in our teaching and learning.
So it is something that weneed to accept, it is with us.
We just need to see how wecan support them and lead them
or guide them to use it correctly
(34:32):
in their teaching and learning.
- Teachers are also using AI to save time
on tasks by grading so thatwe can focus more on students.
Overall, AI is becoming ahelpful tool in our classrooms.
- Obviously AI is notgonna replace teachers,
(34:52):
but then the best thingas teachers, as educators,
is to just get thisgeneration to use it wisely.
- Using AI responsibly andwith the right frame of mind
to develop learning will enable us
to produce the best lessons.
Not to let AI take over,but to work alongside
the emotional intelligencethat we as a human brain
(35:15):
and as teachers have.
- GenAI is really new to me.
I only know a little bit about GenAI,
so I really need guidancefrom experts on using GenAI
for education, preferablyif they are science-related
and also education-related.
(35:36):
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