February 5, 2024 • 24 mins
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
AI Integration at Bedford College Group: Ian Pryce talks about Bedford College's journey in integrating AI into their system, highlighting the use of the Century computerised system to enhance online study. The conversation delves into the impact of this AI tool in supporting both staff and students, and how it has helped to advance personalised learning and improve teacher efficiency.
Embracing AI for Future-Proofing Education: The dialogue sheds light on how the Bedford College Group is preparing students for future challenges through AI. It discusses the role of AI in shaping new educational paradigms and the importance of equipping students with relevant digital skills.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations: Pryce, Foster-Fletcher, and Hintz discuss the ethical implications and practical challenges of integrating AI in education. They touch on the importance of balancing technology with traditional teaching methods and ensuring equitable access to digital resources.
The episode concludes with a focus on the importance of leadership in driving technological change in education. It highlights the need for continuous innovation and adaptability in the face of rapidly evolving AI technologies, ensuring that further education remains relevant and effective in preparing students for the future.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
With:
- Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
- Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
- Ian Pryce CBE, Former CEO of Bedford College Group
AI Integration at Bedford College Group: Ian Pryce talks about Bedford College's journey in integrating AI into their system, highlighting the use of the Century computerised system to enhance online study. The conversation delves into the impact of this AI tool in supporting both staff and students, and how it has helped to advance personalised learning and improve teacher efficiency.
Embracing AI for Future-Proofing Education: The dialogue sheds light on how the Bedford College Group is preparing students for future challenges through AI. It discusses the role of AI in shaping new educational paradigms and the importance of equipping students with relevant digital skills.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations: Pryce, Foster-Fletcher, and Hintz discuss the ethical implications and practical challenges of integrating AI in education. They touch on the importance of balancing technology with traditional teaching methods and ensuring equitable access to digital resources.
The episode concludes with a focus on the importance of leadership in driving technological change in education. It highlights the need for continuous innovation and adaptability in the face of rapidly evolving AI technologies, ensuring that further education remains relevant and effective in preparing students for the future.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm very happy to be back inthe podcasting seat again. Friday afternoons is
when we record these sessions and it'sepisode eleven, So Kurt, welcome back
in the co pilot seat. Firstof all, thank you very much,
Richard, and welcome here. That'sright mister Ian Price, who has recently
departed from Bedford College but tells mehe's busier than ever. So you know,
(00:21):
I'm going to ask you for alittle bit of an introduction with yourself
in a moment. But I've gotsome good news to announce. First,
this series has been picked up byFI News and they want to feature it
every Monday on the website. Quiteprominently is one of their key podcasts.
Having listened to a few episodes,Gavin over there's really keen to support the
podcast, so they're going to dothat, and in return we should say,
(00:41):
hey, check out finews dot codot uk because they do some great
stuff and they're a great partner,and go and check out all the new
information, updates, articles and soon that they produce, and well done
them and thank you for their supportof our podcast. Now, Ian,
what's happening? What's going on withyou? To bring us up to speed.
Yeah, I'm now the artist formerlyknown as the chief executive of Bedford
(01:04):
College Group. I'd been there fortwenty eight years, twenty six as chief
executive or principal and chief executives.It's time for a new leader, have
ye and it's now in charge ofthe group. Fantastic job, best job
I've ever had. I've seen lotsof changes. Pretty much my period of
office spans the whole time of incorporation, and I'm hoping to put something back
(01:25):
to the sector. I'm still involvedwith the chance of institution a further education,
and I'm doing some mentoring for theFE commissioner for senior leaders who want
to do this what I always thinkis the best job in your patch.
I'll still be involved a bit.That's great timing because I think I went
to college in nineteen ninety nine,so we started our college careers around.
(01:46):
You carried on a bit longer thanme. You're very welcome. Now.
People talk about this scale of AIfrom what's called the doomers, people saying
we should avoid it, we shouldswitch it off, we shouldn't use it.
To the boomers, everything's going onAI in the future. Where would
you put yourself. Personally, I'mexcited. I think I always have a
very positive view. I think wherewe are now it's a very exciting time.
(02:10):
I do think it's worth having aconversation that's not about technologists. Actually,
I think there is an ethical question. I went to a really good
lecture about the ethics of AI byone of the professors at Oxford, and
there was a big question about ifyou leave it to the technologists, the
danger is it will be what canyou do with it? As opposed to
what should you do with AI?Which I think is a bigger question,
(02:31):
particularly in the educational sphere. ButI can see applications right the way through
our activity, procurement, doing allsorts of things. It's very difficult for
us to do without technology. Wetend to focus on the negative. It's
just human nature, isn't it aboutcheating or assessments and things like that.
But I think in general most ofthe applications I've seen have been very positive.
(02:53):
Actually, so I'd say I'm definitelyat the upper end in sort of
seven or eight out of ten OKAadvocacy, but some pregnancies and built in
I recently heard that just because wecould doesn't mean we should, but I
followed it up as a moderator andevents saying yes, but we probably will,
knowing what we know about a humankind. Just frame this for us then,
(03:14):
So you were in there for twentysix odd years, When as a
leader did you actually start embracing AIin the college group? Probably about five
or six years ago. There,we wanted to think about how we would
use it in particular educational settings,mainly for teaching our other than assessment.
And I think there were a coupleof insights that we found. I don't
know if other people share these,but we found that actually young people in
(03:35):
particular are very comfortable using technology,especially more than teachers. Actually, when
they are not very good at something, I think there's a sort of shame
that I don't like exposing how littleI know. So the key thing we
wanted to maintain was that sense thatyou're part of a group of students studying
to get to the same endpoint.It was very difficult for teaching staff to
(03:59):
do that because we throw these peopletogether with huge variations in knowledge and skills
and then expect them to get tothe same endpoint at the same time.
And that's a very difficult thing todo within a group, either slows people
down or whatever, and we foundtechnology could help people do that. You
could personalize it within the same groupif you like, and actually that meant
(04:20):
we could reduce the teaching slightly,allow people to use the technology and we've
pretty much got the same results.We didn't get any better results, but
that was really the start of theprocess. How should we use it and
how would we measure the benefits ofthe technologies and start to get good results.
As we started to learn more abouthow it could be used in the
(04:41):
fieriest ways, what we found wasactually we could reduce the face to face
contact with teachers and still get thesame results. What we saw was that
actually we could improve that, ifyou like, the overall number of hours
people spent learning without getting too heavyhanded on things like attendance and other things,
but heading a bit of a platterbecause of effectively and motivators. Yeah,
(05:02):
motivations and teams like to say,okay, and I know a lot
of these tools in the past andthat until now really focused on the individual
and individualized learning, and there it'seffectively giving tools and abilities for someone to
go and effectively learn at their ownpace and in their own time, in
an individualized plan usually and seeing alot of those tools over time, we
(05:24):
see quite a significant drop off andtheir actual motivation going through those with those
sort of products and some of theproducts in the developments you're seeing now you've
seeing that change at all, becausethat's still a big question, isn't it.
Yeah, I understand that we've seenthat with things like distance learning.
I think that's very common. Isn'tit that you get very low engagement after
a period of time? And soI think that's why it's important to still
(05:45):
maintain that sense that you're part ofa group of students learning with a common
goal. But is that sort ofeducational sat and now it allows you to
do that, doesn't it. Yousee, you've all got different start points,
but we're trying to get to thesame destination, so we've got different
routes to go to and I thinkpeople understand that, and therefore, as
long as they can see the progress, I think that's key to everything.
Isn't it that instant feedback students get? And also because if I think the
(06:06):
other thing we found is the moreyou tell people about themselves, the more
interest that they are I think ifwe find in that actually we're using some
technology at the minute to track people'sresilience, and that's very good because if
they just score themselves and so we'regetting all the data, so we can
learn a lot from the aggregate data. But people are sticking with that because
(06:28):
it tells them about them individually.You're saying you're more resilient now or less
anxious than you were three months ago, and points them to individual lives,
materials and things like that. Andit is a really significant issue, isn't
it about the resilience of individual students? And they're coming through really loud and
clear. So it's really interesting tosee the development of some of these tools
to equively support the areas that arereally problement for Yeah, well, I
(06:50):
know. One of the questions isoften posed about technology is won't the better
off exploit it more than the moredisadvantage learners. I think we're acutely aware
of that about if your rate oflearning is slightly better than somebody else's over
time, that accumulates slight cumulative interest, isn't it, And so you could
race away from other people. Soagain it's how do we keep people in
(07:13):
that sort of lockstep, so evenif they're behind that they catch up or
at least don't get further behind.And we know in education we're getting people
at sixteen and those differences are biggerand bigger as people go through schooling.
So I think in FI we havea particular challenge there. I'm just taking
a slightly different direction there as faras the sort of transformation of bids for
(07:33):
college dur over time, and that'ssort of cultural identity hits and maintaining it
in a world which is quickly becomingone where we're using very similar systems and
tools and the potential for becoming allvery alike. Yeah, there's a couple
of things on that I think,because I suppose I've always started about the
(07:55):
success of our college group is aboutyou have to be distinctive. What's distinctive
about our group? And we haveparticular things that we particularly hang on.
So one of the big things forus is a mantra that says the community
drives the curriculum drives the people drivesthe money, never the reverse. And
I suppose one of the concerns I'vesometimes got is does technology depersonalize the dangers
(08:15):
if the technology makes us all liketofu, but it doesn't take on the
flavor of the institution, then Idon't think that's helpful. Whereas if it
can literally absorb the flavors of theindividual flavors of the institutions, then it
can be really powerful and really helpus. But if you lose that,
I think the danger is people won'tknow what the college stands for, so
(08:37):
it's still down. Do you thinkfrom this, I think it can dumb
it down if people don't personalize it. I think that's the danger that you
won't get innovation because it doesn't startwith what's the problem I'm trying to crack
in Bedfordshire or Northamptonshire or London orwhatever. I don't know if dumb it
down is quite right, but it'llmake everything look the same, feel the
same, and whether you'll get progressedfrom that, I'm not sure. I
(09:01):
met with a recruiter yesterday. Hesaid, my goodness, the cvs are
all coming and looking the same.To your point, they're spelling organization with
a Z. They're all finishing within summary. Yeah, it doesn't take
a genius to work out where thesehave come from. Yeah, and you
would hope artificial intelligence would be clevererthan that. There's the whole sort of
(09:22):
point, isn't it, between augmentationand substitution, which effectively was sort of
talking about everything being fully substituted.And we're all looking the same and same
thing with the job market, picularlyare we substituting jobs fully or are we
all minting? Right? So,yeah, because how do you stand apart?
Then if you're just using this genericformat and as we're working with some
of your teaching staff at the moment, and it's very interesting, and we're
(09:43):
looking at chat gpt ian and obviouslythe whole room puts the hand up said
they're using it. Then the wholeroom puts the hand up to slay they
don't actually understand how it works,which is fine, that's most people,
right, But then we get intowhat you're talking about, which is to
what extent is this output representing you? What about your college? What about
your region of the world? Andif you're just going to chat gupt and
(10:05):
saying crimu lesson plan, does itknow where you are? Are you in
Maine? Are you in Manila?Are you in Manchester? How's it?
No? And then okay, youguide it on the level of the students,
of course, but you need toget more and more specific. So
we've been working on that context notonly in terms of who were in the
class, tell me about the people, but we're getting them to input these
mega prompt add ons like a stylesheet onto every prompt that says this is
(10:28):
how I teach, this is what'simportant to me, So that becomes much
more personalized. The downside, ofcourse, is that now the same hold
up that's a lot of my personalinformation going into chat GPT, and chat
GPT clearly says unless you'll run theteam's edition, we're going to look at
your data and we're going to useyour data. That's true, I take
(10:48):
you down just a slightly different pathand relation to that in the preparation for
the workplace that they're going into,which is probably advancing fast in what job
it is in this use of technologiesof navigating that piece of ensuring that we're
appearing them not only with the toolsand things that we're using to help support
(11:09):
their development, but making sure they'reappeared for the workplace that they're going to
be going into, perhaps in thisyear or three years or five years time.
Yeah, that's a really good question, Kurt. I mean I always
start with things like the vast majorityof our students, actually even full time
students work already. People say theyneed to do work experience, so well,
they get it every week and they'vebeen chosen to do that, and
(11:31):
generally people say they're good employees.So I think it's better to look at
things like the technologies, making surepeople are comfortable with technology generally they understand
the limitations of it as well,and they understand what they're giving away.
Because I think that even about howwe construct the college, how do we
design the college, the learning environments, everything else, I think something looking
(11:52):
at that and looking for patterns andcould really help with careers advice and in
all sorts of ways. But itdoes mean people signing up to giving away
lots of their data and information andbeing monitored a lot more as well.
I'm really interested and a piece aboutcross transferable skills, which actually I think
we barely scratch the surf of surfaceof ever in the fact that we have
(12:16):
now a set of occupational standards andAmerica's got a full set of sort of
skills, knowledge and behaviors that relatesto every single profession and a lot more
detail. But has that map acrossto actual people's skills and it's a very
sort of basic integrated system really,and how might that map across to many
different occupations? Like you say ina way that from a career's advice perspective,
(12:37):
actually your course may map to twentyor thirty different areas of which you'd
never even considered, and that actuallyyou track across really nicely against and that
the assessment and capability of assessment asthat develops. Maybe just the sort of
point assessment you talk about, whichmight be a small section of the overall
curriculum of which is being assessed,perhaps continuous assessment gives a much deeper knowledge
(13:01):
and understanding of your skills. Yeah, and at the time, and that
can be met so much more proficientlyagainst the career opportunities. We're very bad,
aren't we? A pigeonholing in educationgenerally, but further education. We
have this big thing about levels andsubjects. And the one thing I've the
one thing I've definitely learned over twentyeight years and didn't know at the start
actually was the students are much clevererthan we think, just to give to
(13:22):
an example, we know from ourown data that your employability is completely dependent
on the level at which you leaveus. So we know that if you
leave us have to level one sixtypercent, employment level two eighty five,
level three, ninety, level fourand above ninety eight, and that doesn't
matter on the subject. Your earningpower might vary, but your employability is
(13:43):
pretty much tied to your level,which is why we try and raise this
curriculum center of gravity. The otherthing is sixty percent of our students,
and pretty much almost in every subjectarea, when they get jobs, don't
get jobs in the area they studied, and they don't see that as an
issue because they don't see themselves ashairdressers. In fact, when I first
started, I met somebody studying traveland tourism and I asked, of naively,
(14:05):
which you hoping to get a jobwith easy Jet or Britannia or whatever
at Luton. And she took meto one side and said, if I
was doing French and history a level, would you assume I was going to
be a French historian? Of courseyou wouldn't. Why are you making the
assumption that I'm going to work inthe travel industry, that sort of basic
assumption, which I know a lotof people who don't know much about FE
and I was in that category atthe time, mate, So I can
(14:26):
understand why people think that. Butour students are actually much more they're much
more naus I think than that.And you're right, that's because they could
They know that they have much moreskills and abilities that could apply to a
wide range of a future careers.So we need to build on that rather
than assume otherwise moving into the sortof skinning into the future. And I
(14:48):
suppose what I was really keen forreal lifetime, really seeing level in further
education and looking back over that journeyand time that it's been, how much
of a seat aig is on itsway? Or do you think is the
curve really turning upwards in the levelof change that you expecting to see and
for the education or is this justanother small stick in the My take is
(15:11):
that I think we're in a betterplace than we've been before. I think
there's definitely a recognition that further educationand the work we do is really important
to the future of our country,and I think that's generally recognized. I
still think people want to Pigeonhole.We're still second division, We're not Champions
League, and I think but Ithink that will change over time. The
(15:33):
importance of us. I think thedifficulty is that's coincided with what we know
is going to be a really difficultperiod financially for the country and for institutions,
and so my take on it isactually that's one of the reason I'm
positive about technology, because if wecan't get more funding, and technology is
the obvious way to try and addressthat issue. So I think we are
(15:58):
in a good place. I thinkthere's still a huge amount for the sector
to do to make sure policy makersunderstand are important and we need to show
that. I think a lot ofpublic services will go down the route of
a smaller cadre of ultra professional educationalistsand finance staff and others, and a
(16:21):
much greater use of technology for doinga lot of the lower level activities.
I think eventually it will start doingsome of the higher level activities, but
I think people will be using thetechnologies to help them make quicker decisions in
terms of design and other things.That would be where I think it will
go. In terms of the Ithink that's quite a good thing for the
profession. Actually, I think it'llmove us into a much more highly respected
(16:44):
territory. Let's just play out thatthought experiment for a second. That it
does, as we anticipate change theworkload for teachers. Let's say it takes
a lot of that admin burden.It makes them more productive, So our
expectations therefore change of that profession theymight do. But I think, seriously,
what are the benefits of having todo those administrative tasks or those administrative
(17:08):
activities? And how fast can weactually type into a screen compared to how
quickly we can think? We're actuallyslowed down and a lot of these activities
just by our capability and capacity,and we have fingers and we have to
type into a screen, and howmany letters a minute can we actually type.
That's one of the main restrictors,isn't it. So it takes away
(17:29):
a lot of those some of thoseburdens actually off the mechanics of and therefore
we can focus on the things thatare much more important in the delivery of
the teaching learning to the individual andtheir development and their progress, because that's
actually what teachers then to do.They can concentrate on the relationships and make
sure that they're strong. So Ithink that being able to remove a lot
of those burdens from staff that areadministrative in lots of ways and the mechanics
(17:52):
around the back actually do make fora far more or a far better experience
of individual learners. And that's whatyou're focused on. So from our teacher's
point of view, it's going tobe hopefully a really interesting role. Where
at the moment, there are fartoo many teachers who say, you know,
I'm leaving the profession because of someof these things, the marketing load,
(18:15):
the Edmond load, that a hugenumber of hours they hips need to
do outside of the classroom. Thereare many people who effectively leave the profession
for that reason, and that shouldbe the case. I think there will
be, and I think people expecta lot from colleges they and rightly so.
And I think there's an acceptance thatpeople want a more successful life,
(18:36):
they want to get on and theytrust us to get them to where they
want to be. And I thinktherefore we have to consider in a world
that changes very fast, you thereforeneed as a teacher to be really concerned
about the individual, not just aboutthe subject, and I think that's where
we'll get the professionalism I think so. I think that's the way it will
go. I think it's a goodthing for teaching. I think if technology
(19:00):
gets better, that's generally a goodthing for professionals in my experience, because
they tend to be able to leveragethat technology better than other people. Really
can lead us now into just thatsort of fundamental question about major disruptor potentially
in the education market that potentially couldcome along the uber of education for the
(19:21):
world effectively in every language, inevery setting, in a way that seems
to be fantastic. Maybe Game offive may be advisualized in a way that
absolutely suits the individual based on theirhistory in Google and everything else that they've
given away over their life. Thatmakes an absolutely what could be a fantastic
experience. And we can already seethat in some of the professions, so
(19:41):
counseling, if you like, thosepeople who get counseling services. Now there
are international online services, so thestill face to face online like we are
here to anywhere in the world.And actually there's some really big disruptors coming
in at half the price in themarket and effectively gaining a really significan market
share of that off what was traditionallyface to face, in person counseling by
(20:04):
people in the sitting and place quitelocal to where they lived, completely disrupted
their market and changed it completely.What's your thoughts on potential major disruptors in
education or is it just too differentand the sitting that we may not see
it. I think it could.It could be very disruptive. In particular
(20:25):
instance, I think when I lookat adult education over the last twenty years,
one of the things that's very strikingis the number of people doing an
adult education course has gone right down. But I don't know a single person
that's not been on YouTube to learnhow to I don't know, fix something,
or learn to ride a bike betteror that type of thing. So
I think that notion that everybody's learningand just using the technology to help them
(20:51):
do there is work. So Ithink there could be a lot of disruption
in areas where people want a skillvery quickly. So I think where it's
particular skill and it's very personal,I want this for me now, I
think it's harder to do because Idon't think there's any doubt that the educational
technology could mean you could do whatwe do a lot cheaper in theory,
(21:15):
but I think it comes back tothat human nature that learning is still quite
a social activity. A lot oflearning is still quite a social activity.
It requires a lot of motivation,and the social part makes that motivation that
much easier. So I think it'llchip away at certain things. But I
think that basic idea that I needto get on in life and I need
to spend the next few years achievingX, Y and Z will work.
(21:38):
And I think we also benefit fromthe age thing. I think I suppose
I find it interesting that some subjectsrequire mastery, don't they before you move
to the next level, Things likemaths and languages. You can't just not
master something and then move to thenext stage. And that's a real difficult
area for colleges and educators generally.So I think the technolgy would help us
(22:00):
get there. But people still wantto stay in lockstep with their age groups.
I think generally when they're younger,you don't want to still be at
school at twenty five alongside seventeen oreighteen yeards because you haven't mastered a particular
subject. So I still think you'vegot what it is to be human and
part of a community will work inour favor. But definitely the sort of
(22:21):
skills training I can see that therecould be some major disruptors. I'm glad
I'm leaning into you because I've feltthe same that the human nature is what
it is, and I think actuallythat one of the things that the pandemic
gave us was a real understanding ofthe humanist need of individuals and what it
(22:41):
means to be human and what weneed around us is much more than just
a screen. So I'm definitely withyou, but I'm it's going to be
a really interesting time. You hadtwo and a half decades of seeing all
sorts of technologies, I'm sure,and technologists tell you this was the next
big thing and this was the gamechanger you. How real is that about
(23:02):
AI? I think it's the Ibit of the AI and the intelligence bit
that I think is the game changerfor me, because if we can use
technology that learns and can spot patterns, that's where it's got the potential to
be transformative. And also, Ithink the other thing often with technology is
up to that up to now,we've had to adapt to the technology.
(23:22):
And what I see with AI,which I think is very different is it
seems to be much more adaptive itself, and therefore it does rely on us
saying what we want and then ittries to do it. And I think,
now that might be a bit optimistic, but I think if it can
do that, then it will definitelybe transformative for me. Thank you for
being on the show, thank youfor I'm it, and I know you're
(23:49):
carrying on with various things. It'sbeen wonderful to speak to you. Thank
you, and thanks for the opportunity, and thank you, K thank you,
and then good luck. Yeah.Thanks
I'm very happy to be back inthe podcasting seat again. Friday afternoons is
when we record these sessions and it'sepisode eleven, So Kurt, welcome back
in the co pilot seat. Firstof all, thank you very much,
Richard, and welcome here. That'sright mister Ian Price, who has recently
departed from Bedford College but tells mehe's busier than ever. So you know,
(00:21):
I'm going to ask you for alittle bit of an introduction with yourself
in a moment. But I've gotsome good news to announce. First,
this series has been picked up byFI News and they want to feature it
every Monday on the website. Quiteprominently is one of their key podcasts.
Having listened to a few episodes,Gavin over there's really keen to support the
podcast, so they're going to dothat, and in return we should say,
(00:41):
hey, check out finews dot codot uk because they do some great
stuff and they're a great partner,and go and check out all the new
information, updates, articles and soon that they produce, and well done
them and thank you for their supportof our podcast. Now, Ian,
what's happening? What's going on withyou? To bring us up to speed.
Yeah, I'm now the artist formerlyknown as the chief executive of Bedford
(01:04):
College Group. I'd been there fortwenty eight years, twenty six as chief
executive or principal and chief executives.It's time for a new leader, have
ye and it's now in charge ofthe group. Fantastic job, best job
I've ever had. I've seen lotsof changes. Pretty much my period of
office spans the whole time of incorporation, and I'm hoping to put something back
(01:25):
to the sector. I'm still involvedwith the chance of institution a further education,
and I'm doing some mentoring for theFE commissioner for senior leaders who want
to do this what I always thinkis the best job in your patch.
I'll still be involved a bit.That's great timing because I think I went
to college in nineteen ninety nine,so we started our college careers around.
(01:46):
You carried on a bit longer thanme. You're very welcome. Now.
People talk about this scale of AIfrom what's called the doomers, people saying
we should avoid it, we shouldswitch it off, we shouldn't use it.
To the boomers, everything's going onAI in the future. Where would
you put yourself. Personally, I'mexcited. I think I always have a
very positive view. I think wherewe are now it's a very exciting time.
(02:10):
I do think it's worth having aconversation that's not about technologists. Actually,
I think there is an ethical question. I went to a really good
lecture about the ethics of AI byone of the professors at Oxford, and
there was a big question about ifyou leave it to the technologists, the
danger is it will be what canyou do with it? As opposed to
what should you do with AI?Which I think is a bigger question,
(02:31):
particularly in the educational sphere. ButI can see applications right the way through
our activity, procurement, doing allsorts of things. It's very difficult for
us to do without technology. Wetend to focus on the negative. It's
just human nature, isn't it aboutcheating or assessments and things like that.
But I think in general most ofthe applications I've seen have been very positive.
(02:53):
Actually, so I'd say I'm definitelyat the upper end in sort of
seven or eight out of ten OKAadvocacy, but some pregnancies and built in
I recently heard that just because wecould doesn't mean we should, but I
followed it up as a moderator andevents saying yes, but we probably will,
knowing what we know about a humankind. Just frame this for us then,
(03:14):
So you were in there for twentysix odd years, When as a
leader did you actually start embracing AIin the college group? Probably about five
or six years ago. There,we wanted to think about how we would
use it in particular educational settings,mainly for teaching our other than assessment.
And I think there were a coupleof insights that we found. I don't
know if other people share these,but we found that actually young people in
(03:35):
particular are very comfortable using technology,especially more than teachers. Actually, when
they are not very good at something, I think there's a sort of shame
that I don't like exposing how littleI know. So the key thing we
wanted to maintain was that sense thatyou're part of a group of students studying
to get to the same endpoint.It was very difficult for teaching staff to
(03:59):
do that because we throw these peopletogether with huge variations in knowledge and skills
and then expect them to get tothe same endpoint at the same time.
And that's a very difficult thing todo within a group, either slows people
down or whatever, and we foundtechnology could help people do that. You
could personalize it within the same groupif you like, and actually that meant
(04:20):
we could reduce the teaching slightly,allow people to use the technology and we've
pretty much got the same results.We didn't get any better results, but
that was really the start of theprocess. How should we use it and
how would we measure the benefits ofthe technologies and start to get good results.
As we started to learn more abouthow it could be used in the
(04:41):
fieriest ways, what we found wasactually we could reduce the face to face
contact with teachers and still get thesame results. What we saw was that
actually we could improve that, ifyou like, the overall number of hours
people spent learning without getting too heavyhanded on things like attendance and other things,
but heading a bit of a platterbecause of effectively and motivators. Yeah,
(05:02):
motivations and teams like to say,okay, and I know a lot
of these tools in the past andthat until now really focused on the individual
and individualized learning, and there it'seffectively giving tools and abilities for someone to
go and effectively learn at their ownpace and in their own time, in
an individualized plan usually and seeing alot of those tools over time, we
(05:24):
see quite a significant drop off andtheir actual motivation going through those with those
sort of products and some of theproducts in the developments you're seeing now you've
seeing that change at all, becausethat's still a big question, isn't it.
Yeah, I understand that we've seenthat with things like distance learning.
I think that's very common. Isn'tit that you get very low engagement after
a period of time? And soI think that's why it's important to still
(05:45):
maintain that sense that you're part ofa group of students learning with a common
goal. But is that sort ofeducational sat and now it allows you to
do that, doesn't it. Yousee, you've all got different start points,
but we're trying to get to thesame destination, so we've got different
routes to go to and I thinkpeople understand that, and therefore, as
long as they can see the progress, I think that's key to everything.
Isn't it that instant feedback students get? And also because if I think the
(06:06):
other thing we found is the moreyou tell people about themselves, the more
interest that they are I think ifwe find in that actually we're using some
technology at the minute to track people'sresilience, and that's very good because if
they just score themselves and so we'regetting all the data, so we can
learn a lot from the aggregate data. But people are sticking with that because
(06:28):
it tells them about them individually.You're saying you're more resilient now or less
anxious than you were three months ago, and points them to individual lives,
materials and things like that. Andit is a really significant issue, isn't
it about the resilience of individual students? And they're coming through really loud and
clear. So it's really interesting tosee the development of some of these tools
to equively support the areas that arereally problement for Yeah, well, I
(06:50):
know. One of the questions isoften posed about technology is won't the better
off exploit it more than the moredisadvantage learners. I think we're acutely aware
of that about if your rate oflearning is slightly better than somebody else's over
time, that accumulates slight cumulative interest, isn't it, And so you could
race away from other people. Soagain it's how do we keep people in
(07:13):
that sort of lockstep, so evenif they're behind that they catch up or
at least don't get further behind.And we know in education we're getting people
at sixteen and those differences are biggerand bigger as people go through schooling.
So I think in FI we havea particular challenge there. I'm just taking
a slightly different direction there as faras the sort of transformation of bids for
(07:33):
college dur over time, and that'ssort of cultural identity hits and maintaining it
in a world which is quickly becomingone where we're using very similar systems and
tools and the potential for becoming allvery alike. Yeah, there's a couple
of things on that I think,because I suppose I've always started about the
(07:55):
success of our college group is aboutyou have to be distinctive. What's distinctive
about our group? And we haveparticular things that we particularly hang on.
So one of the big things forus is a mantra that says the community
drives the curriculum drives the people drivesthe money, never the reverse. And
I suppose one of the concerns I'vesometimes got is does technology depersonalize the dangers
(08:15):
if the technology makes us all liketofu, but it doesn't take on the
flavor of the institution, then Idon't think that's helpful. Whereas if it
can literally absorb the flavors of theindividual flavors of the institutions, then it
can be really powerful and really helpus. But if you lose that,
I think the danger is people won'tknow what the college stands for, so
(08:37):
it's still down. Do you thinkfrom this, I think it can dumb
it down if people don't personalize it. I think that's the danger that you
won't get innovation because it doesn't startwith what's the problem I'm trying to crack
in Bedfordshire or Northamptonshire or London orwhatever. I don't know if dumb it
down is quite right, but it'llmake everything look the same, feel the
same, and whether you'll get progressedfrom that, I'm not sure. I
(09:01):
met with a recruiter yesterday. Hesaid, my goodness, the cvs are
all coming and looking the same.To your point, they're spelling organization with
a Z. They're all finishing within summary. Yeah, it doesn't take
a genius to work out where thesehave come from. Yeah, and you
would hope artificial intelligence would be clevererthan that. There's the whole sort of
(09:22):
point, isn't it, between augmentationand substitution, which effectively was sort of
talking about everything being fully substituted.And we're all looking the same and same
thing with the job market, picularlyare we substituting jobs fully or are we
all minting? Right? So,yeah, because how do you stand apart?
Then if you're just using this genericformat and as we're working with some
of your teaching staff at the moment, and it's very interesting, and we're
(09:43):
looking at chat gpt ian and obviouslythe whole room puts the hand up said
they're using it. Then the wholeroom puts the hand up to slay they
don't actually understand how it works,which is fine, that's most people,
right, But then we get intowhat you're talking about, which is to
what extent is this output representing you? What about your college? What about
your region of the world? Andif you're just going to chat gupt and
(10:05):
saying crimu lesson plan, does itknow where you are? Are you in
Maine? Are you in Manila?Are you in Manchester? How's it?
No? And then okay, youguide it on the level of the students,
of course, but you need toget more and more specific. So
we've been working on that context notonly in terms of who were in the
class, tell me about the people, but we're getting them to input these
mega prompt add ons like a stylesheet onto every prompt that says this is
(10:28):
how I teach, this is what'simportant to me, So that becomes much
more personalized. The downside, ofcourse, is that now the same hold
up that's a lot of my personalinformation going into chat GPT, and chat
GPT clearly says unless you'll run theteam's edition, we're going to look at
your data and we're going to useyour data. That's true, I take
(10:48):
you down just a slightly different pathand relation to that in the preparation for
the workplace that they're going into,which is probably advancing fast in what job
it is in this use of technologiesof navigating that piece of ensuring that we're
appearing them not only with the toolsand things that we're using to help support
(11:09):
their development, but making sure they'reappeared for the workplace that they're going to
be going into, perhaps in thisyear or three years or five years time.
Yeah, that's a really good question, Kurt. I mean I always
start with things like the vast majorityof our students, actually even full time
students work already. People say theyneed to do work experience, so well,
they get it every week and they'vebeen chosen to do that, and
(11:31):
generally people say they're good employees.So I think it's better to look at
things like the technologies, making surepeople are comfortable with technology generally they understand
the limitations of it as well,and they understand what they're giving away.
Because I think that even about howwe construct the college, how do we
design the college, the learning environments, everything else, I think something looking
(11:52):
at that and looking for patterns andcould really help with careers advice and in
all sorts of ways. But itdoes mean people signing up to giving away
lots of their data and information andbeing monitored a lot more as well.
I'm really interested and a piece aboutcross transferable skills, which actually I think
we barely scratch the surf of surfaceof ever in the fact that we have
(12:16):
now a set of occupational standards andAmerica's got a full set of sort of
skills, knowledge and behaviors that relatesto every single profession and a lot more
detail. But has that map acrossto actual people's skills and it's a very
sort of basic integrated system really,and how might that map across to many
different occupations? Like you say ina way that from a career's advice perspective,
(12:37):
actually your course may map to twentyor thirty different areas of which you'd
never even considered, and that actuallyyou track across really nicely against and that
the assessment and capability of assessment asthat develops. Maybe just the sort of
point assessment you talk about, whichmight be a small section of the overall
curriculum of which is being assessed,perhaps continuous assessment gives a much deeper knowledge
(13:01):
and understanding of your skills. Yeah, and at the time, and that
can be met so much more proficientlyagainst the career opportunities. We're very bad,
aren't we? A pigeonholing in educationgenerally, but further education. We
have this big thing about levels andsubjects. And the one thing I've the
one thing I've definitely learned over twentyeight years and didn't know at the start
actually was the students are much clevererthan we think, just to give to
(13:22):
an example, we know from ourown data that your employability is completely dependent
on the level at which you leaveus. So we know that if you
leave us have to level one sixtypercent, employment level two eighty five,
level three, ninety, level fourand above ninety eight, and that doesn't
matter on the subject. Your earningpower might vary, but your employability is
(13:43):
pretty much tied to your level,which is why we try and raise this
curriculum center of gravity. The otherthing is sixty percent of our students,
and pretty much almost in every subjectarea, when they get jobs, don't
get jobs in the area they studied, and they don't see that as an
issue because they don't see themselves ashairdressers. In fact, when I first
started, I met somebody studying traveland tourism and I asked, of naively,
(14:05):
which you hoping to get a jobwith easy Jet or Britannia or whatever
at Luton. And she took meto one side and said, if I
was doing French and history a level, would you assume I was going to
be a French historian? Of courseyou wouldn't. Why are you making the
assumption that I'm going to work inthe travel industry, that sort of basic
assumption, which I know a lotof people who don't know much about FE
and I was in that category atthe time, mate, So I can
(14:26):
understand why people think that. Butour students are actually much more they're much
more naus I think than that.And you're right, that's because they could
They know that they have much moreskills and abilities that could apply to a
wide range of a future careers.So we need to build on that rather
than assume otherwise moving into the sortof skinning into the future. And I
(14:48):
suppose what I was really keen forreal lifetime, really seeing level in further
education and looking back over that journeyand time that it's been, how much
of a seat aig is on itsway? Or do you think is the
curve really turning upwards in the levelof change that you expecting to see and
for the education or is this justanother small stick in the My take is
(15:11):
that I think we're in a betterplace than we've been before. I think
there's definitely a recognition that further educationand the work we do is really important
to the future of our country,and I think that's generally recognized. I
still think people want to Pigeonhole.We're still second division, We're not Champions
League, and I think but Ithink that will change over time. The
(15:33):
importance of us. I think thedifficulty is that's coincided with what we know
is going to be a really difficultperiod financially for the country and for institutions,
and so my take on it isactually that's one of the reason I'm
positive about technology, because if wecan't get more funding, and technology is
the obvious way to try and addressthat issue. So I think we are
(15:58):
in a good place. I thinkthere's still a huge amount for the sector
to do to make sure policy makersunderstand are important and we need to show
that. I think a lot ofpublic services will go down the route of
a smaller cadre of ultra professional educationalistsand finance staff and others, and a
(16:21):
much greater use of technology for doinga lot of the lower level activities.
I think eventually it will start doingsome of the higher level activities, but
I think people will be using thetechnologies to help them make quicker decisions in
terms of design and other things.That would be where I think it will
go. In terms of the Ithink that's quite a good thing for the
profession. Actually, I think it'llmove us into a much more highly respected
(16:44):
territory. Let's just play out thatthought experiment for a second. That it
does, as we anticipate change theworkload for teachers. Let's say it takes
a lot of that admin burden.It makes them more productive, So our
expectations therefore change of that profession theymight do. But I think, seriously,
what are the benefits of having todo those administrative tasks or those administrative
(17:08):
activities? And how fast can weactually type into a screen compared to how
quickly we can think? We're actuallyslowed down and a lot of these activities
just by our capability and capacity,and we have fingers and we have to
type into a screen, and howmany letters a minute can we actually type.
That's one of the main restrictors,isn't it. So it takes away
(17:29):
a lot of those some of thoseburdens actually off the mechanics of and therefore
we can focus on the things thatare much more important in the delivery of
the teaching learning to the individual andtheir development and their progress, because that's
actually what teachers then to do.They can concentrate on the relationships and make
sure that they're strong. So Ithink that being able to remove a lot
of those burdens from staff that areadministrative in lots of ways and the mechanics
(17:52):
around the back actually do make fora far more or a far better experience
of individual learners. And that's whatyou're focused on. So from our teacher's
point of view, it's going tobe hopefully a really interesting role. Where
at the moment, there are fartoo many teachers who say, you know,
I'm leaving the profession because of someof these things, the marketing load,
(18:15):
the Edmond load, that a hugenumber of hours they hips need to
do outside of the classroom. Thereare many people who effectively leave the profession
for that reason, and that shouldbe the case. I think there will
be, and I think people expecta lot from colleges they and rightly so.
And I think there's an acceptance thatpeople want a more successful life,
(18:36):
they want to get on and theytrust us to get them to where they
want to be. And I thinktherefore we have to consider in a world
that changes very fast, you thereforeneed as a teacher to be really concerned
about the individual, not just aboutthe subject, and I think that's where
we'll get the professionalism I think so. I think that's the way it will
go. I think it's a goodthing for teaching. I think if technology
(19:00):
gets better, that's generally a goodthing for professionals in my experience, because
they tend to be able to leveragethat technology better than other people. Really
can lead us now into just thatsort of fundamental question about major disruptor potentially
in the education market that potentially couldcome along the uber of education for the
(19:21):
world effectively in every language, inevery setting, in a way that seems
to be fantastic. Maybe Game offive may be advisualized in a way that
absolutely suits the individual based on theirhistory in Google and everything else that they've
given away over their life. Thatmakes an absolutely what could be a fantastic
experience. And we can already seethat in some of the professions, so
(19:41):
counseling, if you like, thosepeople who get counseling services. Now there
are international online services, so thestill face to face online like we are
here to anywhere in the world.And actually there's some really big disruptors coming
in at half the price in themarket and effectively gaining a really significan market
share of that off what was traditionallyface to face, in person counseling by
(20:04):
people in the sitting and place quitelocal to where they lived, completely disrupted
their market and changed it completely.What's your thoughts on potential major disruptors in
education or is it just too differentand the sitting that we may not see
it. I think it could.It could be very disruptive. In particular
(20:25):
instance, I think when I lookat adult education over the last twenty years,
one of the things that's very strikingis the number of people doing an
adult education course has gone right down. But I don't know a single person
that's not been on YouTube to learnhow to I don't know, fix something,
or learn to ride a bike betteror that type of thing. So
I think that notion that everybody's learningand just using the technology to help them
(20:51):
do there is work. So Ithink there could be a lot of disruption
in areas where people want a skillvery quickly. So I think where it's
particular skill and it's very personal,I want this for me now, I
think it's harder to do because Idon't think there's any doubt that the educational
technology could mean you could do whatwe do a lot cheaper in theory,
(21:15):
but I think it comes back tothat human nature that learning is still quite
a social activity. A lot oflearning is still quite a social activity.
It requires a lot of motivation,and the social part makes that motivation that
much easier. So I think it'llchip away at certain things. But I
think that basic idea that I needto get on in life and I need
to spend the next few years achievingX, Y and Z will work.
(21:38):
And I think we also benefit fromthe age thing. I think I suppose
I find it interesting that some subjectsrequire mastery, don't they before you move
to the next level, Things likemaths and languages. You can't just not
master something and then move to thenext stage. And that's a real difficult
area for colleges and educators generally.So I think the technolgy would help us
(22:00):
get there. But people still wantto stay in lockstep with their age groups.
I think generally when they're younger,you don't want to still be at
school at twenty five alongside seventeen oreighteen yeards because you haven't mastered a particular
subject. So I still think you'vegot what it is to be human and
part of a community will work inour favor. But definitely the sort of
(22:21):
skills training I can see that therecould be some major disruptors. I'm glad
I'm leaning into you because I've feltthe same that the human nature is what
it is, and I think actuallythat one of the things that the pandemic
gave us was a real understanding ofthe humanist need of individuals and what it
(22:41):
means to be human and what weneed around us is much more than just
a screen. So I'm definitely withyou, but I'm it's going to be
a really interesting time. You hadtwo and a half decades of seeing all
sorts of technologies, I'm sure,and technologists tell you this was the next
big thing and this was the gamechanger you. How real is that about
(23:02):
AI? I think it's the Ibit of the AI and the intelligence bit
that I think is the game changerfor me, because if we can use
technology that learns and can spot patterns, that's where it's got the potential to
be transformative. And also, Ithink the other thing often with technology is
up to that up to now,we've had to adapt to the technology.
(23:22):
And what I see with AI,which I think is very different is it
seems to be much more adaptive itself, and therefore it does rely on us
saying what we want and then ittries to do it. And I think,
now that might be a bit optimistic, but I think if it can
do that, then it will definitelybe transformative for me. Thank you for
being on the show, thank youfor I'm it, and I know you're
(23:49):
carrying on with various things. It'sbeen wonderful to speak to you. Thank
you, and thanks for the opportunity, and thank you, K thank you,
and then good luck. Yeah.Thanks
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