EDUCATE Director, Professor Rose Luckin, discusses AI and effects on learning and testing

Professor Rose Luckin discusses how AI can help redefine how pupils learn, and what intelligences they will need to succeed and thrive in the workplace of the future, in this article on the website of the World Economic Forum, the international organisation for public-private cooperation.

She explains how educators, and society in general, must radically redefine intelligence, and how AI can be used to help teachers develop and measure human intelligence in its various forms, so that students are better prepared for the workplace of the future – a workplace that will require them to be more adaptable and willing to learn throughout their lives.

Professor Luckin believes that we currently test what can be easily measured, but AI could be used to assess aptitude and ability in other important skills beyond intelligence, such as collaboration, persistence, confidence and motivation.

AI would also enable students to be assessed as they learn – rather than with one-time, end-of-course assessments – using technology and hand-held devices. This would provide teachers with a more accurate picture of students’ strengths and weaknesses, so that learning can be adapted readily to meet their needs.

Professor Luckin argues that AI is already a viable option to replace some tests, and that changing what we measure would alter what we value in our education systems.

“If we can accept that we need to change the assessment system,” she says, “then it opens the door to that radical rethink about what the education system is for.”