What would be the point of Education if computers replace teachers?

Turing’s work on developing early versions of computers led to the imitation game as a way of investigating whether computers can think? The imitation game (Turing test) involves a participant in one room, a human confederate (someone whose behavior is under the direction of the experimenter) in another room and a computer terminal containing a program that simulates intelligence also in another room. The task for the participant is to decide which is human. In 1951 Turing predicted that by 2000 the average person, naïve to the fact that an interaction partner was a computer program, would assume humanness 70% of the time. Undoubtedly these ideas inspired the foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Its subsequent evolution is brilliantly summarized on the BBC’s iWonder website http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zq376fr.  In July 2015 an article on research that uses an echoborg (a human who acts as the mouthpiece for an artificial intelligence system) for the Turing test was featured on the BBC Futures website http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150717-the-people-possessed-by-computers and for one week in September 2015  AI was a featured topic on the BBC reflecting a contemporary fascination with sharing our personal and working spaces with intelligent agents

However, the penetration of AI into Education (AIED) was not covered. AI techniques mean that artificial agents could replace teachers. An Intelligent tutor (IT), based on adaptive AI systems, means that learning contexts can be personalized for a student. The system (IT) uses a teacher-pupil model to adjust the learning task to an appropriate level and a task model to provide appropriate feedback to the student. Pedagogically sound opportunities to learn can be extended in both reach and frequency. A teacherbot has been used to answer student questions on a massive open online course (a MOOC). Teaching presence on MOOCs is sparse so that students who enroll on a MOOC need not incur a financial cost. Therefore, researchers are investigating ways in which the teacher can be assisted, or replaced by, a bot. https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ask-teacherbot-are-robots-the-answer/2020326.article. Other examples of AI contributions include the ECHOES project that targets atypical development issues by using virtual agents to engage with children on the autism spectrum in order to improve their communication skills. http://echoes2.org/?q=node/2.

Versions of the headline ‘Intelligent agents replace teachers’ are increasingly common. ‘What if’ this transpires? with teachers replaced by AI products (robots, bots, virtual agents). What questions does it raise for Education? For example, what would it mean for a socio-cultural pedagogy that AI products are linguistically challenged and on current appraisal likely to remain so? Furthermore, the interdependence of emotion and cognition when learning is increasingly recognised, with empathy a foundational element of successful interpersonal interaction.  There is evidence from Neuroscience that both language and empathy are uniquely human capacities with dedicated brain structures and neural pathways. For a socio-cultural perspective meanings arise through social interaction and enable us to pursue personal goals and to think beyond the actual. It is social interaction that enables creativity. Therefore, it is significant that a recent report from Nesta concluded that ‘creative occupations are more future-proof to technologies like machine learning and mobile robotics’ http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creativity-vs-robots.

That the ability to transform knowledge and create history through social interaction is a uniquely human ability can be supported by evidence from Neuroscience. However, according to Kevin Warwick http://www.kevinwarwick.com, by comparison with computers, our human ability to communicate information is slow, limited in reach, and error prone and our reliance on language may become ‘excess baggage’. Educational Neuroscience, a multidisciplinary area that assesses the potential of Neuroscience for informing Education, could usefully contribute to the debate.

Wearing cat’s ears; you may amuse but don’t be misled by simplistic accounts of Neuroscience

Unsurprisingly, an image of Nicola Sturgeon (First minister for Scotland) wearing a pair of tartan cat’s ears at the launch of a hi-tech digital school was broadcast through both print and social media http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3222275/What-thinking-Sturgeon-tries-bizarre-brain-scanner-enormous-TARTAN-ears.html.

When used as a form of entertainment (or publicity) there is no harm done. However, this device is marketed as a way of augmenting the human body when communicating mood http://www.necomimi.com/WatchTheVideo.aspx and it has been suggested that it could be used by teachers to assess attention in class in real time; that the ears will ‘prick up’ when the wearer is paying attention. According to the instructions one sensor should be placed above the eyebrow and the other clipped to the ear so that the forehead sensor can ‘read’ the electrical impulses generated by neurons firing in the brain. It is claimed that by using this data to control the motor that positions the cat’s ears they can reflect your mental state.

Do the scientific claims for this device hold up? In medical contexts the EEG has been used as an investigative procedure for over 60 years with technical innovations such as solid-state amplifiers and digital methods of analysis being incorporated as they became available. The collection of the EEG record, and its subsequent interpretation, requires expertise based on years of training. You would be unlikely to find a practitioner who would support the claims made for this device. There is a strong likelihood that the electrical impulses that drive the motor are myogenic (originate in muscle) rather than neurally based. When the biosensors are placed as recommended the one above the eyebrow will pick up both eyeblinks and activity in the frontalis muscle (the muscle that you use to raise your eyebrows) while in noisy environments the ear clip will be susceptible to activity in the post auricular muscle as described here http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/1/19?ijkey=ecce332eef28da3f167b1373941635f7b915e274&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha and movements of the wearer’s own ears that are under voluntary control.

A single channel electro encephalogram (EEG) is the technical description for this device. There are other manufacturers of such devices which are marketed with suggestions for their use that range from managing a brain-training program to meditation. By contrast a neurophysiologist would expect to have access to at least 21 channels of EEG recorded concurrently from at least 21 biosensors positioned to sample electrical activity over the whole skull area. The neurophysiologist’s skill lies in the interpretation of the patterns of activity across all biosensors. Although the presence and/or amplitude of the alpha frequency is a valid indicator of alertness it is optimally recorded with biosensors placed at the back of the skull. Feel for the midline boney projection at the back of your skull, 5 cms above that would be a good placement. Encouraging a class to use such a device to critically investigate the underlying Neuroscience would have value. Suggesting to teachers and students that such devices are a valid method for monitoring attention and mood is misleading.