From the Director of Pymble Institute
Being a lifelong learner in the generative AI sense
It is a pleasure to connect with you through the latest edition of the Pymble Institute’s newsletter. The PI team hope you enjoy the insights into our projects. From the start, I feel I should declare that this edition has not been written with the input of generative AI (so all quirks and errors remain my very own!) but I’m sure, like me, learning about generative AI is increasingly part of your world.
I’m not the most technological person but I have genuinely been enjoying the new concepts that large language models, emotional intelligence and generative AI are bringing to my keyboard.
I attended a fantastic Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Sydney Business School recently where Professor Simon Buckingham Shum, from the University of Technology Sydney, delivered an outstanding keynote provocation – a reframing of the Gen AI shock waves running through education. Simon’s historical, philosophical and interdisciplinary journey into generative artificial intelligence in education called for educators to inspire students to take strong steps in the critical usage of AI tools so we can move raw technologies into educational technologies. It would be with this approach, Simon noted, that humans would shape the kinds of world they want to be part of.
I’ve also been learning from Professor Matt Bower and Dr Jodie Torrington (Macquarie University) who are working with the AI Champions group at Pymble this year. Matt led conference participants at the Research Invested Schools Conference held last month to consider the questions we need to be asking of regarding AI in schools. Jodie spoke at the NSW Council of Deans of Education conference and explained how Macquarie University is supporting teachers through professional learning in AI. To assist schools and universities in researching these questions, Macquarie University is establishing the RAISE (Research on Artificial Intelligence in School Education) Network research project and Pymble is looking forward to being part of this initiative.
I was also delighted to be part of a Doctoral Writing Discussion group hosted by academics, Juliet Lum and Susan Mowbray, which went straight to the heart of the (academic) matter with Dr Bron Eager from the University of Tasmania presenting on the question: Should I use AI to write my PhD thesis?
From these learning opportunities, I have held onto takeaways which I am now enjoying mulling over, including that this is the very worst phase of AI usage that we’ll ever live through. From this point onwards, bots will develop rapidly and with a better blend of language accuracy and emotional intelligence input. I am especially excited about using AI to look from perspectives and contexts that have not been my lived experience, and as Simon encouraged, using bots to unpack assumptions behind a question. Encouraging creative usage of AI in classroom learning activities has been inspired by Jodie’s examples (see Macquarie University Teachers Academy for course options) you might like. I also love the thought of getting into the ethics of why you would not want AI to write your thesis, your project, your essay… although you might like to explore what it can do to assist.
Pymble has identified areas we want to research in AI in education, including the development and use of student-created AI bots and the influence of both student and teacher-led AI initiatives. Hoping to gain a place in the highly regarded GARC (Global Action Research Collaborative) program (an initiative of the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools), Pymble’s Digital Learning Leader, Jake Turnbull, is ready to look into AI in the girls’ school context, ‘by emphasising active participation and innovation among students and educators … to shift students and teachers from being passive learners to active collaborators in the design process, enhancing their agency and creativity’. Action research will be a great way to investigate these topics due to the embedded classroom context and face-moving pace of AI in education development. Learn more about Jake’s take on AI through his role as Digital Learning Leader in his article in the current edition of Illuminate: Research and Innovation.
There is so much learning happening in the education space at the moment and so much to share amongst the research communities in our own spheres. We hope you enjoy the articles in this newsletter and they give you ideas and points of connection.
