Yesterday, I was invited to be a panelist at Victoria Junior College’s Professional Learning Community (PLC) Fair, where teachers presented their projects that implemented educational technology for teaching and learning.
It was great to see how teachers were experimenting with different Gen AI tools in their projects, such as:
- A chatbot using Poe that helps students revise and clarify concepts outside class, using uploaded notes and exam materials.
- Teaching students prompting techniques to help craft a strong introductory passage for essays.
- Working with AI to give machine and human feedback when grading essays.
We then had a panel discussion and I shared some of my views:
- Learning deeply is hard, it requires time and practice. Gen AI removes a lot of friction from our work and that can lead to a decline in critical thinking, so we educators have to ensure that we ensure there is sufficient friction in teaching and assessment to drive true learning.
- What should students learn in this new world? What is the role of teachers when AI can assemble vast amounts of valid information in seconds? How do we help students navigate a society flooded with AI slop and misinformation?
More than ever, I believe we need to be role models in our subject matter expertise and our values.
Thank you to VJC principal Jeffrey Low and his staff for giving me the opportunity to join the PLC session! It was also good to meet fellow panelists Mr Tan Ching from Ministry of Education and Asst Professor Edwin Chng from National Institute of Education.