UK's first Teacherless classroom

Amity Island

Amity Island

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It was only a matter of time.....next it will be don't go to Uni, study from your seat at home, folllowing the trend of don't got to work, work from your seat at home; don't cook, order and eat from your seat at home; don't go shopping, shop from your seat at home; don't go to the cinema, watch from your seat at home; don't visit the doctor email them instead, don't go to hospital dial 111.

"There are many excellent teachers out there but we're all fallible," said John Dalton, the school's co-principal.
"I think it's very difficult to achieve [AI's] level of precision and accuracy, and also that continuous evaluation.


news.sky.com

UK's first 'teacherless' AI classroom set to open in London

A private school in London is opening the UK's first classroom taught by artificial intelligence instead of human teachers. They say the technology allows for precise, bespoke learning while critics argue AI teaching will lead to a "soulless, bleak future".
news.sky.com news.sky.com
 
Sounds a lot like the future of the human race depicted in the movie WALL-E.
 
Martin.A said:
Sounds a lot like the future of the human race depicted in the movie WALL-E.
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They are currently moving people into teacherless classrooms for what will eventually/soon become humanless jobs.

I guess now is the time to invest in a good quality seat as we'll be spending most of our days sat in one.
 
£27,000 a year eh? I wonder if that includes vat?
 
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Merluza said:
£27,000 a year eh?
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Like many firsts to market, quite expensive. Once the other Uni's/schools follow, price will fall. And of course, they'll offer it at a vast discount to those willing to study at home.

You can't learn human interaction on your own, you can't learn life and job skills from home.
 
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I'd summarise this trend of sitting at home as convenience. Who doesn't want an easy life you ask? But ultimately this will separate us (humankind) all. Moving from real life, real relationships and real experiences to just virtual experiences and virtual relationships, virtually real but not.
 
This isn't a Uni it's a private school. One of the big things about Uni is getting away from home and meeting people.

They are probably thinking of moving it online but I wouldn't expect bargain basement prices but it no doubt is the way 'forward'. Bring your own human interaction.
 
Amity Island said:
It was only a matter of time.....next it will be don't go to Uni, study from your seat at home, folllowing the trend of don't got to work, work from your seat at home; don't cook, order and eat from your seat at home; don't go shopping, shop from your seat at home; don't go to the cinema, watch from your seat at home; don't visit the doctor email them instead, don't go to hospital dial 111.
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You can picture evolution glancing sideways at us and thinking 'hang on, I can use this'

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I went to some exhibition with my dad back in the 1960s and they had a 'teaching machine' with a maths course on it - suitable for 11 and 12 year olds I think - I'd already done the work so I shot through the tape and had a group of people standing around watching me beat the machine.
It was quite well done, with additional material if something was not clear - I have often wondered why it was never put to use with all the advances in electronic devices there have been since then.
 
Drummer said:
It was quite well done, with additional material if something was not clear - I have often wondered why it was never put to use with all the advances in electronic devices there have been since then.
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That's part of the idea behind Khan Academy, of course. Videos and other automated things can replace parts of what teachers do (there's not that much value in a live person simply giving lectures, and different pupils might want to view the material faster or slower), and the in-person time can be used to explore problems in understanding the material and applying it to things that interest the pupils.
 
Bruce Stephens said:
there's not that much value in a live person simply giving lectures
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I'm sure many leturers would disagree, not to mention loss of income and jobs. You could say the same about many jobs, with AI or computers doing the work. As I said, we'll all be sat at home in chairs, eating, working etc

With the overcrowded schools, 20% vat introduced on prvate schools (forcing many back into overcrowded state schools), of course, this AI learning will be offered as the "perfect" solution, because "there's not that much value" in a live teacher.
 
Amity Island said:
I'm sure many leturers would disagree, not to mention loss of income and jobs.
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I mean (as the people behind Khan Academy argue) that their time and skill can be much more valuable interacting with students after the students have watched the videos and tried some problems.

On the other hand one could make a similar argument about films and theatre, and I'd be happy to defend live theatre as not being nearly the same as films.
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I mean (as the people behind Khan Academy argue) that their time and skill can be much more valuable interacting with students after the students have watched the videos and tried some problems.

On the other hand one could make a similar argument about films and theatre, and I'd be happy to defend live theatre as not being nearly the same as films.
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Funny how arguments change to suit the agenda of the day. They have been trying to discourage people from home schooling/education because of the lack of social interaction with other kids. Now AI and internet learning is the flavour of the day, they'll find any argument in favour of remote (or at the moment teacherless) study.
 
Amity Island said:
Now AI and internet learning is the flavour of the day, they'll find any argument in favour of remote (or at the moment teacherless) study.
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It's one private school, so I'm not sure that qualifies as "flavour of the day". I'm sure that whoever's selling the systems will present it as the right way forwards.

There are potential benefits (it's a cheap way to offer individualised learning, where different students are offered extra learning on whatever's causing them difficulty), but treating it as just about cost saving surely won't produce the best result because humans are surely still the best at this. Better would be to keep employing the same number of teachers for the same time, but using this kind of automation would allow them to use their time with much smaller groups of students, making that contact much more valuable and more interesting for the teachers.
 
At least AI won't be able to chuck blackboard rubber at you or give you a smack across back of head when not paying attention.
 
Hmm...a teacherless classroom?...it was only a matter of time before this happened huh?...whatever next..
 
They already have those on the Docklands Light Railway in London.
 
And Gatwick Airport. They don't go very far though and only backwards and forwards between fixed points.
 
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