{"id":193468,"date":"2023-09-10T00:59:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T00:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tokenstalk.info\/?p=193468"},"modified":"2023-09-10T00:59:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T00:59:06","slug":"headteacher-at-girls-school-says-pupils-should-use-ai-to-do-homework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokenstalk.info\/world-news\/headteacher-at-girls-school-says-pupils-should-use-ai-to-do-homework\/","title":{"rendered":"Headteacher at girls' school says pupils should use AI to do homework"},"content":{"rendered":"
The newly-appointed headteacher of a prestigious public school has called for more children to learn how use artificial intelligence (AI) to do their homework.<\/p>\n
Vicky Bingham is soon to take the reins at North London Collegiate School (NLCS), an elite all-girls establishment which charges fees of almost \u00a38,000 per term for senior pupils.<\/p>\n
She said concerns about children cheating with AI on their homework have been ‘exaggerated’ and added that teachers should consider whether enough pupils are aware of how to use AI in the first place, The Sunday Telegraph reports.<\/p>\n
Ms Bingham said: ‘One of the things I’m thinking of is surveying pupils to ask them how many of them genuinely do use ChapGPT, because my hypothesis would be that they’re not using it.<\/p>\n
‘Some may be but others won’t be and actually therein lies the point, that we’ve got to teach them how to use it effectively.<\/p>\n
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Headteacher Vicky Bingham said concerns about children using AI for homework have been ‘exaggerated’ and added that teachers should consider whether enough pupils are aware of how to use AI in the first place<\/p>\n
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Ms Bingham is soon to take the reins at North London Collegiate School (NLCS), an elite all-girls establishment<\/p>\n
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‘So I think some of these fears about children just cheating using ChatGPT to do their homework, I’d say they’re exaggerated.’<\/p>\n
The education leader added that teachers should ask if enough pupils know how to use AI ‘intelligently’ to assist their learning.<\/p>\n
She explained her view that most adult jobs use an ‘iterative process’ to do things such as write essays and added that ChatGPT is ‘perfect’ for that.<\/p>\n
Ms Bingham also said it feels as though schools are stuck in an ‘old-fashioned’ assessment system.<\/p>\n
She shared her hopes that NLCS will create a research centre to explore new ways of assessing pupils, working alongside local state schools.<\/p>\n
Her plan would entail tech companies, businesses, universities and both state and independent schools collaborating on creating a new format of digital assessments.<\/p>\n
She said this would involve working with exam boards and other teaching bodies to embed technology in subjects where it has not already been done.<\/p>\n
Ms Bingham vowed to look for technology companies who would be interested in her scheme to find out how young people will use AI in their future lives.<\/p>\n
She pointed to a number of high-earning roles that use the technology, including ‘prompt engineers’ – who can collect \u00a3100,000 a year ‘asking ChatGPT the right questions’ which she dubbed to be ‘high-level thinking’.<\/p>\n
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Ms Bingham said most adult jobs use an ‘iterative process’ to do things such as write essays and added that ‘ChatGPT is perfect for that’<\/p>\n
Ms Bingham is not the first headteacher to espouse the benefits of AI for pupils, with another school head making headlines earlier this year after he suggested children should be taught to make AI robots their ‘servants.’<\/p>\n
Head of exclusive Cottesmore School in West Sussex,\u00a0Tom Rogerson,\u00a048, says he’s already on the look out for an artificial intelligence expert to implant it into the curriculum and help prepare the future generation for a world in which AI features heavily.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He told the Telegraph: ‘We need to prepare them for a life of using and living with AI and robots which have AI installed in them.<\/p>\n
‘They’ve got to learn for it to be their benevolent servant.’<\/p>\n
His comments echo those made by Prime Minister\u00a0Rishi Sunak\u00a0last week, who told journalists that he wanted to make Britain the global hub for ‘safe’ AI, saying\u00a0the ‘extraordinary possibilities’ of the tech could transform public services and the economy, with AI as a ‘co-pilot’ in every job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking this week, headteacher Rogerson said far from fearing the technology it should be used AI to spark creativity in students in lessons such as design and technology.<\/span><\/p>\n Older students should know how to write an essay without help, but might also use AI technology such as ChatGTP to help complete assignments, showing they can point the software is the right direction to create something worthwhile.<\/p>\n He added: ‘I think we need to embrace it, but we need to brace them for it, and get them to understand the moral and ethical implications of it, and get them to live alongside it.’\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tom Rogerson the head of Cottesmore School,\u00a0is on the look out for an artificial intelligence expert to implant it into the curriculum and prepare the future generation<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The headteacher children must be taught to make robots their ‘benevolent servants’ (a robot at the Viva technology exhibition this year)\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cottesmore School is a boarding preparatory school in West Sussex for boys and girls aged four to 13, founded in 1894<\/p>\n The new head of AI will be expected to show teachers how to reduce their\u00a0workload – for example, using it to write lesson plans.<\/p>\n He says he learned about\u00a0ChatGPT last year from his nephew and since then has been exploring Wonder, an app\u00a0that creates generative art AI.<\/p>\n The description on the App store says: ‘Turn words into mesmerizing digital artworks!\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘All you need to do is enter a prompt, pick an art style – and watch Wonder bring your idea to life in seconds!’\u00a0<\/p>\n Mr Rogerson will be hosting a\u00a0free AI ‘masterclass festival’ in September which will be open to all teachers – including those who teach at state schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Each term of full boarding at Cottesemore for UK pupils costs parents \u00a310,528, a cool \u00a332,000 a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another leading independent school also waded into the arguments in favour of AI, saying\u00a0they were looking to move away from homework essays due to the power of online artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n Staff at Alleyn’s School in southeast London\u00a0are rethinking their practises after a test English essay produced by OpenAI bot ChatGPT was awarded an A* grade.<\/p>\n Since the futuristic technology\u00a0<\/span>was released in November last year, fears have grown in schools that it will make cheating easier than doing the work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The revolutionary tech\u00a0can scan the web in real time to come up with eerily human-like text in response to any question – making it perfect for unsupervised homework.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alleyn’s School has said they will be moving away from setting pupils essays as homework due to new AI technologies\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot is so sophisticated it is able to comb the internet and process complex and specific tasks in seconds<\/p>\n ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence system that can generate eerily human-like text in response to a given prompt.<\/p>\n It was created and developed by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI.<\/p>\n One of the firms founders was billionaire Elon Musk, who resigned from the board in 2018 but remained a donor to the project.<\/p>\n The chatbot is a large language model that has been trained on a massive amount of text data. \u00a0<\/p>\n The version of the bot available for public testing, launched in November 2022, attempts to understand questions posed by users and respond with in-depth answers resembling human-written text in a conversational format.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Times reported that to counter this Alleyn’s School – which has annual fees of \u00a322,800 – will ask children to complete in-depth research in between lessons.<\/p>\n Speaking to the paper, Alleyn’s headteacher Jane Lunnon explained that their new focus on ‘flipped learning’ was an inevitable sign of the times due to the ‘seismic and game changing’ nature of AI.<\/p>\n She said: ‘I truly feel this is a paradigm-shifting moment. It’s incredibly usable and straightforward.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘However at the moment, children are often assessed using homework essays, based on what they’ve learnt in the lesson.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Clearly if we’re in a world where children can access plausible responses \u2026 then the notion of saying simply do this for homework will have to go.<\/p>\n ‘Homework will be good for practice but if you want reliable data on whether children are acquiring new skills and information, that will have to be done in lesson time, supervised.’<\/p>\n Lunnon continued to say that such was the sophistication of new AI technologies, children using them would not experience any failure meaning they would be less resilient.<\/p>\n Addressing her theories in a recent blog post, she warned: ‘School is where we learn what to do and how to do it. It’s also where we learn what not to do. What doesn’t work.<\/p>\n ‘How to get things wrong and how to deal with that. We all know how important it is to learn to fail.<\/p>\n ‘For us, ChatGPT will involve careful reflection about what we should be asking our pupils to do in school and in class and what they can do at home.’<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ChatGPT has been banned in many schools across the world since it was launched in November 2022<\/p>\n A spokesman for Alleyn’s School told MailOnline: ‘Alleyn\u2019s continuously explores and embraces new teaching and learning practices as part of our progressive educational ethos.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘And, while we were early adopters of the \u2018flipped learning\u2019 approach, homework and the opportunities it provides for deep independent learning and reflection, remains a core part of our holistic offer.’<\/p>\n It comes days after another AI scandal engulfed an Australian university.\u00a0<\/p>\n The student studying at University of New South Wales, confessed to using OpenAI’s ChatGPT\u00a0to write their essay after a\u00a0<\/span>lecturer suspected it was AI generated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Professor of Artificial Intelligence Toby Walsh at the University of NSW said\u00a0schools and universities are now frantically assessing how to stop students using the tech to cheat.<\/span><\/p>\n NSW, Queensland and Tasmania has already blocked access to ChatGPT on school internet networks to attempt to prevent students from cutting corners in assessments and exam essays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prof Walsh believes the only answer may be to revert back to handwritten essays.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘Banning access to websites is totally useless because kids are smart enough to work around it \u2013 they can use a VPN (virtual private network),’ he told The Australian,.<\/p>\n ‘You’ve got to put them in a room with no (internet) access, with a pen and paper and no technology.<\/p>\n ‘We can’t give students take-home lessons anymore.’<\/p>\n Earlier this year, it was reported that thousands of teachers are paying artificial intelligence computer software to write their end-of-year school reports for them.<\/p>\n More than 1,000 primary and secondary school teachers have already signed up to use Real Fast Reports, which creates a ‘totally personalised and unique’ report for each pupil at the touch of a button.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n More than 1,000 primary and secondary school teachers have already signed up to use Real Fast Reports (stock image)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The AI software allows teachers to write bullet points about each pupil, which are then used to make a polished school report\u00a0<\/p>\n It costs just \u00a310 a year to use the service, which was launched by two former teachers last year.<\/p>\n The company boasts its software saves teachers ‘countless hours writing thousands of reports’ by producing statements ‘in fluent prose, inserting the student’s name and gender pronouns automatically’.<\/p>\n All teachers have to do is put in a few bullet points of information about a student to create each report.<\/p>\n Furious MPs and parenting groups criticised the use of AI in producing school reports, which are one of the few opportunities families have to check how their child is doing in class.<\/p>\n It followed anger at a series of teaching strikes which forced classrooms to close and lessons to be missed.<\/p>\n ‘Parents are being short-changed and treated with contempt,’ said Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign For Real Education. ‘AI-generated reports are a lazy and deceitful cop-out which, along with strikes, brings the profession into further disrepute.’<\/p>\n Parenting campaign group Us For Them said: ‘Children are expected to deliver individually prepared homework without the help of AI. It shouldn’t be too much for parents to expect the same of schools.’<\/p>\n In years gone by report cards would be handwritten and give detailed descriptions of each pupil’s progress \u2013 and some of their shortcomings.<\/p>\n But in recent decades they have become increasingly formulaic, leading to suspicion that some teachers simply ‘cut and paste’ impersonal paragraphs from child to child. Some teachers have admitted using ChatGPT to write pupil reports. The software can turn two sentences into a polished 250-word report.<\/p>\n But Real Fast Reports, founded by Peter Gravell and Angela Newton, claims to produce reports with a ‘personal touch’.<\/p>\n A Mail on Sunday reporter signed up for a free trial with the company, and typed ‘enthusiastic, good reading results, helpful, spelling needs work’ into the software. The slick report it produced said: ‘Jane is an enthusiastic student in English. She achieved good results in her reading test, but her spelling needs improvement. Jane is a helpful student who is always willing to assist her classmates.’<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In years gone by report cards would be handwritten and give detailed descriptions of each pupil’s progress \u2013 and some of their shortcomings<\/p>\n In June, it was revealed that two thirds of secondary school pupils use artificial intelligence to do their homework and one in 10 teachers admit they have no way of knowing, a survey claims.<\/p>\n Around 67 per cent of youngsters surveyed admitted they used chatbots such as ChatGPT to write essays or do work for them.<\/p>\n Almost half, 42 per cent, otf the 1,000 secondary school students surveyed said they use AI all the time to solve maths problems, while 41 per cent use it to write English essays.<\/p>\n Whereas a quarter, 25 per cent, tapped into these chatbots to translate something into a foreign language, write a poem (24 per cent) and help with their physics work (20 per cent).<\/p>\n According to the data, 18 per cent admitted they have turned to AI to help come up with an essay topic for history, create a piece of art (18 per cent) and take a science test (18 per cent) for them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite this, four in ten (38 per cent) said they feel guilty about using AI<\/p>\n Surprisingly, two-thirds of the students polled, 68 per cent, said they are getting better grades and results by using AI.<\/p>\n Mel Parker, Educational Technologist at RM Technology and a former Headteacher, said: ‘This research shows the sheer prevalence of AI in the classroom already – but its impact is only starting to be felt.<\/p>\n ‘Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, have great potential if regulated properly in schools, and can be used to create a more inclusive educational environment for students.<\/p>\n ‘But the real impact will be on the time AI can save teachers.<\/p>\n ‘From assisting with marking to alleviating some of the burden of administrative work – AI can support teachers in saving hours each week, which can be reinvested into more face-to-face time with students.<\/p>\n ‘While it’s clear proper training and regulation are necessary, we as a sector must start to embrace the opportunities AI brings.’<\/p>\nWHAT IS CHATGPT?\u00a0<\/h3>\n