Director of IWM Discusses AI in Schools on ARD Morgenmagazin

What are the benefits and risks of using ChatGPT and similar technologies in schools? Where is it appropriate to use AI, and does it threaten to replace teachers altogether?

These were some of the questions addressed by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Cress, Director of the Leibniz Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM), in her interview with ARD presenter Sven Lorig in the ARD Morgenmagazin on Friday, 15 March 2024.
Cress highlighted the potential of AI to provide personalised learning experiences tailored to the needs of individual students, noting that "nothing is more boring than being under- or over-challenged in school." By tailoring instruction to each student's abilities, AI has the ability to combat boredom and increase engagement in the classroom.

Personalised learning experiences 
Cress has high hopes that AI will be able to identify each student's individual learning level and provide tailored tasks for each child. But she stresses that while AI has potential, it still needs to be developed to match the precision of existing tutoring systems: "Educational psychology and learning research have been working for a long time to create tutoring systems that are very complex to develop. AI is now approaching the point where it can achieve near-identical performance, but development efforts are still needed."

Will AI make teachers redundant?
In response to concerns that AI will replace teachers when it comes to assessing students, Cress has a clear answer: Teachers will remain essential in the classroom to adaptively support students' learning needs. "Of course, teaching is about more than just assessment," says Cress. It is an event that takes place in the classroom and involves conversation, reflection, thinking, effort - and therefore learning.
AI can support certain aspects as an intelligent tool, but it can never take over the entire teaching process. Cress also stressed the importance of further developing students' writing skills before integrating AI-assisted writing into the curriculum: "A basic level of skill is necessary. Children should practice writing until they reach 7^th or 8^th grade, by which time they are usually proficient. Only then does it make sense to work with AI in writing. This involves learning how to interact effectively with AI by asking it questions - in other words, prompting it."

Concepts are needed 
To ensure the meaningful integration of AI in education, Ulrike Cress emphasised the need for concrete pedagogical concepts and resources to support teachers in the effective use of technologies such as ChatGPT. This is in line with recent recommendations from the Permanent Scientific Commission of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK), of which Cress is a member, which emphasised the potential of large-scale language models in the educational system.

Watch the ARD report and interview with Prof. Cress here:

​Video: KI an der Schule - Morgenmagazin (German only)