The AI, they say, is the buzz word. For many, however, it is the cuss/curse word. Yes, you read it right. It is a cuss and/or curse word because it seems to take away any number of jobs. In fact, mention any field, and the AI seems to encroach it!
You may be an LLM or a CA. You have spent some six years to be so qualified. The AI, however, even when it is hardly three years old, already has very many tools that finish faster and better the jobs that need routine professional expertise! This, moreover, is true of most fields. Why, the AI can make music and/or literature, it seems!
In such a scenario, how about teaching and learning? Does the AI help it or hinder it? May be, it may help visualise and hence explicate better the theory/concepts. Let me give you an example. SR/simulated reality may teach you the subtle functions of the human brain, the delicate most organ that governs life itself, if you are specialising in brain studies, for example.
Sure SR/AI/4D can be tools that help facilitate learning and teaching. Can they, however, replace teachers? Well, I do NOT think so. Not at all. Let me give you examples to prove my point. Sure, the 3D/4D technology may mimic reality. It sure can be used to enliven information.
Such technologies can never, however, replace the teacher though. I should know, especially as a teacher of foreign languages. See, already there are any number of apps that can help you learn a language. A good teacher would ask her students to use them as supplementary material. But no app, forget the costly "(3/4/5)d" technologies, or even the AI can replace a teacher.
I should know. I had a student who was studying German with me. He was very sure, and some high-funda(!?!) colleagues had convinced him that the famous language app is much better than any book. This Ratnagiri boy admitted within a fortnight of actual language learning in the classroom that no bot, no app can teach like the teacher! He never ever bunked lectures thereafter.
Yet another of my Spanish students told me on the very first day that she has completed some six/seven levels of the app. Well, I asked her to answer the A1 level exam, the basic most, question paper. I forwarded the question paper to her, and told her that if she is comfortable answering it, we might accordingly decide. Within an hour, she called back to say that she, as I was soon to find out, a sincere and committed student, could not even manage one-tenth of the test. Why, she could not even understand most of it!
Yes, nothing can ever replace a genuine teacher who shares not merely information but a way of learning. One always meets students who remember one's lectures (either very early morning at 7.30 or the very last one) some fifteen years ago! Sure, as a concerned teacher, you, too, accomodate the new technologies as intelligent assistants. In brief, just as a smart compounder or even a good chemist cannot replace a doctor, no technology can replace a genuine teacher!
Pratima@ Teachers who love teaching help learners to love learning.
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