A large amount of engagement is reading and responding to body language. There are also no social ramifications of ignoring your laptop.
Don't get me wrong, I think AI has a role in the future classroom, but that should be lead by professional educators used to dealing with children.
There is also the social side to education that goes beyond course content. Teachers are not just there to dole out information, but to act as role models and part time parents.
I don’t think children are the initial target of this company, but I get what you are saying.
The type of person who’s going to sign up for a course from this company are probably already autodidacts to some degree.
If I were teaching sixth grade mathematics, I wouldn’t be too worried yet. If I were running one of the many mathematics academies that have popped up throughout a lot of more affluent ‘burbs, I’d be very worried.
Yes, it looks like this project is starting with helping highly motivated adult learners go deep into a hard to teach/learn material. Contrast this with the Khan Academy approach at https://www.khanmigo.ai/ targeting young students and their teachers and parents with broad assistance across subjects. Maybe they converge?
> A large amount of engagement is reading and responding to body language.
That's due to a limitation of the current medium, don't you think? When I started going to school, I had to improve my social awareness not because it's an inherently, objectively better way to learn, but because that's what was needed as a result of how the classroom is structured.
> But social awareness is part of adult life, and school is the place we prepare our children for adult life
The school doesn't prepare kids for this. By most measures it does a rather poor job. There's a reason they say "A" grade students work for "B" grade managers who work in companies started by "C" grade students.
Other commenters have said it, but the social behavior kids are exposed to in schools doesn't match much with the "real" world. The way problematic people are handled is quite different. As are the metrics of what constitutes success.
> A large amount of engagement is reading and responding to body language.
I don't follow this assertion – it's possible to be engaged by something that doesn't even have a body. For example: the things currently engaging them in this scenario – their phones (or whatever's on them).
Engagement being a two way thing between the teacher and student. In this case I was referring to the teacher reading and responding to the student's body language.
> There are also no social ramifications of ignoring your laptop.
you could absolutely have a digital social credit system the way you have game scores and leaderboards. once you get a competitive system like that going, it would sustain itself. top students could get to visit cool stuff like grown up labs and get involved in museums, etc. bottom ones could be celebrated with a virtual dunce hat on their avatars.
the problem is how mediocrity is now valued over hard work.
Don't get me wrong, I think AI has a role in the future classroom, but that should be lead by professional educators used to dealing with children.
There is also the social side to education that goes beyond course content. Teachers are not just there to dole out information, but to act as role models and part time parents.