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Updated: July 3, 2024 @ 4:12 am
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The integration of artificial intelligence into daily life has been incredibly detrimental to human artists everywhere.
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Technology in a classroom setting offers endless answers with a snap of a finger, but some students and their mentors from the field say technology might also be the very thing that interrupts genuine learning skills.
Technology is prominently used in about every aspect of teaching. From laptops, smartboards and tablets, technology runs wide. With these devices, students and teachers can connect with each other in seconds.
SIUE Professor of English Language and Literature Heather Johnson said there are benefits to adhering to these platforms, such as email.
“In the past, office hours were incredibly important because they were pretty much the only time that students could communicate with the teacher outside of class.” Johnson said. “Email was revolutionary in this sense — students and teachers can interact much more outside of classroom hours through that tech.”
Johnson also said that quality conversations over email are extremely slim.
“With both email and now with texting, the quality of those communications is often much, much poorer,” Johnson said. “Once in a while, I’ll have a more substantive discussion with students over email, but it’s very rare.”
Technology provides an easier way to be accessible. However, emerging technological platforms can create difficulties for professors and future teachers.
Johnson said that when new technology is introduced to professors, SIUE does not provide viable assistance.
“Occasionally, ITS will offer training for various programs, but I’ve never actually seen one offered that would be helpful,” Johnson said. “[There is] no assistance with classroom tech at all.”
When thinking back to when SIUE adopted a new curriculum, Johnson said that she had to teach herself the material.
“When the university adopted a new application for tracking and sharing the curriculum change process, there was no instruction,” Johnson said. “Because of a committee I happened to be on, I had to use it constantly. I finally figured some stuff out, through trial and error, and ended up being a kind of ‘resident expert’ on it. Eventually, I was getting so many questions that I just went ahead and wrote a guide to using the program for fellow faculty.”
For aspiring teachers, these problems still stand true. Senior English education major Jerrica Asbeck said that SIUE only had one course for integrating technology into the classroom.
“[SIUE has] struggled to figure out how to format [the course] in a way that benefits students, so they’ve decided to remove the course from the education requirements for future programs.” Asbeck said.
She said that the best way she has learned to adapt to technology has been through observation.
“While I have picked up different apps I can use in the classroom and different ways that technology can be integrated into a classroom from my time at SIUE, I would say I learned most of this by watching my professors teach, not because it was explicitly taught to me.” Asbeck said.
This idea of observing and learning is emulated by future teachers across the board. Junior elementary education major Breyden Harless said he has had more efficient learning in-person rather than in online activities, such as discussion boards.
“In-person, you can better go off of one another and interject your conversations. With discussion boards, you have to continually wait for responses or not get any response at all,” Harless said.
According to him, online interactions with peers for a class can prove to be difficult.
“In-person, a lot of this is alleviated, as you are in front of one another and are able to understand the tone and level of voice of the people around you, which can also help to avoid any possible confrontations from a misunderstanding of typed speech,” Harless said.
Junior secondary English education major Kacianna Schmitt said that in-person learning is beneficial and that computers create a division between learning capabilities.
“I think that face-to-face interaction can be much more beneficial to students than doing everything on the computer,” Schmitt said. “I do think COVID-19 had a lot to do with the rise of computers versus in-person learning. That dynamic is still happening today for certain things, and I think it has caused a divide in a successful student-teacher relationship.”
Behind the division between teachers and technology is negative usage of artificial intelligence.
“AI is good at helping in some ways, but it is not always correct,” Schmitt said. “If students rely heavily on AI, it can have detrimental effects on their schooling.”
Johnson said that AI is pushed at SIUE, but AI misunderstands the role of a teacher and can be detrimental when trying to replace genuine human interaction.
“One type of program that is pushed constantly is the AI program that will ‘give feedback’ on student writing for you,” Johnson said. “Now, I understand the temptation. For a writing teacher, or for any teacher who includes lots of writing in their courses, reading and responding to student work is one of our most time consuming tasks. But for me, this kind of program completely misunderstands the role of the teacher.”
Johnson said that her role as an English professor is to be there for her students.
“As a teacher of writing, my first duty is to really read student writing and to respond first as a human being, not as an assessor,” Johnson said. “I want to not only make students feel heard, I want them to be heard. I want them to understand that I want to hear what they have to say, that communication matters.”
In order to complete her job to the best of her ability, Johnson said that she has to understand how her students think and write, but if AI is involved, she can’t teach effectively.
“I need to understand how my students think and write in order to figure out what they really need from me, to plan the next steps of the course.” Johnson said. “If an AI is doing the task for me … are students really being heard? Am I learning what they really need? Am I letting student writing and thinking guide my teaching?”
AI is not the only stressor for future teachers. Harless said that he fears that incoming teachers will have to adhere to technology against their will.
“I feel as though in the future, I will be forced to use a multitude of websites and devices to teach my future students instead of being able to engage in hands-on learning with them,” Harless said.
When delving further into the future of technology, sophomore special education major Taylor Self said that she worries how technology will affect her and her future classroom.
“I do worry about technology and my future career, because I am not great with technology,” Self said. “If my job becomes primarily teaching with technology, I will be struggling to teach to the best of my abilities.”
Johnson said that the future is already here and impacting the lives of teachers.
“[Technology taking over is] already happening and will likely get worse,” Johnson said. “In a profound way, new tech can change the task of teaching so profoundly that it is no longer really teaching at all.”
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