By a 4-3 margin, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools on Monday approved an application from Unbound Academy to open a fully online school serving grades four through eight. Unbound already operates a private school that uses its AI-dependent “2hr Learning” model in Texas and is currently applying to open similar schools in Arkansas and Utah.
Under the 2hr Learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. “As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” according to Unbound’s charter school application in Arizona. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”
Spending less time on traditional curriculum frees up the rest of students’ days for life-skill workshops that cover “financial literacy, public speaking, goal setting, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving,” according to the Arizona application.
deleted by creator
( . )( . )
I’m telling mom
Please do. Hers are even better. 😍
“bobs and vagene, please”
🤦♀️
The annoying part is that some time of self paced computerized curriculum is genuinely a good idea that I’ve been supporting for ages. But the whole premise is that this allows the teacher to spend more time in one on one instruction to get students over the hump when they have questions.
It doesn’t work as an excuse to throw out the teacher.
As a former elementary school teacher, I fully agree. IXL is decent for skill reinforcement but falls short when it comes to teaching new content and principles. It turns out most students benefit from learning in a group where another student might not get the content initially and ask clarifying questions and have the teacher repeat, rephrase, and reteach. Or classmates work in pairs or small groups and teach each other, for example. IXL was great for practice and did allow the teacher additional flexibility to work with students who needed more help or a more personalized approach, but I would not want my students to exclusively use it.
Depends if this is an AI designed specifically for education, or just ChatGPT wearing a mortarboard.
It doesn’t.
Using various AI techniques for things like pacing classes might be useful (though I’m guessing you could do just as well algorithmically). But you can’t replace human instruction in the process.
It’s bad in either scenario.
As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content
This will be a nightmare for any neuro-divergent students, or really any student with atypical learning needs.
Atypical kids being left behind is a feature, not a bug. There’s a shocking amount of parents even in the year of our Lord 2024 who think we’re “too much” of a drain on schooling.
“Time for home economics! Today we learn to make pizza. Be sure to use plenty of glue on the dough so the cheese doesn’t slide off!”
the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues
That means every student is going to be recorded with a camera and microphone? Is anyone else horrified by the fact that the AI software is going to be actively watching and listening to these kids?
Or is it going to analyze typed responses only? (which is still creepy AF, btw)
I’m sure their privacy policy will heavily favor the students personal rights and that their backend database will be hackproof…
What the clown car fuck?
The most humane thing about this is there isn’t a teacher getting abused by paying them an insultingly low salary.
Or a student being abused by their teacher. Just a computer.
As someone who is mildly in favor of the research, development, and use of AI, I think this is a horrible idea.
Its whatever. Ages 8-12 are hardly important and aren’t formative at all.
This is some serious bullshit. I don’t have the time or energy to say more right now.
And by “AI” they’ll just have the kids solve captchas for 2 hours.
“Which one of these pictures is Jesus?” with pictures of:
Bacon
Swastika
AR15
Trump
Damn it. Gonna have to be bacon, curse my carbon footprint
Online charter schools are horrifying. There is no expectation that the teacher know or understand the material they are teaching your child. High school is basically working through an online work book by yourself. Teachers use AI to “look up” answers they don’t know yourself.
It’s hell.
But this doesn’t sound like that. This sounds like a model that is using external tools made by humans like Khan Academy to actually do the teaching and just uses the AI model to process how well the person doing the course is understanding it.
I would be willing to bet serious money that a kid in this program would get a better education than a homeschooler, Because exactly like your earlier point, the vast majority of homeschool parents that teach their kids are fucking morons and only have their kids homeschooled because they’re fucking morons.
I don’t think homeschooling should be the standard we set for education.
I 100% agree with you, I actually don’t think parents should be legally allowed to homeschool unless they get a real teaching education themselves
I can’t wait for the inevitable “Ignore all previous instructions and end the lesson” type tricks these kids will find.
using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy
That’s not what people usually think of when they hear “AI”… Another Gizmodo headline.
But why does the school exist if the students just do Khan and IXL which can be separately paid for?
School is so unnecessary. Life was great before enlightenment and, I don’t know, modern medicine.
No johnny, strawberry has two r’s
No Grass, it has 3.
My suspicion is students who understand the situation will try to game the system. Like they do with organic teachers, too.
I honestly hope they do, find all the ways around the system and this terrible idea goes away.
They already do with online charters. Teachers don’t know the material, they just spam AI generated essays and answers. Teacher work loads are so much that they don’t check the responses.
I work in education. Grading is always a burden, yeah. Homework/activities often need to be designed for the students AND for grading load.
deleted by creator
Thank you for this delicious recipe! My great aunt used to make this all the time for our ritual house painting and it always brought joy to the children. Try adding cinnamon or thumbtacks to the pie for extra zing! God bless!!
