Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common in educational settings: intelligent tutoring systems select tasks and give learner feedback, robo-grading automates the assessment of text-based tasks and essays, while learning analytics provide hitherto unknown insights into student behaviour. Teachers thus work alongside machines and make pedagogical decisions on the basis of algorithmic outputs.

This project explores the effects of these systems on questions surrounding accountability and responsibility. Who (or what) is responsible for the consequences when teachers work with machines? In the project, accountability is understood as a technnologically mediated and distributed process. Qualitative interviews with teachers and stakeholders from the private and public sector form the empirical foundation of the project.

It has become apparent that there are no clear-cut answers concerning accountability. Teachers believe developers have a duty to provide objective, reliable tools. However, the companies developing the tools argue that teachers should be responsible for using AI applications in a way that minimises educational and social risks. In education policy, questions arise with regard to new tasks teachers are expected take on as their work becomes increasingly digitised. Parents and school children continue to see teachers as being fully accountable for selecting school assignments and assessing academic achievement.

Humans and machines, working together

A general shift can now be made out: the teaching profession is facing new expectations, and teachers cannot transfer full responsibility for their actions to tool developers; AI applications do not replace real-life teachers, nor do they release teachers of their responsibilities. It is necessary for humans and machines to work together, and the prerequisite to a stable, sustainable form of this interaction is that teachers possess the requisite skills (such as data literacy) for understanding and integrating the basic workings and analyses of data-driven tools.

Project outcomes

The project findings have been incorporated into a guideline for the responsible use of AI and data at schools. The guideline is the result of work conducted by a European Commission expert group (expert group on artificial intelligence (AI) and data in education and training) in which Tobias Röhl participated. It raises awareness in teachers and other stakeholders from the field of education for the opportunities and risks of AI tools.

Publications

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