I am 40 years old, writing from Brazil, and I have a university degree, but no postgraduate studies.
Since 2022, I have been have been taking courses at university sporadically. One or two courses per semester, just to refresh my memory and experience the classroom context.
This week we had a presentation where the group had eight people and was supposed to last around 100 minutes. As I am the oldest among the students, I prefer, in these group activities, to wait and see how they organize themselves and only then, eventually, intervene.
Well, a group was created on a messaging app, the conversations were exclusively by text, and the division of topics was done through ChatGPT. Everyone presented – remember, these are in-person classes, not remote – and at no point did I interact with them.
I did my research and enjoyed what I presented as well as the way I presented it, but I can't say how the rest organized themselves. The impression, well, we can make a good guess as to what it was like...
My overall impression aligns with what you said: the subscription to a utility chain whose sole purpose was approval with minimal effort emptied the dialogue.
Thanks for sharing that, Marco. It’s such a vivid example! What you describe really gets at the heart of the way AI can make things smoother but also quietly strip out the human parts that make learning worthwhile. There’s a difference between working together and just coordinating tasks, and I think a lot of classrooms are drifting toward the latter.
My biggest frustration is that there are plenty of places where efficiency gains are great. Learning is rarely one of them. What exactly are we trying to make more efficient in school? Students need space to wrestle with ideas, to get stuck, to figure things out. When we treat learning like a process to optimize, we miss the point entirely.
I am 40 years old, writing from Brazil, and I have a university degree, but no postgraduate studies.
Since 2022, I have been have been taking courses at university sporadically. One or two courses per semester, just to refresh my memory and experience the classroom context.
This week we had a presentation where the group had eight people and was supposed to last around 100 minutes. As I am the oldest among the students, I prefer, in these group activities, to wait and see how they organize themselves and only then, eventually, intervene.
Well, a group was created on a messaging app, the conversations were exclusively by text, and the division of topics was done through ChatGPT. Everyone presented – remember, these are in-person classes, not remote – and at no point did I interact with them.
I did my research and enjoyed what I presented as well as the way I presented it, but I can't say how the rest organized themselves. The impression, well, we can make a good guess as to what it was like...
My overall impression aligns with what you said: the subscription to a utility chain whose sole purpose was approval with minimal effort emptied the dialogue.
Thanks for sharing that, Marco. It’s such a vivid example! What you describe really gets at the heart of the way AI can make things smoother but also quietly strip out the human parts that make learning worthwhile. There’s a difference between working together and just coordinating tasks, and I think a lot of classrooms are drifting toward the latter.
My biggest frustration is that there are plenty of places where efficiency gains are great. Learning is rarely one of them. What exactly are we trying to make more efficient in school? Students need space to wrestle with ideas, to get stuck, to figure things out. When we treat learning like a process to optimize, we miss the point entirely.
I rushed here to rescue and suggest reading this text: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/attention
I have rarely read something so powerful about what can flourish with sustained attention (a prerequisite for both good learning and enjoyment).
We're in the same boat, teacher.
Learning and speed, if they ever meet, are only a long way off, when you've mastered a field (if that's even possible).
And enchantment – in the end, it's not about profit, it's about joy – also has a rhythm that doesn't quite mesh with acceleration.