Generative AI in Education

Margarita Lukavenko explores generative AI in education at Tampere University workshop

Margarita Lukavenko led a comprehensive workshop on “Generative AI in Education” as part of her MBA research at Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland. The workshop, which welcomed both online and in-person attendees, aimed to delve into the integration of generative AI within educational settings and its implications for teaching and learning.

Lukavenko’s study, conducted in December 2023, involved a mixed-method research approach, surveying and interviewing alumni and students from the university’s MBA programme in educational leadership. These participants, recognised as change agents, provided valuable insights into the adoption and impact of generative AI in education.

The findings from Lukavenko’s research indicated a significant uptake of generative AI among educators, with 88% utilising it for various tasks, including ideation, summarising texts, generating content, and proofreading. The research identified four key themes: advocacy for generative AI, diverse implementation, efficiency, and ethical considerations. Educators advocated for the use of generative AI, highlighting the necessity of understanding and training to leverage its benefits ethically and effectively. A notable concern was the lack of training for educators, underscoring the need for more support in this domain. The use of generative AI was also found to alleviate stress among teachers, leading to more efficient work and enhanced classroom performance.

The workshop featured an interactive activity that encouraged participants to reflect on the impact of generative AI on three domains of education, as conceptualised by Georg Biesta: qualification, socialisation, and subjectification. Through group discussions, attendees examined how generative AI could potentially alter the educational landscape, particularly by providing quick solutions that might lead to impatience and dependency among students. The discussions highlighted the importance of guiding the younger generation in the responsible use of technology to ensure it does not compromise the educational process or the development of individual personalities.

The session concluded with a consensus on the need for continued dialogue and research into the implications of generative AI in education. Lukavenko emphasised the collective responsibility of educators, parents, and society to mentor younger generations as they navigate the evolving technological environment. The workshop underscored the need for inclusive and fair data sources for generative AI tools to ensure a balanced and comprehensive educational experience.

Key takeaways from the workshop included the proactive approach of educators towards adopting generative AI, the recognition of the challenges posed by rapid technological advancement, and the shared responsibility to address ethical concerns. The participants’ discussions showed a thoughtful consideration of balancing innovation with preserving the core values and purposes of education. The workshop served as a reminder of the dynamic relationship between technology and education and the ongoing need to adapt to these changes while focusing on the holistic development of learners.

Margarita Lukavenko:
to the workshop Generative AI in Education. I’m very pleased to meet everyone online and who is attending here physically. My name is Margarita Lukavenko and I am here to present my small-scale research within the framework of my MBA studies. So first of all, I will make a small introduction about the research itself, why it’s important, what we found out during the research, but the main part would be the activity because I would like people who are listening to engage, to discuss, to brainstorm so that we can take this further. It should not stay within the walls of this room or this workshop online. I encourage you all to take this information and share it further with your families, with your colleagues and with your friends. I am currently studying at the MBA program in Finland in Tampere University of Applied Sciences. My MBA is focused on educational leadership and this is why my topic is also connected directly to education. I’m also a Women in AI Fellow for 2024, UN Teach SDGs Ambassador, National Geographic Certified Educator and a co-founder of a few educational consulting companies. I’m currently based in Berlin in Germany and before that I spent eight years in Shanghai in China. My research was focused on generative AI and education. It was conducted in December 2023. Here is a QR code if you would like to access the full paper, but there will be a link as well later in the summary, so you are welcome to scan it now or check it later. Now the research initiation, why I wanted to conduct this small-scale research within my program through the cohorts that we’ve had since 2017 in this program is because in COVID-19 during the online schooling we had the switch to online education and it was a huge challenge for a lot of students, for a lot of teachers and during that time I launched a Global Teens Meetup project which became a champion’s prize project of 2020 at WSIS and that made me realize the importance and the value of using technology for the good of education, for making it more equitable, for making it more accessible to people around the world. This is why when the opportunity came up to research this topic of how generative AI impacts education, I couldn’t miss this chance and the research goals were to encourage conversation on generative AI implementation and to test my hypothesis that generative AI can actually positively impact education and educational practices. Now who was interviewed and surveyed? Those were the alumni and students of the MBA program in educational leadership from the Finnish Tampere University of Applied Sciences. They are individuals across the world who are so-called change agents in educational leadership, so they usually initiate usually initiate or lead projects that are aimed at equity or aimed at bettering education and each year the cohort has 27 people from around the world. What was the methodology of the research? It was a mixed method research so we would collect more data both quantitative and qualitative and as I mentioned the people who were surveyed were the alumni and the students of the MBA program. 25 people were surveyed through our closed LinkedIn group of the alumni and students and three people were interviewed during the research. The interview criteria was based on what is the diversity of applications of generative AI that educators used. Now we focused on four focus areas in the research itself. How generative AI is used? What’s the impact on teaching, training and support questions and ethical considerations question? In the survey the question was really simple. Do you use generative AI at work? If you do then how? If you don’t then why? The interview questions were a bit more broad and there was more of a discussion and we focused on attitudes, implementation, how do educators feel about generative AI and how do they use it in their educational institutions. Just to mention that the people who were interviewed they are teachers and school leaders and educational centers leaders so it’s really a mix of educational professionals. So what did we find? The survey showed that 88% of educators use generative AI and 12% do not so only three people out of 25 do not use generative AI and when we asked why they said that they do not see how generative AI can benefit their work and in the application side, well this information is a bit more detailed, we will not go further into this aspect but it’s interesting to see that majority of people who use generative AI for education they use it to generate ideas, to bounce off ideas, you know sort of the rubber duck kind of discussion. Other people also use it to summarize large texts, to generate content, proofread, create images so these are the most used areas. So what did you find during the interviews? Here we had four key themes that emerged during the interviews. Advocacy for generative AI in education, implementation, efficiency and ethical balancing. So in a bit more details in terms of advocacy there was strong advocacy towards the use of generative AI but not just the use of it but also learning how to use it and using it because it’s not going anywhere so we really have to learn how to use it first that was the message from the educators. There was a high interest to discover how to use it efficiently and ethically. In terms of implementation there was a diverse implementation of gen AI and at the same time there was a huge concern about the lack of training so really a lot of training and support is encouraged and needed by the educators. In terms of efficiency generative AI supports educators to help them to make their work more efficient which results in lower stress levels of the teachers and educators and frees up more time for them to focus on the key aspects of their job. Last one is ethical balancing. We focused here on ownership and misuse of generative AI tools. Some of the highlights that came up organically throughout the discussions, the interviews, the lowest stress level was detected because educators started to use generative AI to make their workload a bit easier which resulted in better class performance. So the teachers came to class where they’re more focused mindset and because of that they were able to do better they were able to have more meaningful interactions with the students. And here is the summary of the key findings. Of course you can read in much more detail in the paper but the key findings in terms of implementation of generative AI by educators. It’s used in such a diverse aspect from school policy to mission and vision, art classes, administration work, teaching materials, creating stories, texts, poems and providing teachers support. So there is really no end to how it can be used. In terms of impact on teaching as I mentioned it reduces workload, frees up time and enhances efficiency. When we talked about training there was always a strong need for the support and for the training that went throughout the whole conversation and the interview process and the focus should be in training on tools, AI tools, how to use them, ethics, how to use the tools in terms of ethics and interestingly there was a sort of a concern about how AI and pedagogics can balance. So we don’t go too much into using the tool and the data. We actually remember what education is for. That’s the key question that we should always keep in mind and how to find that balance for teachers and for educators is the question. Some smart approaches to training were suggested by the interviewees. For example we could start with supporters of generative AI and encourage them to use gen AI more in education or we could have basic short training. For example it could be a one day, two day training or half a day training to help teachers and educators kick off this knowledge base and skill base for generative AI and that would be enough for the start. And last but not least ethical considerations of course are on top of the discussions when it comes to generative AI. So we discussed the importance of ownership, who actually owns the work when it’s created or modified by generative AI and then used in the educational setting by students or by teachers or by educational institutions. Everyone has different opinions so the question is how can we sort of benchmark what is ethically correct here. And the other point that I’ve already mentioned is AI versus pedagogy and here it’s a I specifically put versus AI versus pedagogy because it should not be versus, it should not be one or the other. They should come together. So the question of what is education for should stay no matter what we do in education and using generative AI tools together with the actual purpose of education is one of the goals we should have as educators. And ethical concerns in general of course have a huge prevalence in this discussion. In conclusion, research, this small-scale research among change agents in education across the world who work in different types of educational institutions shows that generative AI can support teachers and can impact education and educators positively. But there are of course a lot of questions that we need to keep on discussing, to keep on considering as educators, as a society. And much more research is needed in all these aspects. Now that I’ve shared the research conclusions, I would like to, well, this is an important part as well. I would like to thank my professor who helped to guide me throughout this research, Mark Kircher at Tompkins University, as well as all the alumni and students at the MBA of Educational Leadership. And I would like to thank all of us because human ingenuity is actually what we created and we fed it to generative AI. And this is why we are able to use this tool now. Now the time for activity is very important in all my sessions. Actually, I never sit at the table when I have a workshop. I prefer to have a much more engaged session. So I’m going to prefer to have a much more engaging format to walk around. Let’s see how much time we have. Perfect. So for the online participants, I will share a link if it’s going to be a slightly different activity for the online participants. And for offline, we’ll have a discussion in a second. All right. Please share your… Okay, one second. I’m going to share another link and then… All right. Almost there. Okay. Okay, so now you can see the online cards game. You just have to start clicking here, and then you can open each of the cards, and it will give you a phrase from the interviews that we did. And your task is to read this statement and to think whether you agree with it or not, and what are your thoughts about it. Then you can share your keywords, your key conclusions, through this link that is shared in the chat. Tizian, can they see my link? I sent it in the chat of the Zoom just to make sure that everyone can see the link. And for everyone else who is in the room, we will do the group work. Yes, but it’s not the right one here. I’m not sure if it’s gonna be, let’s see. It’s gonna work. Yes, it’s working. So I’m gonna leave the QR code here, and you can scan it with your devices. But for those who are here, this activity, you can keep the link, and you can check the statements a bit later. And I would like to focus on three domains of education. So we have a little template here. Well, we don’t have a template, but we have a little template here. So we have a little template here. Well, we don’t have a lot of people present, but. This one here. Great. So, basically, I’m going to continue with the data. Supposed to be a group activity, but we can also do it with one person at a time. All right. So, Ardi, what I wanted to highlight here today is the Biesta, Georg Biesta. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He writes a lot of papers on the connection of education and technology and, in general, education overall. So he has these three domains of education, and they are about qualifications, socialization, and subjectification. So qualification is pretty simple, right? It’s, we go to school to get a diploma, a degree, right? That’s sort of one of the purposes of education. Hello. Welcome. Good morning. No problem. You’re just on time. Yeah. So now you can have a group discussion with Ardi as well. And I’ll start from the beginning of the activity. We’ve just started the discussion. I’m going to share with you this. So I’m going to give instructions first. And then we will talk. Right. For those who are online, if you click on the link, you will see this page. And then you need to enter a word here, for example, just education, right? So the key words that you find that represent your conclusions after you read the statements. This is not for everyone who is present in the room, just for online. And then you click, you can add two more words, three words in general, in total, and then you click submit. And that’s it. So please let us know if it works. Ali wrote that it’s not working. Okay. All right, perfect. So it’s working. And for those who are in the room, we continue with our activity. So for this paper you have here, I’m going to get closer to you. I don’t have to shout. You can hear it well. We are focusing on three domains of Viesta, three domains of education. So here at Viesta, he says that there are three purposes of education, sort of. One is qualification, right? We go to school to, oh, thank you. We go to school to get a degree, to get a qualification. That’s pretty simple. The other one is subjectification. So that’s about how do we live our lives? What sort of choices are we aware of that we have? So who am I as a person? And how I make choices in my life. That’s about subjectification. So I am the owner of my life. That’s the key purpose here. You can also have, read the sort of conclusion here of Viesta’s paper. Subjectification, our freedom to act or to refrain from action, to not act. How we exist and how we live our lives. That’s about subjectification. And socialization is about cultures, is about societies, how we socialize, how we exist as a society. Cultures, traditions, practices. That’s how through education, if you go to school and you have a subject chemistry or maths or English, in some sort, you always learn about culture and about traditions, about ways of doing things in this particular setting or country. So my hope for today is that we would be able to think about these three purposes of education through the generative AI lens. So if we think about qualification, before generative AI, people would go to school and study at school. Yes, there was internet, but there was no generative AI, right? Now there is. So how does this purpose of education get impacted or affected by generative AI? That’s the discussion that I would like us to have today. Maybe it could be through your lens, your experience, through your kids’ experience, for your students’ experience, your colleagues, or maybe it can be just something that you can brainstorm and share your ideas. So first of all, how does AI impact qualification? Then if we look at subjectification, who am I as a person, who is each person in the world, each student in school, and add generative AI to everyday practices, how does it change subjectification? If it does, maybe it doesn’t change, right? And socialization also, using generative AI, how does it impact our socialization as learners, as students, as learners, as people in general? We don’t have to focus on school only here, right? It’s not just education, but in general. So the first part here is about experiences, practices, and the second part here is suggestions. So is there anything that you would like to change? And maybe it’s not in practice yet, but you think, for example, training is really needed. What sort of training? How can we do it? So what should be done from now and in the future to make the situation better, right? Do you understand? Is it clear? Yeah, okay, perfect. I would really love you to make a group. So we have three people, and that’s perfect. If you can maybe turn around, or maybe you could sit closer and talk all together, and I will give you some time to discuss, and then we can share, okay? Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you mind if I take a photo? Your turn. No, I was gonna actually- Oh, okay, okay, can’t wait. Excuse me. All right. And you can relax. Picture of me here, over there. Thank you. Let’s see, first, I guess, adjust here. Yes, please. Okay. The lady’s not wanting to talk. I don’t want to ask her again, if that’s okay. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I’m sorry. Can you explain further about this subject? Can you explain further about this subject? To further understand it? Yes, absolutely. Well, it’s a very good question that you asked about subjectification and AI. The thing is, I don’t have answers for this. We are just exploring this together. So, subjectification by itself is about becoming a person, your own person, through education. So, a person goes to school to get a degree, to learn about who they are, to become this individual for themselves, and to become part of our society and, in a way, part of society. So, these are just including the areas of education that is focusing on. And I really like this approach because, very often nowadays, focus specifically on getting a degree, to get a job, to get money, to spend money. And what’s next? What is the purpose of education? So, the question that I wanted to look at here is, if we use generative AI, our databases, our kids use it, students use it, does it impact the personality development? So you’re losing speech? I mean, we’re just discussing, so maybe everything about, yeah. Can we consult with the consultant? Yeah. Can we consult with the consultant? So, you can select the example of online learning. It can be also applied, because nowadays there are computers in schools, or mobile phones, so kids always find a way to use technology, right? It can be in the break time, in the classes, or it can be doing their homework. It’s not just about online learning, but also about that. Okay. So, when we went to school, we had some access to these, and that depends on which country we’re from, but we could cheat maybe by buying a short version of a huge book, right? And we’re really going to spend the whole book. Okay. That was considered cheating in my school at least. Nowadays, kids can just talk to the teacher and find out what is happening in the book and what to do, maybe write a summary. So, does this impact their personality development? Does this impact how they feel about themselves? Is there some sort of deeper, longer-term consequences on personality? And I don’t mean personality as in what kind of person you are, right? But you are a person. Now there are good resolutions. Right. Exactly. Because right now, everything is working on a fast pace. Exactly. So, does it affect their patience, maybe? Yes. Is it going to impact the work they are eager to do in the future, the decision-making process? What do you think? I’ll give you an example of my lapsed. I get my children for my lapsed test. I was 4th grade. And they always rely on all of them. It’s not GPT. I don’t even want to introduce them to that, or else it may lead to plagiarism. That’s an example. Right. So, when I taught them, refer to the books. They’re like, oh, it’s too slow. I don’t have time to flip the pages. And they get very agitated. They get very agitated. So, I was like, you know, but this is how I learn. Like, you know, they will say to me, but you have to understand, we are a different generation. So, our task as adults for the younger generations is to help them navigate. Right? This is why the second, the last layer is for what should we do to help them? Because you might not be supporting this, right? But it’s not going anywhere. And if you’re at home, you’re welcome to join our discussion. If you, the students, your kids, your students would still find a way to use generative AI. So, the question is, can we teach them how to, within the safe walls of our home or classrooms, as educators, or schools, as leaders, educational leaders? Like, how can we do that? Because it’s good enough, though. You know, the internet can’t even stay there. Unless there’s other ways. Sorry, sorry. So, subjective conditions can lead also to socialization. It actually, yeah. Yes, it’s all connected. I think. Oh, yeah. It’s a big question. Okay, good. I think you do, based on what you’re saying. Thank you. All right. So, I think we are just on time to share. You don’t have to write it down, but you could take it with you. If you’re saying now. Google, yes. Are you having a quarter of a moment? We’re still going into CRA. CRA, yeah. Yeah, it’s six minutes. So, we want you to be quiet. Okay. We have to finish. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m a meagre. Yeah. We don’t have a business person. All right. We are on time to start sharing. And I know this is a big discussion. And I hope that’s the goal of today’s session. I hope you will take it further to your families, to your kids, to your students, to your colleagues. And keep on discussing this. Keep on thinking about it. For now, I would like to invite you to share. To share your discussions, the conclusions. Maybe one of you or all of you could say a few words of what you’ve discussed. And I would like to have this as sort of a best practices, but ideas sharing session. So, I would like to invite you to share. To have this as sort of a best practices, but ideas sharing on your stories and your maybe actionable suggestions or plans on what we could do as individuals, as educators, as parents, as the society to improve the situation of generative AI in education and how it impacts education. So, would you like to start sharing? You can just click on the microphone or you would maybe come here as well.

Audience:
Thank you. So, we did have a very interesting discussion. I think we all have some similar views. The one that struck out to me most is that I think that gen AI in education, it does give students or kids a quicker solution in terms of wanting to find information that they are looking for. It can be a good thing where they are able to reference this quickly and able to share this amongst their peers or even their teachers. But there are issues that can come across from getting all these quicker solutions, meaning that they may be impatient or they would rely on what the gen AI has provided them. So, it is also restricted to whichever references or literature that the gen AI tool has info on or extracts from. So, I think an improvement or suggestion to improve is for the gen AI tool to also ensure that it is, how do I say, it’s good for education and also the data that they extract from should include literature not just from one country, for example. It could be globally. So, at least the type of information that they share to the kids are fair and also inclusive of all other communities. Yeah, that’s my take.

Margarita Lukavenko:
Great, fair and inclusive is definitely the key words that we want to see much more of in education. Thank you so much for sharing. Can you please take the microphone? Yes.

Audience:
Hello, good morning. So, my name is Tira from Brunei. So, my colleague, Farah, she was just mentioning, discussing about qualification gen AI. So, the next one will be on subjectification and gen AI. As we were discussing with your good self just now and what is the impact on this subjectification, to what extent can we consider on this? So, for example, just to share that just in case, I think we were discussing, we got the impacts and solutions already, but I think I’ll just repeat what we discussed just now. You were mentioning about learning, learning at schools, at education institutions. So, before back then, we would refer to books, to hard copies, nothing on the internet. Very rare, very rare. And also, it would depend on the cities as well if internet is available. However, now in this modern digital era world, we would refer to technologies such as, it can be, such as, you know, Googling, Wikipedia, or check GBT. Children right now, they’re very, for example, children or students or younger generations, they’re into, they like to work on a fast pace whereby they needed to, as Michael Ifarah was mentioning, that everything needed to have a quick solutions to solve any issues, to have to, so for the answers to be on their plate that easily. Perhaps that, as a mother, as a mother myself, like in, it’s not, they would not understand on how to actually, how to actually like solve issues by not relying the internet. And also, or even GNI, like generally. So, we would, so it would actually affect their patients, like you mentioned just now. It may also affect their personality. So, how do we actually, how do we assist them to, how do we assist them to make sure that they’re on the right path? And the only ways for us to do, one of the ways, not the only way, one of the ways for us to do is to help them to guide, to guide them on the right path, to make sure that it’s not being abused. Yeah, so the GNI is not being abused at all. And perhaps also that we can navigate them to make sure that, again, nothing is being overly utilized when it comes to using this GNI and also to extract the correct data as well for them to, in terms of learning.

Margarita Lukavenko:
Thank you so much. We are running out of time, but thank you so much for the sharing. Yes, how to guide, how to assist our kids, our students, the next generations in general, overall, it starts from us having the conversations and the discussions and learning ourselves first. So, I really appreciate your comments here. Is there anything else you would like to share last? We have about one minute.

Audience:
We have no time.

Margarita Lukavenko:
One minute we have.

Audience:
I’d like to talk more about in terms of qualification. So, I think to gain a deep understanding of academic objects, we have to do some certain things that generative AI can have impact. For example, something like automated literature review. I can generate, can read a vast amount of data and generate a summary of them to gain a deep understanding of the history of a topic. Or, for example, I think something like personalized learning resource. Some resources that is completely personalized on the attitude and personalization of a kid. And can, for example, in a gamification process, you can, for example, interact with an environment and gain some completely personalized insight about a topic. And more about that again.

Margarita Lukavenko:
Yes, unfortunately, we don’t have more time to share, but please feel free to share later on with your colleagues. If there is a forum or whatnot to share there. Because I really appreciate everything you’re saying and our discussion today here. It’s just a starting point for us. Everything is so new for us, for our generations. But for younger generations, it’s not new. They’re growing up in this. And it’s up to us to guide them. So, everything that you mentioned from qualification to subjectification and socialization is important. And we have to keep the conversation going. Thank you so much, everyone, for the session today. Last but not least, I would like to see if we have an update here. If anyone has shared any keywords. Okay, I don’t see any other keywords. So, we will finish our session here. Thank you so much for your time. For everyone who has been joining online and here in person, it’s really nice to meet you all. Have a good day, everyone. And best of luck with the last day of the conference. Thank you.