If AI can do what we are asking students to do, we are not asking the right questions.
Doing math is a human activity. It’s about noticing what to be curious about, what matters, and setting up phenomena in relationship to each other. It’s a process with some answers along the way. Yet the intrigue is in the way one question leads to another. Sure, some of those questions could be answered by AI, but generating the questions is the truly human activity. AI can’t do that.
Math can be as everyday as making sure you get to work on time on Monday, dressed in Monday clothes not Sunday clothes, with transit passes or a ride or a working vehicle lined up and a lunch to get you through the day. That means backing up and planning. That means anticipating bumps along the way. AI can’t do that.
Or it can be as abstract and thought provoking as seeing the counting numbers and Pascal’s triangle in stair steps, flower petals, and the flight of a hummingbird. AI can’t do that.
The best learning integrates the curiosities, interests, and experiences of students. We can design learning to ask for more than one way to see a problem, what got confusing along the way, and what new insights the process inspired. And perhaps most importantly, we can ask what engaging in a problem allowed us to learn about ourselves and about each other. AI can’t help with that.
PS. Read this from our super smart colleague Dan Meyer on AI
And listen to this lovely interview of Stephen Strogatz on The Daily “When AI comes for your purpose in life.”