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.

  • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    🤦‍♀️

    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.

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      22
      ·
      2 months ago

      Depends if this is an AI designed specifically for education, or just ChatGPT wearing a mortarboard.

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        28
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        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.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    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

  • andros_rex@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    2 months ago

    Keep kids dumb so they turn into dumb voting citizens and a big fuck you to teachers too! Whomever came up with this really deserves to get rich. This embraces so many modern American ideals all at once. If they haven’t thought about helping to lower the cost by placing ads into the platform, I would like to take credit for this idea.

  • paraphrand@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    2 months ago

    My suspicion is students who understand the situation will try to game the system. Like they do with organic teachers, too.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • paraphrand@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        I work in education. Grading is always a burden, yeah. Homework/activities often need to be designed for the students AND for grading load.

  • regrub@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Khan Academy was pretty good last time I used it, so I guess it’s better than a no-name AI company.

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    2 months ago

    From what I’ve heard, they were basically allowing anything with a pulse to teach in AZ, so who knows, being taught by an occasionally hallucinating wiki engine might be an improvement over the wife of some national guard dude.

  • 800XL@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    2 months ago

    El oh fucking el. Can’t wait to see how AI handles a classroom of rowdy pre-pubescent teens

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    How long until the AI starts trying to sext the children, that seems to be a common theme across every article I read about AI and chikdren after its been running for a few months.

  • DNU@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 months ago

    I also think this sucks massively, yet the possibility of a well made curriculum focused on one Person dies sound enticing. So much less time wasted on stuff one child has no problems with vs another that’s just stuck at some logical step. Ofc no social interaction is such a big - it almost can’t be fixed.