What does it take for AI to help kids really learn? Molly Graham and OpenAI’s Leah Belsky explore the role of teachers, why struggle matters, and what happens when students use AI to bring their own ideas to life. Plenty to think about for educators and parents alike. Link to the whole conversation: https://lnkd.in/gFhqE45p
Struggling is essential to learning. This is one of the things I've been thinking about a lot since my conversation with Leah Belsky, who runs education at OpenAI. AI is extraordinarily good at removing friction. A kid can take a picture of a long-division problem and get an explanation — or an answer — instantly. And it can feel like learning. But sometimes the friction is the learning. Getting stuck. Trying something that doesn’t work. Sitting with the problem longer than you want to. Building the muscle to figure something out yourself. For years, edtech has been chasing the dream of a personalized tutor for every kid. Leah told me she now thinks that dream is further away than she expected — partly because a great tutor knows when not to give you the answer. They know when to make you struggle. Which feels like one of the harder questions we’ll have to answer about AI and education: where is friction unnecessary, and where is it essential? Because if we make everything easier, we may accidentally make some things harder to learn. The whole conversation was different from what I expected and very worth listening to. Link in comments.