Abstract

Teachers are at the front lines of implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in education. They are expected to develop an adequate understanding of AI and become educated users as well as educators. Their readiness for the use of AI is critical for the success of AI-enhanced education. The present study conceptualized AI readiness from four components: cognition, ability, vision, and ethics in the educational use of AI, and investigated their interrelationships and their implications for teachers’ work. The data from 3164 primary school teachers were collected and analyzed by partial least square structural equation modelling and cluster analysis. This study found that cognition, ability, and vision in the educational use of AI were positively associated with ethical considerations. The four components of AI readiness all positively predicted, whereas perceived threats from AI negatively predicted, AI-enhanced innovation, which in turn positively predicted teachers’ job satisfaction. This study identified three clusters of teachers based on their AI readiness levels. Teachers with high levels of AI readiness tended to perceive low threats from AI and demonstrate high AI-enhanced innovation as well as high job satisfaction. However, teachers from different socio-economic regions and of different genders showed no significant differences regarding AI readiness and its impact on their jobs. This study empirically validated the importance of AI readiness for teachers’ work and has important implications for the development of strategies and policies facilitating successful AI-enhanced education.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly used in a variety of fields (e.g., industry, finance, and education) to promote innovation and increase work efficiency (Ng et al., 2021). In education, AI is touted as a seemingly almighty tool, supporting or even replacing teachers’ work by automatically tracking students’ progress, assessing their performance, and providing personalized help (Albacete et al., 2019; Chounta et al., 2022; Tarus et al., 2018). Teachers can rely on AI to make informed decisions on orchestrating teaching practice so as to better support student learning (Van Leeuwen & Rummel, 2020).

Nonetheless, in reality, intelligent tools for education are rarely used consistently in K-12 classrooms (Ferguson et al., 2016). Schiff (2021) found that much practice and research related to the educational use of AI did not deliver promised changes and benefits. Among the multiple reasons leading to this controversy, for instance, the quality of AI and users’ preferences (Luckin et al., 2022) and ethical concerns (Holmes et al., 2022), an essential culprit could be the techno-centric approach vehemently promoted by some in the educational field, which stresses the role of AI but ignores the agency of teachers who can decide whether, what, when, and how AI technologies are used in the first place (Luckin et al., 2022). Teachers are on the front lines of AI deployment, bridging schools’ AI policies and students’ needs, thereby the critical role in the successful implementation of AI in schools (Felix, 2020). However, many teachers may not be actually ready for AI-enhanced education, though they are mostly aware of the potential benefits that AI can bring to education (Chounta et al., 2022). Their inadequate AI readiness may partially contribute to the gap between rapid advances in AI technologies and comparatively slow and unsatisfactory adoption of them in education (Luan et al., 2020; Luckin et al., 2022).

Discussion

Although AI has been increasingly utilized in education and has been found to be beneficial and powerful for student learning (Smakman et al., 2021; Xia et al., 2022), little attention has been paid to the needs and challenges faced by teachers in AI-enhanced teaching (Celik et al., 2022; Langran et al., 2020). Teachers are seen as one of the crucial stakeholders in AI-enhanced education (Celik et al., 2022; Seufert et al., 2021). Therefore, their perspectives, needs, and experiences are vital to the successful integration of AI in school settings (Holmes et al., 2022). In order to effectively implement AI in the classroom, teachers must be prepared in terms of cognition, ability, vision, and ethical considerations related to the use of AI in education (Luckin et al., 2022). This study therefore aimed to empirically examine the concept of AI readiness among 3164 primary school teachers who had experiences using AI technologies in their work. In what follows, we discuss the important findings of this study by relating them to previous research on similar topics.

1. Introduction

2. Multimedia Teaching

3. Making full use of Internet Resources

4. Using QQ and Wechat to Assist in Teaching

5. Using MOOC to Assist Teaching

6. Simulation Platform

7. Conclusions

Acknowledgement

References

Traditional board writing and other teaching methods make it difficult to present the microscopic world of microorganisms to students. We used many modern teaching methods of multimedia teaching, QQ, and WeChat, and MOOCs in teaching medical microbiology to allow students to clearly recognize the microcosmic world and ensure the quality of teaching.

Introduction

Traditional board writing and other teaching methods make it difficult to present the microscopic world of microorganisms to students. Students feel that the microbiology is too abstract and boring to learning. In addition, how to improve the teaching quality is a new challenge to the teaching of medical microbiology. With the popularization of network technology and various mobile devices in the information era, it has provided rich resources and a variety of modern information teaching methods for microbiology teaching [1]. We can use many modern teaching methods of multimedia teaching, QQ, and WeChat, and MOOCs in teaching medical microbiology to allow students to clearly recognize the microcosmic world and ensure the quality of teaching.

مقاله سال 2017

 مجله بین المللی آموزش مدیریت – The International Journal of Management Education

Introductory management courses are foundation stones in undergraduate business curriculum (Thompson, Purdy, & Fandt, 1997). They aim at providing basic knowledge of the field while expertise in different areas of management is further developed in advanced management courses (Swenson, 2001). These courses serve to “heighten awareness of the complexity of what occurs when humans are engaged in the accomplishment of tasks in an organization” (Krell & Dobson, 1999, p. 44). These courses also communicate to students the idea that management as a field of practice is informed by theory (Wright & Gilmore, 2012). In other words, these courses include threshold concepts, which might be hard for students to grasp at first, but which are essential for their successful completion of other courses in the program.

One of the challenges that instructors in these introductory courses face is that traditional business and management education students usually have very little exposure to how organizations work. These students have little work experience (Finan, 2004) and struggle to connect theory with their own experiences within organizations (Miller, 1991). The more experience students have, the easier it becomes to understand course material, grasp concepts and theories, make connections among them, and make decisions. Not surprisingly, non-traditional students who come to get their business degrees after spending years working “seem to have almost an intuitive understanding of how business organizations work, who the ‘players’ are, and how individuals interact in business organizations” (Roth, 2001, p. 22).

“Management certainly applies science: managers have to use all the knowledge they can get, from the sciences and elsewhere. But management is more art, based on ‘insight’, ‘vision’, ‘intuition’” (Mintzberg, 2004, p. 10). Not surprisingly, management positions are difficult to fill (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM], 2016). Over 60% of HR managers experience difficulties in hiring candidates for full-time managerial positions in general (SHRM, 2016), and 74% of HR managers experience difficulties in hiring recent graduates for these positions (SHRM, 2015a). Once hired as low-level or front-line managers, recent graduates work on the frontline of the organization “where the organization interacts with its customers and suppliers, and confronts the realities and challenges of competition” (Fleming, 2008, p. 128). They become responsible for the performance of a team (Austin, Regan, Gothard, & Carnochan, 2013; Hill, 1992), enacting organizational policies, providing organizational leadership for their teams, and coaching each individual team member (Kilroy & Dundon, 2015).