Sask. distance learning looking to build AI platform for teachers, students

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic in education right now – whether students should be using it and what it could safely be used for.

At the same time, the Saskatchewan Distance Learning Corporation (Sask. DLC) is looking to foray into the new technology. Earlier this year, the DLC put out a request for proposals, looking for a company to build it a closed artificial intelligence platform.

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“Sask DLC is entering a strategic phase of digital modernization in which responsible, secure and scalable AI integration will support improvements in teaching, learning, assessment, operations, student support and administrative workflows,” read the request for proposal (RFP) documents.

The details described an AI tailored to the DLC’s requirements with an implementation road map ranging from one to three years. The AI would have to comply with the province’s privacy legislation, data sovereignty principles and operate within a closed, secure environment.

In the classroom

Kelli Boklaschuk, superintendent of student programming at Sask. DLC, said they wanted to gauge interest with the RFP and find out what might be available.

“We know AI is prevalent pretty much everywhere, but we know that we can also use it to really support learning and so we’re really curious what we can do to incorporate some AI. We don’t want to block it; we actually want to leverage the use of it,” said Boklaschuk.

She said they would want to have a lot of control over the program, so they could feed it information like the Saskatchewan curriculum and get out of it the skills they want students to learn.

When describing what this would look like practically, she said they would probably want it to be more of a learning companion.

“We are looking at potentially a tutor situation, but really that opportunity for students to have an even fuller relationship with their teacher,” Boklashchuk explained.

That would include the AI being available at all times of day when the teacher isn’t.

“We would see a tool like this supporting that relationship between the teacher and the student and providing the opportunity for teachers to engage with our students even more – so, providing them even more support and then having personalized learning opportunities,” said Boklaschuk.

She explained that, if a student needed an adaptation, for example, the AI tool would help create those resources even faster.

Boklaschuk said, with an AI, it would be important for students to continue developing critical thinking, creativity and communication skills.

Education Minister Everett Hindley (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Education Minister, Everett Hindley, echoed Boklaschuk’s comments, saying the DLC doesn’t want to ignore the technology.

“We can’t simply stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn’t here. AI is here. And we need to figure out what those guardrails are,” he said.

The minister explained it would be important for students to be able to use the program as a tool instead of as a crutch.

Neither Hindley nor Boklaschuk believe an AI built for the DLC would eliminate jobs. Hindley said the teachers he’s spoken to are looking at it as a way to make their jobs easier.

“I think there’s a number of them that are very excited about it, about the opportunities to use AI to help them in the work they do each and every day. And perhaps find some efficiencies in the work that they do as teachers,” explained the minister.

Uncharted territory

Finding an AI or a company to build what the DLC is looking for could be tough.

Dr. Adam Dubé is an associate professor at McGill University and is the director of its technology, learning and cognition lab. He said the RFP appears to be looking for a very broad-ranging AI solution and while there are some programs that might solve one or two of the objectives, there aren’t any that would do it all right now, to his knowledge.

For an AI that could serve as a learning companion or tutor, Dubé said this is uncharted territory.

“When it comes to the tutor side of things, critically, there’s very little to almost no research on the efficacy of these tools for elementary and high school students,” he explained.

He said he’s done systematic reviews in this area. There have only been a handful of studies done, and they’re not very robust.

“They’re asking something to be built that we don’t have strong evidence that it works or we don’t have a good insight into what works and what doesn’t work,” said Dubé.

The biggest concern, he said, is that students learning with an AI tutor would use it as a crutch, relying on the system to give them answers.

“Any system that’s going to be built for student use has to be very specifically designed so that it’s not doing work on students behalf and that it facilitates students’ mastery of the content of the skills, even when the tool isn’t present,” he explained, going on to say there’s no version that’s been tested and shown to work this way.

While Dubé said the DLC has the right mindset in looking for guardrails to promote critical thinking, he said it would be difficult to include that for such an AI because no one could say what it would need to look like and how it could work.

He said there could be an opportunity there, but he repeated that it’s uncharted territory, so there’s some hesitancy as to whether it would be successful.

On the side of an AI that teachers would use, Dubé said it’s unclear whether it would actually make teachers more efficient or if they would have to spend just as much time correcting and improving the AI’s lessons or worksheets. He pointed to coders who have been found to be less productive using AI because they have to go back and correct its mistakes.

While the DLC and minister didn’t believe an AI would result in job losses, Dubé said AI is a labour replacement tool, at its base, so there could be concerns it will be used to replace teachers or not hire more.

“They might not fire people, but (they might decide) we don’t need to hire more people, because we have this to make it more efficient,” he explained.

While the RFP asked for a one-to-three year implementation road map, there may not be an AI in every DLC classroom in three years’ time. Boklaschuk said the RFP was put out so the DLC could get more information about the possibilities and that it would be open to having further conversations about it.

Hindley was a bit more bullish on the idea. He said the DLC is testing the waters a bit, but he thinks it’s going to amount to something and end up being implemented.

He said it’s hard to be ahead of things like this, but the DLC has the opportunity to help shape the future of AI in the classroom, and figuring out what that might look like is part of the point of the RFP.