Towards a framework for effective instructor-AI collaboration in education

There are growing interests and concerns regarding the wider application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all spheres of work and life including education. Computer systems with ‘intelligence’ are already performing a wide range of tasks commonly associated with humans. Conversations are taking place about how AI will reshape curriculum, teaching and assessment as well as its positive and negative impacts on education. Also, considerable uncertainty exists surrounding the roles of instructor and student in the impending AI regime. Scholars and professionals are apprehensive about whether an extensive involvement of AI in education will greatly eliminate the need for human-human interaction in teaching and learning. We believe that AI adoption is unavoidable, and it will certainly have major implications for education in the future, but our focus is on how to effectively blend AI into traditional education system for the benefit of teachers, students and the society. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of literature about how to integrate AI’s unique capabilities with human capital to enhance teaching and improve student learning experience. To fill this gap, in this theoretical paper, we place more emphasis on an in-depth exploration of an optimal combination of human-human interaction human-computer interaction in education. Accordingly, first, drawing from the socio cultural theory of education, we provide an analysis of education as a socio-cultural phenomenon and the inevitability of family, schools, teachers and peers in promoting learner autonomy and metacognitive awareness, which is followed by a review o the existing gaps in teaching and learning that are hindering us to achieve common academic and social goals relating to education such as subject knowledge, job skills, creativity, leadership, moral behaviour discipline and self-esteem. We argue that a well-planned instructor-AI collaboration can contribute to high quality teaching and learning and hence minimise the gaps in academic and social outcomes relating to education. As a theoretical contribution, the paper presents a detailed framework for an effective instructor-AI collaboration in education in key dimensions of teaching and learning, namely curriculum design, instruction, assessment and feedback.