National Growth Fund and Ministries of OCW and EZK Visit NOLAI

Different Perspectives 

The emergence of AI in education is complex and affects many stakeholders. The interactions between education, business and science are typical issues that NOLAI deal with. How do different professionals look at the same issue? What opportunities and risks does each see? What can be learned from each other? The scientific team also has various focus areas, each highlighting a different side. This invariably results in captivating and interesting discussions, including with the panel on 18th January! 

An Example from Practice 

Among other things, the project Technical Reading Learning with ASR (automatic speech recognition) was discussed. This project takes place at schools run by Stichting Klasse, together with Novo and the Radboud Docenten Academie and focuses on reading in group 4 of primary school. 

Teacher in Residence, Kilian Geryszewski, made the practice tangible. Papers and pens were distributed, and he read a short story asking students to note reading errors. Hilarity ensued ("Are we really being taught?"), but the mood immediately became more serious as the participants experienced how difficult it is to recognise and annotate errors. Sander Koopman (EZK): "I just couldn't keep up. I heard things but had to double check at the same time, and in the meantime, people were also talking. With me, it became chaos".

AI can support this. It is quite possible to train AI to recognise pupil errors at the sound and word level and give the teacher insight into this. It may sound simple, but unfortunately, it isn't. What is the AI actually testing: speaking or reading? In group 4, speech development can also still play a major role, which NOLAI also takes into account. Another reaction came from Eline Leo (OCW): "Where do you actually get the data from?". Researcher Erika Schlatter explained: "We train the AI based on data from all over the Netherlands so we can do justice to regional differences. The validation in practice takes place with a smaller group of students.". 

Ethical and Other Issues  

An interesting discussion also emerged while discussing the VIAT project for teachers. This project trains AI to analyse video recordings of teachers for insight into their own teaching practice. Teacher in Residence Wouter Jansen: "It is the feedback you get as a teacher that makes you better.". But why is AI limited to analysing, not interpreting? And doesn't a large amount of data also provide interesting data for school leaders? This is where opinions differ at the table. Marthe Stevens of the Ethics Focus Area at NOLAI: "These are the ethical questions that are always discussed at NOLAI. There are no easy answers, which is why it is important to have these kinds of conversations together at all stages of the co-creation process." 

Typical NOLAI 

The panel concluded the day with a final session on scaling up the prototypes developed in the projects so that education can also make large-scale use of the software and knowledge developed at NOLAI. Cooperation is also crucial in this component. Director Inge Molenaar: "The discussions that took place at the table today are SO typical within NOLAI. We bring different perspectives together and always look at an issue from different angles. Together, we arrive at real improvements and AI solutions that education demands and benefits from.".