Education is the most stagnant industry in the world. Bells, age-batching, standardized curriculum and assessments… sound familiar? These practices were all formalized during the same window of the Industrial Revolution, as required by that period’s workforce. Compare how school has changed over the last hundred years with the progress of the healthcare, technology, or automobile industry.
It is apparent that today’s workforce is very different from that of the 1800’s. Therefore, the structure of the educational system must be adapted to foster more creativity, personalization, critical thinking, collaboration, active agency, resourcefulness, and authentic problem-solving environments. Education today must teach students how to think and solve problems, not just what to memorize and regurgitate.
We see this changing demand specifically in mathematical competencies. Math – a subject designed to produce accurate, compliant rule-followers and efficient calculators, now requires broader skills like number sense, pattern recognition, and strategic thinking. So how can teachers adjust their approach to foster this? And what is AI’s impact on teaching?
The fundamental change lies in the role of the teacher. The "teacher" of tomorrow is not just a knowledge transmitter but a coach, mentor, and wisdom and experience sharer who pushes students to unlock their unique potential. It is essential that teachers press into their “human elements” in the AI Era.
In human-to-human tutoring, one of my favorite parts is learning how to teach each individual student best: How should I present the material in a way that most clearly resonates with them? How long should I wait to let them think about a question before they disengage? How can I motivate them to practice before our next meeting? What is the encouragement they need to hear to keep going after poor test performance? The list goes on. When I learn what resonates with individual students and apply that, the unfolding of progress is beautiful.
Large Language Models, however, lack the emotional intelligence required to establish deep emotional resonance with students. Therefore, as Jin Wang and Wenxiang Fan put it, “teachers should pay attention to their students’ emotional and psychological needs to avoid overly mechanized and tool-driven learning experiences.” Below are 4 essential strategies to press into our Human Elements in this AI Era:
- Teachers must foster engagement through storytelling or personal experience of real world application, and connecting interdisciplinary dots.
- Teachers must offer encouragement when a student is overwhelmed, disengaged, anxious, or proud. Additionally, teachers must motivate and help students build confidence, resilience, and a sense of agency; encouraging them through failure and celebrating growth.
- Teachers should model their process of curiosity and metacognition to students. I always remind my students that the biggest mathematical breakthroughs resulted after years of study. It is required to struggle, and redo, and rethink about a problem over and over.
- Foster collaboration through classwide discussion, thought provoking considerations, and shared problem-solving activities.
I love how the Britannica Dictionary defines “evolve”: “to change or develop slowly often into a better, more complex, or more advanced state.” While GenAI will reshape the classroom and our students' learning needs, it will never replace teachers – only evolve them. This shift makes it ever important that teachers press into the unique human elements that make learning meaningful.