It's been a busy summer for team Merlyn! Our AI assistant for teachers played a central role in a Hechinger Report article exploring the aspects of teaching that should remain human, we won "Best AI Platform" in the Global Edtech Awards, and we got the opportunity to share Merlyn with policymakers on Capitol Hill.
What aspects of teaching should remain human?
Here at Merlyn Mind, we've always believed that AI can't replace teachers, but it can support them. Our Merlyn voice-enabled classroom assistant was built from the ground up to solve real problems in the classroom. With Merlyn, teachers like Ron Clark Academy's Daniel Thompson have less tech friction and more time to focus on the all-important human side of education.
A recent article by Chris Berdik in The Hechinger Report explores the aspects of teaching that should always remain human – "no matter how powerful AI becomes." In the article, our CEO Satya Nitta says "there’s something 'deeply profound' about human communication that allows flesh-and-blood teachers to quickly spot and address things like confusion and flagging interest in real time."
"He joins other experts in technology and education who believe AI’s best use is to augment and extend the reach of human teachers, a vision that takes different forms. For example, the goal of Merlyn Mind’s voice assistant is to make it easier for teachers to engage with students while also navigating apps and other digital teaching materials. Instead of being stationed by the computer, they can move around the class and interact with students, even the ones hoping to disappear in the back."
In a Q&A that the nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet released after the article was published, Berdik told his colleague Javeria Salman about his interest in AI in education.
Why did you want to explore this question of how, and in what ways, AI can replace teachers?
From the first exploratory interviews I did on this topic, I was surprised to learn how deep the history of AI trying to teach went. There's so much hype (and doom) currently around generative AI, and it really is remarkable and powerful, but it puts things into perspective to learn that people have tried to harness AI to teach for many decades, with pretty limited results in the end. So, then I heard the story of Watson, an AI engine that quickly and easily dispatched Jeopardy! champions, but couldn't hack it as a tutor. It clearly had the necessary knowledge at its beck and call. What didn't it have? If we got beyond the hype of the latest generative AI, could it muster that critical pedagogic component that Watson lacked? And, finally, if the answer was no, what then was its best classroom use? Those were my starting points.
How hesitant or eager were teachers like Daniel Thompson, whose classroom you visited, to use AI assistants?
Thompson was cautiously optimistic. In fact, he was pretty eager to use the tool, precisely because it could make the other apps and multimedia he used less cumbersome, and navigating them less onerous. But Thompson did a few quick stress tests of the assistant, by asking it to answer questions about the local Atlanta sports teams that had nothing to do with his curriculum, checking the guardrails by asking it to compose a fake message firing a colleague. The assistant declined those requests, showing once again that occasionally the most useful thing AI can do is gently tell us we've asked too much of it.
You wrote that students weren't interested in engaging with IBM Watson. Why not?
As more than one source explained to me, the process of learning includes moments of challenge and friction, which can be "busy work" drudgery, but is often times at the heart of what it means to learn, to puzzle over ideas, to truly create, to find one's own way through to understanding. And I think that students (like a lot of us) see AI as a tool that can take care of some onerous, time consuming, or tedious task on our behalf. So, it's going to take a lot more for AI to engage students when its job is to guide them through the friction of learning rather than just be an escape hatch from it.
As more of these tools enter the classroom this school year, what will you be watching for?
I may have a somewhat esoteric interest in what's next with AI in classrooms. I'm personally really interested in how schools will handle critical AI literacy, where both students and educators devote the time and resources to think critically about what AI is, the wonderful things it can do, and just as importantly what it can't, or shouldn't do on our behalf.
Read "What aspects of teaching should remain human?" in the Hechinger Report.
Merlyn wins Global EdTech Award
Merlyn was recently named Best AI Platform in the Global EdTech Awards.
Here’s what the judges had to say: “The commitment to the technology of this product supporting teachers and improving classroom workflows is admirable and looks very effective! I particularly like how it promotes human connection and mobility in the classroom. … Great that you have years of experience in this area and have conducted research with the support of well-known research universities and have used the information to adjust your offerings for educators.”
Merlyn goes to Washington
This summer, we had the privilege of showcasing Merlyn on Capitol Hill at an AI Showcase hosted by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
With several former educators in the crowd, Merlyn was immediately recognized as the only AI solution that supports teachers during active instruction. Visitors appreciated Merlyn’s ability to untether educators from their technology and allow them to spend more time engaged with their students.
Our appropriateness model also resonated with the safety-minded crowd. This best-in-class model ensures Merlyn’s in-classroom chat feature provides a safe learning environment by filtering out inappropriate content in real-time.
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