Will AI Tutors Change the Classroom? | Dr. Victoria Fudge

I'm gonna jump into a question that's been on my mind.

Artificial intelligence tutors.

This is something that is very well associated with you and the work that you've done.

does this mean that going forward our kids are not going to need humans to tutor them at home and they can sit in front of Claude and they're going to be fine? That's how I'm reading this.

Is that completely wrong?

That is completely wrong.

You know what? I thought it was.

I was just being a little controversial.

That is completely wrong.

And when I talk about AI tutors, I talk about AI tutors being almost like a support in the classroom and a support for our students that work alongside our teachers.

My background is as a classroom teacher.

And I can tell you right now, when I was in the classroom, I had a class of 25 kids of varying levels and varying needs.

And I could not...

As hard as I tried sometimes, I just couldn't meet them all where they were.

And they had struggles that I couldn't grow as much as I wanted to.

So I would see a half a year's worth of growth instead of a full year's or a year and a half.

Students would come in at a second grade reading level.

By the time they left fourth grade, they were at a third grade reading level.

They still weren't on level.

And so I was struggling to help them grow.

So if AI tutors had come out when I was teaching, I would have seen it as an ability to kind of extend myself to meet the kids and help them where they are, but also to inform my practice with them as well.

So the data on the back end for the tutor would help inform me of what I'm doing when I'm meeting with them and supporting them in small group.

So teachers aren't going away.

I don't think the AI tutors are going to do everything for our kids.

The teachers are still needed in the classroom because that knowledge of our students and that relationship building piece is still so vital in every classroom.