How can we tell if artificial intelligence threatens work?

by Stuart W. Elliott
U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

New technologies tend to shift jobs and skills. New technologies bring new products, which shift jobs across occupations: with the arrival of cars, the economy needed more assembly line workers and fewer blacksmiths. New technologies also bring new work processes, which shift skills in jobs: with the arrival of copiers, office workers needed to replace ink cartridges but not use carbon paper. Economic history is full of examples of new technologies causing such shifts.

Workers often worry that new technologies will destroy old jobs without creating new ones. However, economic history suggests that job destruction and creation have always gone together, with a shift in jobs and skills that leaves most people still employed.

Will artificial intelligence (AI) differ from past technologies in the way it shifts jobs and skills? To answer that question, we need to know which skills will be supplied by AI and which will be left for people. If workers have the skills AI lacks, they will be able to find new jobs if AI automates their old jobs. In that case, AI will shift jobs and skills just like previous technologies. However, if workers do not have the skills AI lacks, these shifts will break down and the institution of work itself will be threatened.

As an example, consider literacy and numeracy. These skills are widely used in many jobs—so widely used that countries invest many years of formal education to help everyone develop them. The OECD assesses these skills in its Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) because they are so important for work and education.

A new OECD study uses PIAAC to assess whether AI can perform these skills as well. The study is only exploratory, but its results are sobering. Current AI techniques are close to allowing computers to perform at Level 3 on the 5-level scale in literacy and numeracy—at or above the proficiency of 89% of adults in OECD countries. Only 11% of adults are above the level that AI is close to reproducing.

If literacy and numeracy were the only work skills, this new study would suggest that AI is not like other technologies. As current AI techniques are applied, many workers with moderate proficiency in literacy and numeracy would be displaced and would not have the higher-level skills for the jobs that remain. The usual shift of workers between jobs and skills would break down.

Of course, if this happened, we would need to improve education. The results of the Survey of Adult Skills show what might be possible. For adults with tertiary education, 21% are above the computer level in literacy and 23% are above the computer level in numeracy. And in the highest performing countries, these percentages for adults with tertiary education reach 37% in literacy and 36% in numeracy, for Japan and Sweden, respectively. These results are much better than the current OECD average of 11%.

With high-quality tertiary education, many more adults could develop literacy and numeracy skills above the current computer level. However, there would still be a serious problem if literacy and numeracy were the only work skills even with high-quality tertiary education for everyone. We do not have examples of education policies at scale that bring 80% or even 50% of adults above the current computer level.

Fortunately, literacy and numeracy are not the only work skills. There are many more skills that are important for work than the ones measured by PIAAC. Many jobs involve tasks using expert knowledge like scientific reasoning. Many jobs involve physical tasks like cooking. Many jobs involve social tasks like conversation.

PIAAC does not measure the other skills needed for such tasks and cannot tell us how AI might perform on them. However, computer scientists are developing AI to reproduce these other skills as well. Do AI’s capabilities in these other skills look as proficient as their capabilities in literacy and numeracy? We do not know.

The new study using PIAAC to assess AI in literacy and numeracy is only a first step. The OECD is working with the U.S. National Academies to develop a new programme to assess AI capabilities across all work skills. In the years ahead, policymakers will need this information to know whether AI will shift jobs and skills just like other technologies have done in the past—or whether this time is different.

Links
Computers and the Future of Skill Demand
Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills
Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #AI and #GoingDigital

Photo credit: @Shutterstock

Rethinking the learning environment

by Rose Bolognini
Communications and Publications Co-ordinator, Directorate for Education and Skills

What do innovative learning environments around the world look like? How might they be led and evaluated? What policy strategies stimulate and support them? For the past decade the OECD’s Centre for Education Research and Innovation (CERI) has addressed these and similar questions in an international study called Innovative Learning Environments.

Now drawing on their extensive research within this project  – from the nature of learning, to innovative cases, to leadership and strategies – CERI has translated these findings into a practical handbook, aimed at educators, leaders and innovative policy-shapers. It gives a set of tools based on this extensive international knowledge source as well as succinct summaries of the research accessible to practitioners.

The handbook is divided into four chapters:

i) The principles of learning to design learning environments;
ii) The OECD “7+3” framework for innovative learning environments;
iii) Learning leadership and evaluative thinking; and
iv) Transformation and change in learning ecosystems.

Altogether, fourteen tools are included – some might be covered in a single workshop session while others ideally need a couple of years to work through (with most in between).

Take the first chapter on the learning principles. These principles emphasise flexibility and autonomy, placing learners at the centre and treat learning as collaborative where educators are highly attuned to learners’ emotions and what motivates them. It is an environment where diversity is embraced, the learner is challenged but not exhausted and overwhelmed, expectations are clear and formative feedback is encouraged. It is also an environment that urges learners to make connections across areas of knowledge and subjects as well as with the wider community.

There are four tools presented to help educators fully understand these fundamental principles. Let’s work through the first one to give a flavour of the handbook. It is called “How well do we embed the learning principles?”. There are five steps outlined, intended to push schools or networks or districts to think about whether they exemplify what makes young people learn best and to gather evidence to back up their answers. The steps range from “familiarisation with the principles” to “overviewing the existing situation” and “deciding on a course of action”. The last step invites schools to come back and review their progress after allowing some time to pass.

The handbook also provides tools for educators to focus on the changing landscape of leadership – no longer a one person job at the top but a shared, collaborative responsibility between teachers, learners and the wider community. And just as formative feedback is systematically integrated in the classroom so should leaders continuously question and evaluate the educational innovation taking place.

And what might these changing learning environments look like? Even though the handbook and previous research discuss how traditional environments can transform,  it would be useful to be able to measure education systems’ development towards and implementation of innovative learning environments. Now in 2017, CERI has launched a new study on Innovative Pedagogies for Powerful Learning to take this initiative a step further  – looking more in depth at teaching and learning. In this context, the OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments is not the end point – but one resource in the rich mix of analyses and reflections that will inspire innovative change in the classroom.

Links
The OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments 
The Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project 
The Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Photo credit: ©istock 

Risky business

by Tracey Burns
Project Leader and Senior Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, so do the risks we face. A disease breaking out in a village in Africa, a bank crashing on Wall Street or a protest in a distant country can all potentially “snowball” and influence the world financial, health or security order.

While very different topics, environmental degradation, financial crises, cyber-attacks and social instability both within and in between countries have all been identified as risks for OECD countries and indeed, the whole world. Their global nature means that all of these risks require a co-ordinated international response. Education has a key role to play: as a preventative tool, it can be used to raise awareness as well as shape the attitudes and responsible behaviours of a generation of conscious global citizens. Education can also mitigate the effects of risks by equipping students with the knowledge and skills needed to cope with crises as they emerge, building their resilience in the process.

A newly released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight explores some of the ways education can make a difference:

• Education can prepare the future workforce with the skills required to address emerging risks. Whether it is in the fields of green energy, sustainable food production or clean water technology, there is a call for stronger STEM skills for students and more training in these innovative fields as one of the best ways to respond to environmental risk. Similarly, technological risks such as cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage have created a huge demand for cyber security professionals and even "ethical hackers" as a way to improve cyber safety. These emerging fields of work will be built on new frontiers of research and innovation, and all will require new skills and competencies.

• Education can be a catalyst for changing knowledge, attitude and behaviour. For example, better educated people are more likely to be concerned about the environment and to promote political decisions that protect it. "Green schools” can be used to model what sustainability means in a daily context as they are designed to minimise energy, water, and waste. Environmental issues can be integrated across the curriculum and are a powerful tool for raising awareness.

• Education can reduce the impact of risk and crises. While not the main cause of the latest global financial crisis, a lack of financial literacy might have deepened its effects: Less financially literate individuals are more likely to have costly mortgages and engage in credit card spending, and less likely to hold precautionary savings and undertake retirement planning. The latest PISA results reveal that 22% of students do not have basic financial skills across OECD countries. Financial education can foster greater understanding of financial processes, products and services and might be a key to preventing future shocks from extending and worsening.

• Education can protect and prevent young people from engaging in risky behaviour. Cyber “hygiene” education seeks to provide youth with the tools to better handle technological risks such as fraud, identity theft, online predators and cyberbullying. It is an increasing part of the curriculum in countries such as the Netherlands, the UK or Japan. Similarly, both formal and informal education can help counter the risks of radicalisation and extremism, two very current concerns for countries across the OECD. By supporting social cohesion, fostering intercultural understanding and dialogue, and developing social and emotional skills, education can help protect youth at risk from recruiters who seek to attract them to their cause.

In our fast-paced modern world, it might be a comfort to know that some things remain the same. Basic literacy and numeracy are still important, for participation in society and as the basis for critical thinking and problem solving. These skills in turn allow us to better manage change and uncertainty. Perhaps one of the most important roles that education can play is to foster the capacity to deal flexibly with change and manage unanticipated and interconnected crises. Managing volatile situations well lessens the chance of global contagion of risk.

We can't entirely prevent the next outbreak of a communicable disease, a cyber-attack or another bank crashing. But we can continue to equip our citizens with the tools they need to protect themselves, and we can continue to support innovative solutions to minimise these risks. Any challenge is also an opportunity. The biggest contribution education can make it is to help develop the capacity and skills to build a safer future for all.

Links
Trends Shaping Education Spotlight No. 10: Globalisation of Risk
Trends Shaping Education 2016
PISA Financial Literacy
Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Photo credit: Crisis Economic Environmental Finance Global Concept @shutterstock 

Educating for Innovation and Innovation in Education

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

People have quite different views on the role that digital technology can and should play in schools. But we just can’t ignore how digital tools have so fundamentally transformed the world around schools. Students unable to navigate through our complex digital landscape are simply no longer able to participate in our social, economic and cultural life.

In the past, education was about teaching people something. Now, it’s about helping students develop a reliable compass and the navigation skills to find their own way through an increasingly uncertain, volatile and ambiguous world. These days, we no longer know exactly how things will unfold, often we are surprised and need to learn from the extraordinary, and sometimes we make mistakes along the way. And it will often be the mistakes and failures, when properly understood, that create the context for learning and growth.

A generation ago, teachers could expect that what they taught would last for a lifetime of their students. Today, schools need to prepare students for more rapid economic and social change than ever before, for jobs that have not yet been created, to use technologies that have not yet been invented, and to solve social problems that we do not yet know will arise.

The dilemma for educators is that the kind of skills that are easiest to teach and easiest to test are also the skills that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource. Half of the jobs that we know in OECD countries can already be carried out by digital technology. Put simply, the world no longer rewards people just for what they know – Google knows everything – but for what they can do with what they know. Because that’s the main differentiator today, education is becoming more about ways of thinking; involving creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and decision making; about ways of working, including communication and collaboration; about tools for working, and that includes not just the capacity to use technology but to recognise its potential for new ways of working; and, last but not least, it’s about the social and emotional skills that help people live and work together. Think about courage, integrity, curiosity, leadership, resilience or empathy.

All that demands new and innovative approaches to education where technology can no longer be on the margins of education but needs to be central to any solution.

I know teachers and school leaders are working hard to make this work. But our latest PISA results show that the reality in our schools lags considerably behind the promise of technology. In 2012, virtually all 15-year-old students in OECD countries had a computer at home, but less than three quarters used a computer or tablet at school, and in some countries it was fewer than half. In fact, the first thing we usually tell students entering their school is to turn off anything that has an on-or-off switch.

But far more importantly, even where computers are used in classrooms, their impact on student learning outcomes is mixed at best. Students who use computers moderately at school tend to have somewhat better learning outcomes than students who use computers rarely. But students who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most learning outcomes. Imagine that, the more intensively students use computers at school, the less digital literate they seem to be, even after accounting for social background and student demographics.

And perhaps the most disappointing finding is that technology seems of little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Put simply, ensuring that every child attains a baseline level of proficiency in reading and math seems still to do more to create equal opportunities in a digital world than subsidising access to high-tech devices and services.

So it’s clear that more of the same technology cannot be the answer. But it’s also clear that we need to get this right if we want to provide teachers with learning environments that support 21st-century pedagogies and, most importantly, if we want to provide children with the 21st-century skills they need to succeed in tomorrow’s world.

That’s why we have invited Education Ministers and industry leaders to come together in Israel for our second Global Summit on the Education Industry. Why Israel? Because it has such a vibrant startup culture in education where educators, entrepreneurs and policy makers aren’t afraid of each other but collaborate day after day for more innovative and productive educational solutions.

Technology is the only way to dramatically expand access to knowledge. Why should students be stuck with a textbook that was printed two years ago, and maybe designed ten years ago, when they can have access to the world’s best and most up-to-date information?

Technology also provides great platforms for collaboration in knowledge creation where teachers can share and enrich teaching materials. And indeed, if you look at the countries with the most technology-savvy students, they typically start with connecting teachers before pushing technology into classrooms.

But we also need to become much better at using technology to support new pedagogies that focus on learners as active participants with tools for inquiry-based pedagogies and collaborative workspaces. Technology is our best bet to enhance experiential learning, foster project-based and inquiry-based pedagogies, facilitate hands-on activities and cooperative learning, deliver formative real-time assessment and support learning and teaching communities. And there are plenty of good examples around, such as remote and virtual labs, highly interactive courseware that builds on state-of-the-art instructional design, sophisticated software for experimentation and simulation, social media and serious games.

And all of this is isn’t just about 21st-century learning. The teachers of today’s “connected” learners are confronted with lots of related issues, from information overload to plagiarism, from protecting children from online risks like fraud, violations of privacy up to setting an appropriate media diet. We expect schools to educate our children to become critical consumers of Internet services and electronic media, to help them make informed choices. And we expect schools to raise awareness about the risks that children face on line and how to avoid them.

To better deliver on the promises which technology holds, countries will need convincing strategies to build teachers’ capacity. And policy-makers need to become better at building support for this agenda. Those are precisely the topics that we want to discuss at this summit.

Given the uncertainties that accompany all change, teachers will always favour the status quo. If we want to mobilise support for more technology-rich schools, we need to become better at communicating the need and building support for change. We need to invest in capacity development and change-management skills, develop sound evidence and feed this evidence back to institutions, and of course back all that up with sustainable financing.

And none of this is going to work without teachers becoming active agents for change, not just in implementing technological innovations, but in designing them too. One thing is clear, technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology will never replace poor teaching.

This summit is a start for this and the OECD stands ready to support and facilitate the dialogue between Ministers and the Education Industry to take this discussion forward.

Links:
Innovating Education and Educating for Innovation: The Power of Digital Technologies and Skills
Global Education Industry Summit: September 26-27 2016, Israel
Photo credit: Innovation concept diagram illustration design over a white background @Shutterstock

A Brave New World: The new frontiers of technology and education

by Tracey Burns
Project Leader, Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD

“I don’t actually have an attention problem. I just take the pill when I need to be sharp”. Legal drugs such as Ritalin, used for treating attention deficit disorder, are increasingly being repurposed by healthy students to feel sharper on exam day.

"Smart drugs" allegedly improve memory and concentration. In addition to Ritalin other drugs are also taken to aid learning, such as modafinil, normally used to treat sleep disorders. University students can rely on them to pull all-nighters during exam weeks. The belief (true or not) that these drugs might boost academic performance has grown along with their availability – both through a marked increase in the number of prescriptions and  through more prevalent online markets where prescriptions are not as carefully scrutinised.

This raises a series of ethical and practical questions for education. Do smart drugs provide some students with an unfair advantage? Should tertiary institutions take a stand on the illegal use of cognitive performance-enhancing drugs? And what about younger users? Reports of teenagers and even pre-teens abusing smart drugs have raised concern about the lack of research on the impacts of these drugs on developing brains.

These questions highlight some of the more challenging aspects of the technological advances sweeping our classrooms and societies. Trends Shaping Education 2016 looks at how technology is transforming our lives – and asks whether education will be able to keep up.

When we think of technology and education, we usually think of information and communication technologies (ICTs). And indeed, ICTs have changed the way we live. Increasingly mobile technologies allow us to buy our groceries, pay our bills, watch films and attend meetings without ever leaving our homes. In fact, we increasingly do many of these things at once: Internet users perform seven activities at any one time on average, up from five just a few years previous and giving rise to worries of decreasing attention spans among today's youth.

However, technological advances are not exclusive to the Internet. Although it might seem like science fiction, biotechnology is used in medicine to combat disease, in agriculture to produce higher yields and more resistant crops and in the environment to develop cleaner energy. One example of how biotechnology is more integrated in our lives comes from genome sequencing, or the process of revealing the genetic make-up of cells. Once extremely expensive, technological advances have reduced the price exponentially in just a few years. Individuals can now afford to map their genes and identify whether they carry potentially life threatening mutations. Earlier this year scientists from the United Kingdom were given permission to edit the genes of human embryos for research purposes. Will designer babies (and designer students) be part of the future?

The impact of technological trends on education is clear. A great deal of work has already been done to identify how and where education can better use technology in the classroom. And there is interesting new research on emerging opportunities for education and work that could develop from human enhancement and biotechnologies.

In contrast to many trends that are relatively gradual and often linear, the pace of technological development is exponential and its impact much less predictable. One of the most difficult issues will be staying abreast of the evolution of technology and human behaviour: the use of smart drugs is one example. Another is the delicate terrain of human emotion and large online audiences, which has given rise to new risks such as cyber bullying and revenge porn.

In education, schools and teachers are increasingly asked to guide students through the advantages and disadvantages of the virtual world without always having the necessary skills themselves. Difficult questions will evolve as quickly as the technology. For example, how does "textbook learning" interact with the easy answers available at the simple push of a button? Whose voice counts if there is competing information? And what should we do, if anything, about smart drugs and other biotech advances?

The key is adaptability. Worries about decreasing attention spans, digital withdrawal disorder and “fear of missing out” syndrome illustrate the shifting landscape of the future. Advances in biotechnology and smart drugs will continue to raise difficult technical and ethical questions as well as provide new opportunities. All of these issues need to be part of a long-term strategy to help education keep pace with modern society. When Aldous Huxley wrote A Brave New World in 1931 he was worried about the fast paced world of the future. That time has now come, and it is up to us – and our education systems - to make the most of it.

Links:
Trends Shaping Education 2016
Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection
Trends Shaping Education 2014 Spotlight 5, Infinite Connections: Education and new technologies
Measuring the Digital Economy: A New Perspective
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Photo credit: Scientist examining samples with plants @Shutterstock

Can students be overconnected?

By Francesco Avvisati
Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

In the pursuit of happiness, Aristotle famously wrote “Meson te kai ariston”: moderation, staying away from both excess and deficiency, is best. The past weeks of holiday celebrations reminded many of us how there could be too much of even the good things in life, e.g. too much eating and too much drinking.
Similar advice may apply just as well to young people’s use of the Internet. Most 15-year-olds in OECD countries spend at least some time each day wandering through cyberspace as part of their media diet. As this month’s PISA in Focus reports, in 2012, every day or almost every day, a large majority of 15-year-old students (71%, on average across OECD countries) browsed the Internet for fun, e.g. on video-streaming sites, and participated in an online social network (73%). In most OECD countries, more than one in two students reported spending two hours or more on line every day on weekends.

While spending up to about two hours on line every day is the norm, some students consume Internet services (or video games, particularly if they’re boys) for much longer than this. In fact, for quite a few students, the time spent every day on the Internet does not appear to have many limits – apart from the 24 hours that make up a day. On average, about 7% of students in OECD countries reported spending more than six hours on line every day outside of school – including on schooldays. In the Russian Federation and Sweden, one in eight students so reported.

Children gain access to a host of educational resources and engaging experiences through digital devices and the Internet, but concerns are also mounting about the possible harmful consequences of unrestricted Internet use. Children clearly need to be protected from online threats , such as exposure to harmful content or contacts (think pornography or cyber bullying), online fraud or abusive marketing practices, and privacy-related risks, such as identity theft. Many of these risks existed well before the Internet, but measures to protect children from the corresponding offline threats (such as physical barriers, age-related norms that prevent access to certain spaces, and adult supervision) are difficult to migrate and enforce in a virtual space that is inherently open.
Research has also shown that extended screen time in itself may have negative consequences, e.g. on adolescents,  sleep,  physical activity and social well-being.

 PISA data confirm a troubling relationship between the time teenagers spend on line outside of school and their sense of belonging at school. Results clearly indicate that extreme Internet users (those who spend six or more hours per day on line during weekdays) are twice as likely as moderate Internet users (those who spend between one and two hours per day on line) to report that they feel lonely at school (14% compared to 7%). Extreme Internet users are also particularly at risk of being less engaged with school and of scoring below their peers in the PISA assessment of mathematics.

While these findings cannot prove cause and effect, they suggest that avoiding excess, when it comes to using technology, is important not just for students’ leisure time, but also for how effective school systems are in promoting students’ learning. A concerted effort by schools and parents can help students to become critical consumers of Internet services and electronic media. Schools can raise awareness about the risks that children face on line and how to avoid them; and parents can help their children to moderate their screen time and balance it with other recreational activities, such as sports and, equally important, sleep.

Links:
Does it matter how much time students spend on line outside of school? PISA in Focus, N.59.
Quelle est l’incidence du temps que les élèves passent en ligne en dehors de l’école ? PISA in loupe No.59 (French Version)
The protection of children online report
Electronic media use and sleep in school-aged children and adolescents: A review
Sleep and use of electronic devices in adolescence: results from a large population-based study
Is spending time in screen-based sedentary behaviors associated with less physical activity: a cross national investigation
Adolescent Screen Time and Attachment to Parents and Peers
Photo credit: wireless man with blue waves over head© Shuttershock