Certain Arizona students in grades four through eight will soon be learning core subjects like math and science through a virtual teacher.
Beginning in mid-2025, the state’s “Unbound Academy” will start offering young learners a customized 2-hour daily online lesson plan taught completely by artificial intelligence.
It claims that streaming a day’s primary classes into only a couple hours is twice as impactful and leaves time for students to improve themselves in other ways during the day by learning important life skills. These include financial management, public speaking skills, problem solving, critical thinking and entrepreneurial know-how.
The institution also operates in multiple Florida and Texas locations under the name Alpha School. It aims to expand and start educating Arkansas and Utah kids within the next two years.
Tuition at these private schools is quite expensive though. Parents will need to cough up about US$40,000 per year to have their child educated by a machine for a couple hours and participate in other daily workshops and activities overseen by facilitators.
However, Alpha School claims the high price tag is well worth it because students continually achieve high grades, ranking within the top 2 per cent of all the kids in the United States.
“It’s working for all the kids at the school,” one parent with two boys enrolled at the Austin location said. “There’s no one that it isn’t working for.”
Arizona’s Bold Step into AI-Education. So it begins
Arizona has approved an unprecedented educational model: a charter school where students will receive two hours of daily academic instruction directed entirely by AI. Unbound Academy, launching next year, is a fully online… pic.twitter.com/6ZAd4bPYFX
— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) December 22, 2024
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Most real teachers use AI anyway
A poll completed this year by Washington DC’s analytics firm Impact Research found that most flesh and blood educators implement machine learning in the classroom in some way, shape or form.
Nearly half of all participating teachers said that they use AI at least once a week for various purposes in and out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, 37 per cent have been using the technology to help them brainstorm creative ideas for their lesson plans. Furthermore, 31 per cent use artificial intelligence programs to help craft quizzes and tests.
AI has been gaining popularity for educational purposes throughout the U.S., particularly among kids with disabilities like dyslexia. Many secondary schools, such as Georgia’s Seckinger High School, have made it a central theme in their curriculums.
The technology has been particularly beneficial for assistance with grading assignments and exams.
rowan@mugglehead.com
