Education in the Age of AI
hello hello welcome to Smart talks with IBM a podcast from Pushkin Industries iHeart radio and IBM I'm Malcolm Gladwell this season we're diving back into the world of artificial intelligence but with a focus on the powerful concept of open its possibilities implications and misconceptions we'll look at openness from a variety of angles and explore how the concept is already reshaping Industries ways of doing business and our very notion of what's possible on today's episode Dr Lorie Santos sat down with two women at the Forefront of AI in education Justina Nixon santiel is vice president and chief impact officer of IBM corporate social responsibility and April Dawson is an associate dean of technology and Innovation and professor of law at North Carolina Central University School of Law together they explore the transformative impact of AI on education and the workforce as technology rapidly evolves Industries are being reshaped and the demand for new skills is at an all-time high this is opening up opportunities for diverse Talent enabling individuals from various backgrounds to excel in roles they might not have previously considered they also address the ethical considerations of AI emphasizing the importance of maintaining a human centered approach whether you're a teacher a student or someone interested in the future of work it's essential to embrace the role of AI in the education landscape AI is not only changing the way we work but also how we learn making education more accessible personalized and aligned with the demands of the modern job [Music] market Justin and April so great to meet both of you I'm so excited for this conversation thank you for having me and thank you for having me Justina to start could you share some insights on your journey to becoming IBM's Chief impact officer and how your background in engineering shapes your approach to corporate social responsibility so I've had an interesting Journey I'm an immigrant I was one of the only black women who graduated from my schools mechanical engineering program many many years ago I started my engineering career at a nuclear facility that's around 45 miles outside of Buffalo New York and eventually worked for one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in engineering marketing and eventually incorporate social responsibility I was hired to lead the organization away from traditional philanthropy to creating platforms and solutions that leveraged 4G and 5G Technologies to positively impact disadvantaged communities and that has what has led me to the work that I do at IBM today I have the honor of being the company's first Chief impact officer and it's such a privilege and a responsibility to be at IBM which has such a huge history in sustainability in Social and in the ethical space as well when I consider how my background in engineering ties into the work that I do I actually think Engineers are very skilled at analyzing data and at Innovative problem solving the other thing where there's a lot of alignment with my engineering background is really around how do I think about using technology to solve some of the biggest issues that we have in society and I get very excited about innovating and creating and leveraging Technologies like Ai and hybrid Cloud to really bring those into the work that we do and to solve some of those big challenges that we have in society today around sustainability and education that's fabulous April tell me about your path to becoming associate dean of technology and Innovation as well as a professorin law so I am a child of an educator actually Educators both my parents are Educators I went to high school where my mom taught and it was in the 80s and it was during that time period when teachers were given Apple Computers so they were brand new my mom brought one home I started you know playing with it and I just kind of fell in love with the technology I received my undergraduate degree in computer science science because of that early exposure I went to Bennett College here in Greensboro North Carolina it's an HBCU a historically black college in University I was a programmer after graduating from Bennett and I've always loved technology but I also had a love for the law so after being a programmer for a couple of years I decided to go to law school and even as a lawyer I leveraged technology in my private practice when I decided to begin teaching almost 20 years ago I would ask myself how could I leverage the technology to enhance my teaching to help the students better understand the material and so when our Dean at the time brownie Lewis when she was able to facilitate a $5 million Grant to North Carolina Central University School of Law we created the technology law and policy Center and she asked me if I would be interested in serving as the inaugural associate dean of technology and Innovation so suffice it to say I'm in my dream job I'm able to combine my love of Technology my love of law my love of education and so it's really an exciting time to be in a position like I have I love that April what inspired you to integrate Ai and Technology into your law curriculum it's interesting as I mentioned before I've always used it personally as an educator but the thought of teaching a class that really kind of focused on technology and the legal implications of that really occurred because uh Ray Thomas who was an IP lawyer and worked at IBM at the time in 2020 so around the pandemic he encouraged us to take advantage of the IBM skills build training program the Train the trainer program so really not until that time period did I even really even think about teaching a tech Focus legal class and during that time period a couple of my other colleagues and I we did the Train the trainer blockchain course I did the data science course and then that next summer we team taught the blockchain for lawyers class which we designed and then I taught a data science for lawyers class and so that was you know really kind of the first iteration of us really being intentional about teaching technology and law and then one of my other colleagues Dr sabon Grady she is a professor at the school of library and information Sciences here at nccu she reached out to me and said would you be interesting in teaching a joint AI in the law class that would include her master's of information science students and my law students so it's a wonderful interdisciplinary class where you have Master's students and law students and we talk about the foundations of AI we talk about the legal implications of policy implications and so really you know this kind of all started because of the resources that IBM have made available to ntcu that's so cool and that class sounds amazing I wish I could like drop out of being a professor and attend this class it sounds awesome and so this is a question for both of you in this age of AI and open technology does the role of Education change are we kind of in a different spot with what education should be doing now when I look at the role of Education today from the corporate point of view I think it does change I was having a discussion earlier today with some members of my team and we were discussing early professional hires so people would want to hire right out of college and one of the first things that I shared was some of the tasks that they would have done previously will be automated we will be using AI for those basic tasks that in the past would have hired an inter turn or a recent college graduate to do and it's so critical now that we look at higher level types of tasks that we'll need college graduates to do and I can foresee in the future hiring someone from college who does not have at least a basic understanding of AI there will be some roles where they will have to have an advanced understanding especially if they're in an engineering role or computer science role but across the board they will need to understand AI so when I think about the way that education is changing whether you're a college student whether you are an adult professional you will need to be a lifelong learner and you will need to understand how to continuously upskill and res skill yourself to be able to understand Technologies like AI because of the rapid acceleration of these types of Technologies and I think that's very important I think everyone has to be prepared if they're not doing it today to upskill and res skill themselves and I can't foresee any roles in the future where candidates will not need to have a very basic understanding of AI or even Advanced understanding of AI That's great April let me ask you a slightly different version of the question what is the significance of AI for students and young professionals today when we think about the disruption that Genai especially has caused within the legal profession students have to be more Adept when it comes to feeling comfortable being uncomfortable and learning something new the other thing that I would just kind of emphasize from an educational standpoint is this also means that Educators have to approach teaching differently you know I've been teaching for going on 20 years and things are kind of being turned on their head somewhat right and I have had to upskill and res skill we can't teach that what we don't know we can't monitor that what we don't know just as the students have to understand generative AI the Educators have to understand it as well yeah this is something I felt in the classroom myself as a psychology Professor right is that I'm realizing how much I need to kind of go back to school and learn about all these AI tools not just so I can teach it but just so I can understand how my students are using these things right but also to figure out how I can enhance the educational experience of my own students in Psychology right by giving them access to these tools and so April I'm curious in your experience how does AI actually enhance the educational experience for your law students and I'm curious if you could give an example of the type of thing you do in your classroom yes so one of the things that I I tell my students is you got to get your hands dirty you can't understand these tools if you don't kind of dig in and just see how they work so one giving them permission and encouraging them to do it in terms of how they might be able to use these tools to help them learn better I encourage them to as they're wrestling maybe with Concepts that are confusing they haven't completely wrapped their heads around it and when we think about large language models these tools are really helpful in that sense right if there's a passage in the book and you're not quite following it or there's a a case right and you need some assistance in breaking it down running that information through a large language model and then ask asking questions about it can be really beneficial also in the law score the legal context large language models are really helpful for that as well but one thing I do caution my students is that any understanding that you think you have gained through the use of these tools you need to Circle back to your professor and make sure that your understanding is correct I love that and I I've seen the importance of that in my own classroom too you mentioned so many of the things that these tools are great at but I think another thing that AI in the classroom can help us with is democratizing the classroom and so Justina I'm curious in what ways do you think integrating AI into education is help us going to bridge these gaps and actually democratize access to education even more yeah I think it's going to really make a difference in providing access to education in many different ways I want to give you an example through our IBM skills Bill program we're infusing AI technology into the platform to create a more personalized enhanced experience for Learners in every language so we are creating personalized learning Pathways we are tailoring the access to our Learners to meet their individual needs and we're also using AI to answer questions in a more timely and accurate manner if you really think about it you will need a significant staff to be able to respond quickly to questions to make sure the questions are accurate with AI we can answer questions immediately we can answer them in a more sophisticated way than we did in the past and we can also offer course recommendations and learning Pathways that meet their needs we have courses such as AI ethics and prompt writing and getting started with machine learning all the way to actually using coding to help create these large language models so when you think about the average learner that we are working with they may want just an introductory course on AI ethics or understanding how to use AI in their day-to-day work or they actually may want to understand how do you really leverage or code for large language model and I think it's important to give them all the different options and create those personalized learning Pathways for them the other thing around really democratizing opportunities to provide free access to this kind of learning and we do that again through our skills build program if you have courses that you can only pay to access then you're really not given the opportunity for everyone to advance and to learn so by leveraging AI on our platform but also providing that free access we're really helping to bridge the gap you know for Learners and make sure they can upskill and res skill themselves and help them also increase social and economic Mobility this sounds like an amazing program Justina can you describe the vision behind IBM skills build and how it's built to reach so many Learners around the world world yeah so IBM has always been committed to investing in the future of work and we've offered educational experiences for many many years and IBM skills build is a program again it's free it's open anyone can access it but it's really around getting access to the right technical skills and workplace learning skills so that you could be prepared for a career in technology but in any industry and any field we know now that understanding technology understanding AI or cyber security or any of those Tech topics are needed whether you're working in a tech company or whether you're working in retail or illegal or any of these different Industries so we want to make sure we could provide that access to Learners in 2021 we launched a global commitment to skill 30 million people by 2030 and we are making significant progress against that goal just last year we reported that we skilled 11.5 million Learners around the world and these are Learners that enrolled in IBM courses including accessing our platform IBM skills build and it's really the Cornerstone of our education work at IBM we really focus on scaling our work through Partnerships so we partner with historically black colleges and universities and that's how of course we got the chance to meet April we partner with nonprofit organizations across the globe we also partner with governments to make sure we provide that free access to the communities that are aligned with their National agenda around Skilling and those communities that are most in need it's really important that we scale the program through those Premier Partnerships so that's extremely important to us the vision behind IBM skills build is truly inspiring in a world where technology is changing every industry having access to these crucial skills is more important than ever this initiative is breaking down barriers and ensuring that people from all walks of life can participate in the future of work in order to effectively scale a platform the Strategic collaborations with educational institutions nonprofits and governments are key it's clear that IBM is deeply invested in creating longlasting change in communities around the world this approach will strengthen the workforce globally helping to bridge the digital divide and create more Equitable opportunities in the tech space so now we're shifting gears to think a little bit about the real world insights Justina what can you tell us about the skills first movement this seems to be an open approach to attracting top talent what are you hearing from students and partners yeah so IBM has been leading the skills first movement for quite some time and one of the things that we realized and we actually tested this out is that you don't always need a four-year degree to be successful at a tech job so when we looked at the job postings that we had we decided to make a commitment to have at least 50% of our job postings not requiring a 4-year degree and when we started hiring people without a 4-year degree in certain roles we realized that they were as successful as those with a La year degree now this doesn't work across the board but this is really a way to get access to what I consider to be untapped talent that are skilled in different ways maybe they've had some experiences already maybe they have a different set of Badges and certificates or other credentials that can support them getting access to some of the roles that are offered by companies so this is really a way to help address the opportunity Gap and provide a pathway for Talent what impact do you think AI has had on global learning standards broadly so far I think from the perspective of a law student realizing that this little Universe in which we kind of thought we might operate has expanded when we think about Ai and we think about the implications of AI it goes far beyond our State national I mean you have to have an understanding of what's going on in other countries so even when we're thinking about the regulation of AI and the governance of AI and policies surrounding AI it means you have to be open to learning about what's happening in other countries where AI is disrupting those spaces as well so again I think it really underscores for our law students how you have to see yourself as part of a larger team lawyers don't work in isolation and it's really good that law students are recognizing that while they're still in school so it really seems like these Technologies are kind of changing the learning experience in law by making kind of broader and maybe more Global Justina can you share an example of how IBM skills build has made a significant difference in other kinds of learning Journeys yeah absolutely I mean this is one of the most rewarding parts of my job what I get excited about is when I travel and I meet with students who have been a part of IBM skills build and they have been able to use the learning the certificates the opportunities that we've provided them around mentorship as well to be able to move into a better paying job or a new job that they did not have the opportunity previously we had one of our Learners his name was Oscar and he arrived in California from Mexico when he was around 5 years old and he worked and he attended College full-time but during his last semester he was introduced to the IBM skills Bill program through the Hispanic Heritage Foundation one of our partners and through the career assessment tool of the program he identified areas where he could Excel and IT allowed him to dig deeper into learning paths that match his interest and his skills so he started taking courses such as AI fundamentals he earned credentials and he was able to get a better role when he graduated from college so we have so many beneficiaries of the program who have been able to access the training also access the mentorship that we provide through the program and able to give get a better paying on new job because of it that's fabulous April I know your students have used IBM skills build can you give us an example of how it's made an important impact on a student's Journey yes absolutely so I mentioned that we taught a blockchain for lawyers class and one of the students had a big interest in in blockchain cryptocurrency he actually also had a master's in information science and so he was a dual degree student he was o in my AI in the law class so he not only got the blockchain certificate he got the AI Foundation certificate he want up being the editor-in chief of the Law Journal and he is a legal Tech lawyer and so this kind of goes back to what Justina was saying about making sure that the talent that's there has access to the resources it really does make a big difference in so many of our students lives that's such an inspiring story Justina I'm curious what impact skills build has had on the communities you work with maybe even Beyond just students yeah so it has had a tremendous impact in our communities I think one of the big things about digital skills and upskilling and reskilling is not just in certain areas for example I mentioned the story of Oscar who was graduating from college got access to skills build it helped him get a better paying job but we have programs in sustainability as well we are working with farmers in the middle of Texas and we are providing access to skills build as well so that they can use the technology and understand the technology that we are bringing to them through our sustainability accelerator program and what's so interesting about this is we need to upskill and res skill them as well right so if you think about certain jobs where you just need to better understand the data or the technology our Partnerships with nonprofits to be able to bring it to people in different fields and sustainability is one that we focus on as well that has been inspiring to me we also have programs where we focus on girls especially in India and make sure we're giving them access to this kind of training and mentorship again to make them competitive in the marketplace to make sure that they have an opportunity at a good paying job and that they could be independent so our Global Partners work with us on leveraging skills build curating it in a way that makes sense for their communities that they want to impact and we focus on women who have left the workforce and they want to return we focus on Veterans we focus on black communities in the US Or Hispanic communities so we really look at those really great Global Partnerships and make sure we are bringing in people who would have been otherwise left out of the tech field and giving them the opportunity to resk and upskill themselves and helping them throughout Partnerships connect to good paying jobs as well so so far we've been focused on students and their learning but now I want to turn to both of your learning I'm curious what are some challenges that you've faced in your careers and how have you overcome them yeah sure so one of the things that I quickly found out was that law school was not as I envisioned you kind of go in you think it's one thing it's another the curriculum can be very surprising it's not like the undergraduate curriculum and I just had to kind of reach out and develop mentors and I was very lucky in that I had a number of individuals who provided me with you know a tremendous amount of support and I think that's one of the reasons why I love teaching so much is to be able to support the students and just help them kind of build their community and their Network so they can Excel and then they can reach back and help others Excel as well I love that Justina same question what are some key challenges that you've faced in your career and how have you overcome them yeah I'm smiling because what April mentioned is exactly the experience I've had I was one of the only black women to graduate from my school's mechanical engineering program and when my children were very young I also stepped away from the workforce for several years to focus on them and I don't think I would be successful today without the help of mentor they're the ones that really help me to be successful to understand the corporate environment to connect me with other opportunities and I think it's important to me to make myself available to others and that's a a really big part of what I do I want to make myself and my field more representative of the work that we do and I want to make sure that I provide access to others and give others the same types of opportunities I have and that's why I do enjoy leading this type of work at IBM you're here to both of you giving back to to the students that we were back in the day it's so important Justina IBM has a goal of equipping 30 million Learners with technology skills by 2030 as part of the IBM skills builds programming why is this initiative important and how is IBM planning to exactly achieve this yeah we believe the talent Gap is one of the biggest challenges that we face in society today so AI of course is is accelerating this movement and there's more of a sense of urgency however we know that there is a significant Talent Gap and that there are many people that are disadvantaged who are not getting access to the right opportunities and that's why we made the commitment to skill 30 million people by 2030 and that's why we're providing free access to programs like IBM skills build with over th courses in 20 languages to make them accessible to all and to give others the chance to be successful last year we also announced a commitment to train 2 million people in AI over the next three years because again we understand the importance of AI and understanding it to be successful in any job especially an entry-level job so we're continuing to expand our AI offerings because we know that it is exacerbating the talent Gap and we know that these skills will be in demand significantly by corporations so April Justina just mentioned you know all the changes that we're seeing in AI I'm curious what role you think Educators play in terms of making students aware of all these technological and societal changes happening in their fields yeah educators are so vital and one of the things that I've noticed is that students who have not engaged with the tech have not done so either because an educator a teacher or Professor has told them not to that you know they just say you know no you can't use it or they haven't said anything at all they haven't encouraged them to to look into it to try it and we have to encourage students to become familiar with these tools for all the reasons that jusa mentioned in terms of what the workforce is demanding but also if we don't provide them with guidance then there's the real chance that they will use them inappropriately so we have to provide them with permission to dive in we have to teach them how to use these tools ethically with Integrity what are the best practices and again that kind of goes back to something I mentioned before which I speak about a lot is that it requires Educators to themselves learn about these tools and that's one of the reasons why I was so appreciative of the trainer program because again we started offering courses at the law school because these courses were provided free of charge of course to our faculty so we were able to upskill and res skill and then turn around and share that with our students so educators are are vital but I also think that we need to make sure we do a better job as a society of supporting our Educators so that they can gain the knowledge and then pay that forward to the students right because not everybody's providing the kinds of free resources says the IBM provides for teachers who really need it April in what ways has IBM skills build changed your perspective on the potential of AI in education well as far as the potential it makes it so much easier right I mean it lightens the lift for educators if I had to design the AI foundations class you know ground up there's no way I could have done that and if we're thinking about exposing students regardless of their area of study to AI or to technology those that are experts in those particular spaces they're not going to be able to build those courses so having something like IBM skills build available so that we can you know design a course around those modules that are already put together is incredibly helpful and so it means the potential of providing AI education to all students it just really increases is the possibility which is good for for all of us Justina as you think about your work at IBM how do you balance the need for technological innovation with the importance of maintaining a human- centered approach in education I really like how April touched on ethics earlier because it is so important that we continue to make sure the human is at the center of everything that we do and that we are protecting people even as we Foster Innovation with AI and the way that IBM has done that we've had reasonable policies and guard rails in place around everything that we do around AI I'm actually a part of our AI ethics board we meet on a regular basis to discuss cases to discuss technology and we actually have discussions and make decisions on what is the right thing to do and we are always considering a human- centered approach how do we make sure that we are protect in people and how do we make sure that we have their voice in every decision that we make we have three principles around trust and transparency and the first is the purpose of AI is to augment human intelligence not replace it the second is that data and insights belong to their creator so with anyone that we work with we make sure that we protect their Data Insights and it belongs to them it doesn't belong to us and then any new technology including any AI products systems platforms must be transparent and explainable so I think that's important to have those types of principles in place I'm proud to be a part of the AI ethics board making decisions around how AI is deployed and I think making sure that we continue to keep humans people at the center of every decision we make around Innovation is how we protect them so we've talked so much about all the changes that that are happening right now Justina I kind of want you to put on your like you know future prediction cap what future developments do you anticipate in the realm of open education I think that and I've been in education a very long time and I remember us talking about personalized learning maybe 10 years 15 years ago and I'm not sure it ever came to fruition in the way that we imagined and we know that the teacher will always be the guide they will always be the one that's needed I don't think any technology will ever replace teachers but I think what AI can do is enhance that experience by really creating personalized learning content and experiences in the education space I think that is one of the things that I would say should be something we see in the very near future around the acceleration of AI April you've done so much elegant work teaching your students about Ai and Technology I'm curious what advice you have for other Educators and technologists looking to advocate for a skills first approach or more AI training for their students what advice would you have for them the first piece of advice that I always give is don't feel overwhelmed because you you can I mean there's a lot going on it's hard to keep up with how fast things are moving even for those of us that that love this space you don't have to do everything at once just you know baby steps and that's that's absolutely fine thank you as a professor I have to say I needed to hear that so giving myself Grace taking that one to Heart in fact I have in my PowerPoint presentation the first slide I put up is of a turtle and it says slow your roll and it's like I'm gonna be talking about a lot of things but I want you to remember this this slide just slow your roll it's okay the other thing that I encourage professors to do is to join an educator community group and there are a lot that have popped up as a result of geni and the disruption that we're seeing just in the education space and so how can we crowdsource Our advice without a doubt if you're thinking about a particular assignment and how you might use gen and crafting that assignment or incorporating it it in the assessment there is a professor out there who has either already done it or they're also thinking about it so you know let's be more collaborative and I will say that's been really wonderful for me as a law professor being able to collaborate with professors from other disciplines and the last thing that I would say you know sometimes it can be hard to convince your colleagues within your institution to be Progressive and if you can bring an outside speaker to come in and kind of just share what's going on that can oftentimes get people moving even if you within the building aren't able to get that same traction so those are kind of the three pieces of advice that I'll typically give professors so this has been a fabulous conversation but we are reaching the end of our time but before we wrap let's do a speed round ready first question April 1st complete this sentence in five years AI will blank in five years AI will be more fully leveraged to help lawyers better serve their clients more effic ly and will help close the access to Justice Gap nice Justina same question in five years AI will have disrupted every industry and there would have been significant advancements made in education and sustainability with the use of AI okay speedr question number two what is the number one thing that people misunderstand about AI Justina you first the number one misunderstanding about AI is that is going to destroy everyone's jobs I think that people with AI skills or understanding of AI will have some advantages in the workplace April the number one thing people misunderstand about AI is that only computer scientists or mathematicians or Engineers can understand it you can gain an understanding again through baby steps and there are so many resources available if you explore the information in bite-sized pieces you can begin to wrap your head around it okay next speed round question what advice would you give yourself 10 years ago to better prepare you for today Justina you first the advice I would give myself 10 years ago is to continue learning I always love understanding technology I always Dove deep into whether it's machine learning or 4G and 5G Technologies understanding Ai and hybrid today is something that I also enjoy doing so I would say continue learning continue diving into these Technologies continue understanding what it means for you and your future career April uh being more interdisciplinary so stay current with the evolution of computer science but also incorporate the study of data and ethics and sociology because the challenges that are posed by AI they're multifaceted and you have to have an understanding in these areas to really address the promise and the challenges of AI final speed round question how are you already using AI in your day-to-day life today April so I use it in my teaching the other way that I plan on using it in the future is surveying the students and then using the data analysis tool to help me gather that information and figure out how best to address the information that I've received from my students nice Justina yes so the way that we're using AI today is to actually analyze complex and large data sets in our sustainability work to provide insights to some of our partners on how they can increase crop yield for example or how they can deliver clean energy solutions to rural areas so we actively using it in the program programs that we have within our corporate social responsibility portfolio and also integrating it into our skills Bill platform well thank you both so much you did excellent in the speed round but it was just so fabulous to talk to you both today I think this is a time of so many exciting challenges in the field of education and it was fabulous to hear more about how Ai and IBM skills buil in so many Technologies can help us out thank you both so much for this fun conversation thank you for having us it was great yes thank you thank you what an insightful conversation with Justina and April this discussion demonstrated how technology and education can intersect to create a meaningful impact in today's educational landscape students must utilize AI in the classroom in order to prepare for the modern Workforce and Educators must use the technology including IBM skills build to train students for the complexities of tomorrow's challenges as April and Justina emphasized impact starts by centering the humans using the tool ensuring they're empowered to access adopt and Excel with the technology is just as critical as the power of the tool itself Justina and April's work is a powerful reminder that as we continue to integrate AI technology into our Educational Systems we have the opportunity to create more Equitable and accessible learning environments it's clear that the future of learning and technology is bright and the adoption of AI is crucial in shaping that future smart talks with IBM is produced by Matt Romano Joey fishr Amy Gaines McQuade and Jacob Goldstein or edited by Lydia Jean cot our Engineers are Sarah buger and Ben toay theme song by Gros scope special thanks to the8 bar and IBM teams as well as the Pushkin marketing team Smart Talk with IBM is a production of Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at iHeart media to find more Pushkin podcasts listen on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Malcolm glavo this is a paid advertisement from IBM the conversations on this podcast don't necessarily represent IBM's positions strategies or opinions
2024-09-28 22:33
