AI in education: algorithmic decision making

Audience: PG research, PG taught

Date: Wednesday 12 March 2025

Times: 14.00 to 16.00

Programme: GRADskills
Programme: MSkills

Key details: This has moved to run as an online event. This workshop is about the roles algorithms play in education, from advantages and disadvantages to the ethical issues they create, which may affect students and reconfigure the role of the teacher.

Target audience

Audience: PG research

Course mapped to

Vitae's Researcher Development Framework domains: B3 (Professional and career development), D3 (Engagement and impact)

Course information

PLEASE NOTE: This workshop will run online.  If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your place at least two working days before so that we can allow others onto the course.

Note:  There will be a follow up 'AI in education, II' which will continue the conversation for those interested, but attending one without the other is also acceptable.

What roles do algorithms now play in the context of education? What are the advantages and disadvantages to using algorithms to make decisions in educational contexts? What are the ethical issues at stake? How might the decisions they make affect different groups of students in different ways? How might their use reconfigure the role of the teacher?

Increasingly, algorithms are used to make decisions in the context of education. Their use, until recently, has gone mostly unnoticed. But over the past year, a number of scandals have broken in relation to the use of algorithmic decision-making in education. For example, in 2020, we saw algorithmic decision-making in education hit national and international headlines in the context of A-level examinations in the UK. Future teachers and lecturers will need to understand how algorithms are used to make decisions in education and they will therefore also need to understand the advantages, disadvantages, risks, and ethical issues surrounding their deployment. This workshop is designed specifically for postgraduates who are interested in further developing their skillset in order to enhance their employment prospects in the context of teaching. In advance of the workshop, participants will be asked to read a case study that will be discussed in class. This will help students to recognise and relate to specific algorithmic practices in the context of education and will enable them to then use the knowledge and understanding they gain in the context of their own work.

The workshop introduces the topic of algorithmic decision-making in the context of education. It considers advantages and disadvantages of deploying algorithms in educational contexts, the ethical issues at stake, their consequences of their use for different groups of students, and the ways their use may reconfigure the role of the teacher.

Aims and objectives

By the end of this workshop you should be able to:

• Recognise and relate to specific algorithmic decision-making practices in the context of education and then be able to consider these in your own work after reading the case study.
• Apply the knowledge from the workshop to the development of your own teaching work.
• Draw on the knowledge and experience you gain at the workshop and apply these to real world environments.

Tutors

Margaret Adamson

Course provider

IELLI
Email: ielli@st-andrews.ac.uk