Abstract
In the digital age, generative AI significantly influences various industries, especially education. It merges with traditional teaching methods, promising a new era of educational possibilities. This chapter delves into generative AI's impact on content creation and curriculum design, discussing its evolution and benefits like producing diverse, scalable educational materials and adaptive curricula personalized for learners. Real-world examples and case studies underscore its practical impact. Nonetheless, the chapter addresses ethical and pedagogical challenges and the complexity of integrating this technology. It also speculates on generative AI's future interactions with emerging technologies and its broader effects on education systems. Targeting educators, policymakers, and edtech enthusiasts, the chapter serves as a guide and insight provider for navigating this evolving landscape responsibly.
TopIntegrating Generative Ai Into Curriculum Development
As highlighted by Kelly (2009), the curriculum plays a pivotal role in shaping the educational journey of learners. The master plan of the learning experience is designed by the curriculum offered within a course or programme. A curriculum is much more than a series of lectures: It is a comprehensive guide that aims to develop all the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes necessary for the intellectual and personal development of students. In essence, the curriculum serves as a guiding framework, directing both educators and students by specifying what should be taught and learned. A well-designed curriculum might contain a comprehensive plan that outlines desired learning outcomes, instructional strategies, content, and assessment methods (Marsh, 2018).
Effective curriculum development is a complex process that requires careful planning, collaboration, and continuous evaluation (Bartlett & Housden, 2023). So, what kind of advantages can generative AI tools provide us in this process? Let's analyse the curriculum development process step by step to explore the answer to this question.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Curriculum: Refers to the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. It's an integral part of the educational framework and serves as a guide for both educators and students.
Educational Content: This term refers to the actual subject matter or information that is to be taught and learned. It encompasses the theories, concepts, facts, and information across various academic disciplines. Educational content is the foundation of the educational process, focusing on the “what” of teaching. It includes the core curriculum in schools and universities, the syllabus of a course, or the topics covered in an educational program. Essentially, it is the knowledge and understanding that educators aim to convey to learners.
GPT: Which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is an advanced type of artificial intelligence model known for its ability to generate human-like text. Developed by OpenAI, GPT operates on the principles of deep learning and is part of the broader family of Transformer models, which have revolutionized the field of natural language processing. GPT is “pre-trained” on vast amounts of text data, enabling it to understand and generate language in a way that is contextually relevant and often indistinguishable from human writing. This pre-training allows GPT to perform a wide range of language tasks, such as answering questions, writing essays, translating languages, and even creating poetry or code.
Generative AI: Is a branch of artificial intelligence that specializes in creating new content, whether that be text, images, audio, or other forms of data. It operates by learning from a vast array of existing data and using that knowledge to generate new, original outputs that are similar but not identical to the data it was trained on.
Synthetic Content: Refers to media or information that is artificially generated by AI algorithms, rather than created by humans. This type of content can include text, images, videos and music, all produced by machines learning from and mimicking existing data.
Instructional Materials: These are the tools and resources used by educators to facilitate and enhance the teaching process. Instructional materials support the delivery of educational content, helping to explain concepts and guide the learning process. They are aligned with specific learning objectives, teaching methodologies and focus on the “how” of teaching. Examples of instructional materials include lesson plans, teaching guides, instructional videos, PowerPoint presentations, and other resources used in classrooms or virtual learning environments. They are designed to make the learning process more effective and efficient for both educators and students.
Learning Materials: These are the resources that are directly used by learners to aid in their own learning process. Learning materials are designed to be interactive and student-centric, facilitating self-directed learning, reinforcing concepts taught in class, and providing practice opportunities. They focus on the “learner’s experience,” meaning they are the tools students engage with to acquire knowledge and skills. Examples of learning materials include textbooks, workbooks, educational software, online courses, interactive e-lessons, quizzes, and other resources that students use for learning, practicing, and assessing their understanding of the subject matter.