《Brave New Words 》4.1 协同学习的加强

Part IV Better Together

第四部分 携手共进

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true. 

—Charles Dickens

电气通信永远无法替代一个人的面孔，一个灵魂鼓励另一个人勇敢和真实。

—查尔斯·狄更斯

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. 

—Bruce Lee

了解自己就是在与他人一起行动中研究自己。

—李小龙

Bolstering Collaborative Learning

协同学习的加强

When it comes to our children, technology has proven to be a double-edged sword. Their phones and social media accounts are optimized to keep their eyes on the screen and pull them away from living in the moment, even if the impulsive scrolling of their “feed” makes them feel terrible or triggered or envious. At first blush, it is reasonable to fear that large language models infiltrating the education system will only make this problem of tech-induced isolation and mental stress worse.

对于我们的孩子来说，技术已经被证明是一把双刃剑。他们的手机和社交媒体账户被优化以让他们的眼睛停留在屏幕上，并使他们远离当下的生活，即使这种冲动地滚动“动态”让他们感到糟糕、被触发或嫉妒。乍一看，担心大型语言模型渗透教育系统只会使这种技术引发的孤立感和精神压力问题变得更糟是合理的。

These fears came up in the early days of Khan Academy. The idea behind the nonprofit educational organization was that we could use technology—in this case, personalized practice and on-demand videos—to raise the floor for students who have fewer resources and raise the ceiling for classrooms, allowing them to support and engage students through personalization. Some people worried that more time on computers meant less time communicating, collaborating, and connecting with humans.

这些担忧在可汗学院成立初期就出现了。这个非营利教育组织背后的想法是，我们可以使用技术——在这种情况下，是个性化练习和按需视频——来提高资源较少的学生的起点，并为课堂提高上限，使他们能够通过个性化支持和吸引学生。有人担心，在电脑上花费更多时间意味着与人沟通、协作和连接的时间更少。

I worried about it too. We know that when students talk and work together in collaborative teams, they learn material better than when they sit alone quietly listening. Even more, when learning alongside and collaborating with others, students develop different character and communication skills that are arguably even more important than the academic content. Would technology further isolate students by allowing them to learn alone on a computer?

我也担心这一点。我们知道，当学生在协作团队中交流和一起工作时，他们比独自静静听课时学习得更好。而且，与他人一起学习和协作时，学生会发展出不同的性格和沟通技能，这些技能可以说比学术内容更为重要。技术是否会通过让学生独自在电脑上学习，从而进一步将他们孤立？

It turns out that not only does this not have to be the case, but thoughtful use of technology can actually increase human-to-human interaction.

事实证明，情况并非如此，谨慎使用技术实际上可以增加人与人之间的互动。

In many typical math classrooms, students can struggle to pay attention during a teacher-led lecture. The teacher attempts to pace their lecture to the “middle,” which means that many students are either lost or bored. There may be some group problem solving, but most of the time students are listening, not doing. They are usually not allowed to talk to one another for most of the class. The teacher knows that students have individual questions, but either the teacher doesn’t have the bandwidth to address them all or, even more likely, students are afraid to ask them for fear of appearing “dumb” or “nerdy.”

在许多典型的数学课堂上，学生在教师主导的讲课过程中可能难以集中注意力。教师试图将讲课速度调整到“中等水平”，这意味着许多学生要么迷失，要么感到无聊。可能有一些小组解决问题的时间，但大多数时候，学生都在听讲， 而不是动手做。在大部分课堂时间里，他们通常不允许互相交谈。老师知道学生有各自的问题，但要么老师没有时间来解决所有问题，要么更有可能的是， 学生害怕问问题，因为他们害怕显得“愚蠢”或“书呆子”。

On the other hand, good implementations of Khan Academy in the classroom over the past decade have involved more human interaction, not less. While students are engaged in their independent practice, they are also encouraged to seek help from each other (with some guidelines to prevent too much help). With every student practicing and engaging at their learning edge while supported by peers, it frees the teacher to do focused one-on-one or small-group interventions.

另一方面，在过去十年中，可汗学院在课堂上的良好实施案例表明，人际互动更多了，而不是更少了。当学生进行独立练习时，他们也被鼓励互相寻求帮助（有一些指导方针以防止过多的帮助）。当每个学生都在同伴的支持下在自己的学习边缘进行练习和参与时，教师就可以腾出时间进行一对一或小组的集中干预。

We have even started to scale this model online. On the Schoolhouse.world platform, any student in the world can get free, live tutoring via Zoom (thanks to Zoom’s donating thousands of licenses to the effort). This is done by using vetted volunteer “near peers” to tutor others. Reaching ten thousand or so students a month, it reinforces the notion that, used well, technology can increase human-to-human interaction.

我们甚至开始在网上扩展这种模式。在 Schoolhouse.world 平台上，世界上任何学生都可以通过 Zoom 获得免费的在线辅导（感谢 Zoom 捐赠数千个许可证来支持这一努力）。这是通过使用经过审查的志愿者“朋辈”来辅导他人来完成的。每月达到大约一万名学生，这强化了这样一种观念：如果使用得当，技术可以增加人与人之间的互动。

Now here we are again, at the cusp of a major transition in how we educate our kids thanks to technology. We worry that even safe and effective generative AI tutors will mean even more student time with the computer and less time with peers and teachers. But, once more, it doesn’t have to be this way. First, the AI can make the implementation model of Khan Academy even more productive for everyone. Students can still get help from each other and the teacher, but they will also be able to use the AI. Second, whether in a math class or not, if students can feel more engaged and unblocked in their learning, they will be able to learn more on their own time, when they are at home or doing independent work. This frees up time in the classroom for deeper human-to-human interaction like Socratic dialogue, group problem solving, or project-based learning. Last, AI help in the classroom can further reduce instances in which students feel lost or bored, allowing them to engage with what is happening alongside their fellow classmates. A struggling student can have their questions answered in real time without fear of judgment or slowing down the class. A precocious student could deepen their understanding further than where the class happens to be. And let’s not forget that while this is all happening, the AI can also keep the teacher in the loop as to what is going on, providing tips on how to better engage their students.

现在，感谢技术的进步，我们再次处于教育孩子方式的重大转变的风口浪尖。我们担心即使是安全有效的生成性 AI 导师也会意味着学生在电脑前的时间更多，与同伴和老师的时间更少。但再一次，不必如此。首先，AI 可以使可汗学院的实施模式对每个人都更具生产力。学生仍然可以从彼此和教师那里获得帮助，但他们也能够使用 AI。其次，无论是在数学课上还是其他地方，如果学生能在学习中感到更投入和无阻碍，他们将能够在家里或进行独立工作时在自己的时间里学习更多。这释放了课堂中更深层次的人际互动时间，如苏格拉底式对话、小组问题解决或项目式学习。最后，课堂中的 AI 帮助可以进一步减少学生感到迷茫或无聊的情况，使他们能够与同学们一起参与正在发生的事情。一个困难的学生可以实时得到回答而不必担心被评判或拖慢课堂进度。一个聪明的学生可以进一步加深他们对课堂内容的理解。别忘了，在这一切发生的同时，AI 还可以让教师了解正在发生的事情，提供如何更好地吸引学生的建议。

A properly designed AI can take things even further and actually facilitate conversations among human beings. Imagine an AI like Khanmigo working with the teacher to divide students into breakout groups and then facilitating the discussion in each breakout. Imagine an AI offering an “icebreaker” chat among initially anonymous students in the same classroom so they can understand one another better without all of the prejudgment, baggage, or assumptions around who is a jock or nerd that all too often cloud middle and high school interactions. Meanwhile, the teacher can chat with the AI to understand how the students are interacting with each other. And this doesn’t need to happen just over a chat interface; our team is actively testing Khanmigo interactions where it can listen to, and naturally speak to, students.

一个设计得当的 AI 可以进一步推动人类之间的对话。想象一下，一个像 Khanmigo 这样的 AI 与教师合作，将学生分成小组，然后在每个小组中促进讨论。想象一下，一个 AI 提供“破冰”聊天，让同一课堂中最初匿名的学生之间进行交流，这样他们可以更好地理解彼此，而不必带着偏见、包袱或假设谁是运动员或书呆子的困扰，而这些问题常常使中学和高中的互动变得复杂。同时，教师可以与 AI 聊天，了解学生之间是如何互动的。这不必仅仅通过聊天界面进行；我们的团队正在积极测试 Khanmigo 的互动功能，使其能够倾听并自然地与学生交谈。

With AI and AI-based tutors, the days of static learning are over as collaborative education expands in scope and capability. In the classroom, a teacher can have Khanmigo ask participants if they want to play a learning game together. It can facilitate multistep projects among groups of participants who work in tandem to solve complex problems. For, say, a third-grade science class, the AI tutor can suggest a group collaborative maker project, offering instructions on how to design several varieties of paper airplanes. “Remember, making and testing paper airplanes is a fun way to learn about aerodynamics and the scientific method,” Khanmigo tells the students. “All together, let’s have everyone experiment with these three different designs and folding techniques to see how they affect the airplane’s flight. Enjoy!” From here, it can divide tasks, coordinate their efforts, provide step-by-step guidance, and offer feedback, fostering collaboration and the development of teamwork skills.

随着 AI 和基于 AI 的导师的出现，静态学习的时代已经结束，因为协同教育的范围和能力正在扩展。在课堂上，教师可以让 Khanmigo 询问参与者是否愿意一起玩一个学习游戏。它可以促进参与者小组之间的多步骤项目，协同解决复杂问题。例如，对于三年级的科学课，AI 导师可以建议一个小组协作制作项目，提供关于如何设计几种不同纸飞机的说明。Khanmigo 告诉学生：“记住，制作和测试纸飞机是学习空气动力学和科学方法的有趣方式。大家一起尝试这三种不同的设计和折叠技术，看看它们如何影响飞机的飞行。享受吧！”从这里开始，AI 可以分配任务，协调他们的努力，提供逐步指导并提供反馈，促进协作和团队合作技能的发展。

You are always going to get better collaboration if you have a great facilitator, and the large language models have the potential to do just that. Like all great teachers, they could lead conversations and collaborations among students. They could pair learners together. They could create groups. They could offer icebreakers and connect strangers. At the end of the day, academic learning isn’t really the only purpose of schooling. Schooling is also about building human connection through friendships, shared adventures, and mutual support. We now have a shot at using AI to facilitate these types of interactions above and beyond unblocking students in their coursework.

如果有一位优秀的引导者，你总是能够获得更好的协作，而大型语言模型有可能做到这一点。像所有伟大的教师一样，他们可以引导学生之间的对话和合作。他们可以将学习者配对在一起。他们可以创建小组。他们可以提供破冰者并连接陌生人。归根结底，学术学习并不是学校教育的唯一目的。学校教育还在于通过友谊、共同冒险和相互支持来建立人际关系。我们现在有机会使用 AI 来促进这些类型的互动，而不仅仅是帮助学生解决课程中的难题。

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