When we are living in a post-digital age – Industrial Revolution 4.0, it is not surprising that in many industries artificial intelligence is entering human activity. And robots that take the form of artificially intelligent (AI) are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society. This brings us to the debate over whether robots will replace human teachers in the future. I believe that this possibility is impossible. Everything has two sides: advantages and disadvantages. In this working paper, these elements are going to be taken into considerations, and then the answer to our debate will be found out.
In fact, we can deny that robots bring about a lot of benefits to teachers as well as students in the field of education. They can help lighten the workload of classroom teachers, in areas like analyzing students’ performance and optimizing lessons accordingly; marking their tests and quizzes, and correcting their homework and assignments. They can fill in the forms quickly, correctly and in a timely manner. Consequently, this may lead to greater student satisfaction (students receive their marks sooner). Robot teachers could also deliver preprogrammed lessons and provide answers to frequently asked questions. Additionally, robots are really efficient in the way they can stimulate dominated students. They can deliver an unlimited number of courses that can be updated and changed depending on demand, thus leading to huge efficiencies for both dominated students to be given additional work and allow them and weaker students to learn at their own pace rather than as part of a class. For these above reasons, robots are obviously necessary teacher assistants.
However, robots are unlikely to replace teachers for some followings reasons. Even the tech wizard himself, Steve Jobs, believed that while technology can solve many societal problems, it’s not as simple as handing it over to a computer. At least not when it comes to teaching. The first reason is that robots can’t lead the lessons in a creative and inspirational way as teachers can do. Teaching is not only about dishing out the subject matter, it is also about how it is done. Nothing can be more boring than sitting in a classroom with a monotone, boring, non-humorous robot teaching us about the world we live in. For these classes to be interesting, they need to be conducted in a fun environment where children learn new concepts. Teachers still remain their important roles in the way they manage the class when students are divided into groups, and pupils learn in an interactive way, such as role-playing and competitions. That is why robots will never be able to match humans on that count because humans like to learn in groups and they like to learn from other people. It is also the duty of teachers that can teach their students social skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, or other skills that robots can’t carry out effectively. Secondly, robots cannot provide the emotional support of a human teacher. Students often have some emotional issues involving the aspect of psychology that need to be answered by humans. They also need warmth, encouragement and personal attention. At that time, a good teacher can be a great influence, motivating and inspiring students. Teachers understand how to develop sociability and empathy in young children as well as helping them in learning. Teachers are there to answer the really difficult questions when students get stuck. Teachers are there to share their experiences in life, to relate to the students one human to another. In this sense, it is one of the most human jobs and completely robots can’t be able to do the same. The third reason that needs to be considered is the constant dependence of robots on teachers. They can present knowledge only when teachers feed into them, so they still depend on humans to add new data, as knowledge changes from year to year, and decade to decade. In short, Robots can stimulate the intellect by providing facts but everything that concerns emotions and creativity cannot be grasped by robots.
It is not the technology or robot itself, in this case, that will positively impact or improve student learning. It is how teachers are developing creative and innovative lessons and using them to encourage students to have a deeper knowledge and understanding of the subjects presented. Thus we can come to the conclusion that robots are likely to be used in classrooms as learning tools, not teachers. Robots are still mainly serving as teaching assistants, and are not capable of being entirely independent teachers by themselves, all the things they can do are based on pre-programmed tasks. Robots can complement human teachers, but they won’t be able to replace them completely. Rather, they should be needed to work together with human teachers, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the learning process. That is why teachers’ jobs are still safe for the foreseeable future. And I completely robots can’t replace the roles of teachers in the near future.