The Good, Bad, and Ugly of an Artificial Intelligence Writing Children’s Progress Reports
A good preschool progress report should provide a comprehensive summary of the child's development in all areas of learning and development, including cognitive, social-emotional, physical, and language skills. It should be clear, concise, and easy to understand for parents and caregivers, with specific examples of the child's progress and areas for improvement.
The report should also be based on objective observations and assessments, using standardized tools where appropriate. It should reflect the individual needs and strengths of each child, and include recommendations for ways to support their continued growth and development.
Observing young children objectively and using those observations to write a progress report that conveys to the child’s family where they are at developmentally is a task that requires a lot of time and skill at every stage of the process. From the time to take the observations, time to analyze the observations hopefully with a teacher team, and the time to actually write the report. Anyone who follows the news has probably heard of Chat GPT by now the artificial intelligence tool that is taking the world by storm. I have seen countless articles about the possible benefits of artificial intelligence programs like this but also the real scary, weird, and potentially dangerous aspects of Chat GPT and similar programs. People have already been using Chat GPT to write papers and it get high scores on a variety of tests including The Bar Exam. I worried that people would start using them to write progress reports. I gave Chat GPT the following prompt about a child named Olympia who does not exist.
“Write a progress report for a 4 year old girl named Olympia in a preschool class who is typically developing. Make sure to include information on her fine motor skills, gross motor skills, language ability, social skills, mathematic knowledge, self help skills, emotional development, and early literacy skills and a couple anecdotes about what she likes to do in her favorite activity areas which are art area and block area”
Here is what Chat GPT wrote back:
“Progress Report for Olympia - Age 4 - Preschool Class - Typically Developing
Fine Motor Skills:
Olympia has made good progress in her fine motor skills over the past several months. She can now use scissors to cut simple shapes with some assistance and has developed more control over her pencil grip, allowing her to write her name with less difficulty.
Gross Motor Skills:
Olympia has always been an active child, and this has continued in the preschool class. She enjoys running, jumping, and climbing on the playground equipment. She has also improved her balance and coordination, which is evident in her ability to skip and hop on one foot.
Language Ability:
Olympia has a good vocabulary for her age and is able to express herself clearly. She is able to use complete sentences and is able to answer questions about her day and what she has learned in class. She has also started to demonstrate an interest in reading, recognizing some common sight words.
Social Skills:
Olympia is a friendly and sociable child who gets along well with her classmates. She enjoys playing with others, taking turns, and sharing toys. She is respectful towards her teachers and follows directions well. She has also started to develop more independence and can complete tasks on her own with less assistance.
Mathematic Knowledge:
Olympia has shown an interest in numbers and has started to recognize some basic shapes and patterns. She can count to 20 and understands simple addition and subtraction concepts, such as adding and taking away objects from a group.
Self Help Skills:
Olympia has become more independent in self-help skills such as getting dressed, using the bathroom, and washing her hands. She can also pack her own backpack and put away her belongings.
Emotional Development:
Olympia is a happy and enthusiastic child who enjoys coming to school. She has developed strong relationships with her teachers and peers, and she is able to express her feelings appropriately. She is becoming more aware of her own emotions and is developing strategies to manage them.
Early Literacy Skills:
Olympia has shown an interest in books and enjoys being read to. She can recognize some letters and is starting to understand how letters make up words. She has also demonstrated an interest in writing and is starting to write her own letters and words.
Anecdotes:
In the art area, Olympia enjoys using different materials to create her artwork. She especially likes to use glitter and paint to create sparkly and colorful pictures. In the block area, she enjoys building towers and structures with the different shapes and sizes of blocks.
Overall, Olympia is making good progress in all areas of development. She is a happy and enthusiastic child who is eager to learn and participate in class activities.”
Chat GPT wrote all of that in about 15 seconds. That in a word is scary (at least to me it is). First off, as someone who wrote 100s of progress reports as my time as a preschool teacher, it is frightening how easily the language of a typical progress report could be mimicked. In some ways it makes me question the value of progress reports at all. But, I don’t want to be all doom and gloom.
AI can offer several advantages in creating progress reports for preschool students. For instance, it can automate the process and save teachers significant time and effort. It can also provide a consistent and standardized format for progress reports, reducing the likelihood of human error or bias. Moreover, it can generate personalized feedback for each student based on their specific learning needs and abilities.
However, there are also ethical concerns that need to be considered when using AI to create progress reports. Firstly, it raises questions around the value of human interaction and connection in the learning process. Progress reports are not just a way for parents to receive feedback on their child's progress, but also an opportunity for teachers to connect with parents and discuss strategies for supporting the child's development. AI-generated progress reports can risk removing this crucial element of human interaction, which is particularly important for young children.
Secondly, there are concerns around the accuracy and fairness of AI-generated progress reports. AI algorithms are only as good as the data they are trained on, and there is a risk of perpetuating biases and inequalities in the data used to train the algorithms. For instance, if the data used to train the AI is based on a particular group of children, the progress reports generated may not accurately reflect the experiences of children from different backgrounds or with different learning needs.
Lastly, there are concerns around the transparency and accountability of AI-generated progress reports. While AI can offer personalized feedback, it can also be difficult for parents and teachers to understand how the algorithm arrived at a particular conclusion. It can also be challenging to hold the AI accountable for any inaccuracies or biases in the progress reports generated.
In conclusion, while AI can offer several advantages in creating progress reports for preschool students, it raises significant ethical concerns that need to be carefully considered. While it may be tempting to use AI to save time and effort, it is important to prioritize the value of human interaction and connection in the learning process, as well as the accuracy, fairness, transparency, and accountability of progress reports. As such, it may be more appropriate to use AI as a tool to assist teachers in generating progress reports, rather than relying on it as the sole means of creating these reports. Ultimately, it is up to teachers, parents, and educational institutions to make informed decisions about the ethical use of AI in the education system.
But that was not really the conclusion. The last 5 paragraphs after the words “doom and gloom” were actually written by Chat GPT itself not by me.
While I agree with some of what Chat GPT wrote it failed to mentioned one thing that really scares me (really this is me Teddy K talking now), Hi Yasou!) and that is A.I. like Chat GPT will be used to continue to deprofessionalize the field of early education. The field has had a lot of good early educators since COVID started because of health and safety fears and because it was easier to make money in other jobs. Headlines like these were typical.
Child Care Sector Shrinks By 100,000 Workers, Causing Shortage - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Daycare Workers Leave Jobs for Better Pay Elsewhere (fatherly.com)
Why did the child care teacher cross the road? To get to higher pay | The Hill
Instead of offering higher pay, I fear that many child care providers, especially for profit, might decide that they should let artificial intelligence programs do much of the work of Child Care workers. I fear a world where a camera is set up in a classroom, observes the children, and then takes what is in the video or photos and turns that into a progress report like the one we saw above. Or maybe a child takes a test on an iPad and that in turn generates a progress report. Or before that type of technology is made, I fear that early educators will just be told to check off a few boxes that then create an A.I generated progress report. It also takes some incentive for child care workers to actually observe and get to know a child on an individual level. Some might think why spend time observing when the A.I. will take care of all that.
Then a for profit program or even a non-profit with budget issues can say, why should I pay more than minimum wage when A.I. is doing some of the work. We already know about the Child care crisis: Workers are quitting because they can't afford food! This might make that even worse. Adults who are stressed due to low pay and lack of basic needs will have low quality of life and therefore will have a hard time having quality interactions with young children due the stress of their lives. In the end, the core of quality child care and early education is the personal interactions between adults and the children they care for. Artificial intelligence will never be a replacement for that, and if it does, I fear what that will mean for human development and the nature of humanity.
That fear might be a little off in terms of technology, but I don’t think fear of the early education and care field being further devalued because of artificial intelligence is far off. It is something that is a clear and present danger and will be something we will have to grapple sooner rather than later.
