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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: What Happens When Teachers Are Replaced With AI? This School Is Finding Out he 8:15 a.m. scene in front of the school that sits on a dusty, sun- soaked residential street in Brownsville, Texas, just across the border with Mexico, looks much like any other elementary or middle school in that chaotic period before the morning bell. Groups of tousled boys and girls trickle, saunter and dawdle into a nondescript building where they will spend the next few hours, in theory, learning. These kids, though, seem more jubilant than might be expected for a Tuesday morning in April. The days of dodging class or suffering from a lack of motivation appear to be a thing of the past at Alpha School, a private pre-K through eighth grade institution that utilizes personalized artificial intelligence to teach an entire day of core academic lessons in just two hours. The tech-savvy students then spend their afternoons working on non- academic critical life skills like public speaking, financial literacy or even how to ride a bike. Staff — known here as "guides" rather than teachers — say they strive to facilitate a sense of independence into each child while overseeing a supportive, nurturing environment like any attentive teacher in any solid school district in America. The innovative approach at the South Texas campus, which opened in 2022, primarily aims to instill a love for learning into each young mind, cofounder MacKenzie Price told Newsweek in mid-April ahead of Alpha's expansion this fall. alpha 4 Kindergartner Sarah Schipper, 6, said staff at the "special" school, known as guides, act as facilitators rather than traditional teachers. (Newsweek) A 2-Hour School Day? Once inside, it becomes clearer that whatever is happening at this school, it's unique. In kindergarten, the students show a palpable level of excitement as 6-year-old Sarah Schipper collaborates with a dozen other classmates to solve a simple logic game. In the lesson, students deduce the correct path by jumping on colored dots to find their way across six multi-hued rows. Wide smiles, upbeat pop music and gentle suggestions of where to hop next dominate the lively room. "There's a little code and we aren't able to see it," the bubbly kindergartener said. "And we have to guess it — and people can cheer for us and give us ideas of how to win." Sarah and her classmates encouraged each other to make bold choices at each pass but had a sense of compassion for any wrong move. One girl suggested the cohort would "grow from losing" while another boy kindly proposed a more collaborative approach — along with less shouting. The cooperative activity serves as a springboard into Alpha's AI-powered 2 Hour Learning platform, where students use laptops for 30-minute sessions in core academic subjects, including math, English, science and social studies. The personalized approach utilizes proprietary and third-party apps and allows students to master topics up to five times faster than traditional methods, Alpha claims. Sarah, who prefers Alpha's life skills workshops that come later in the day, said she wants to be a scientist and study "microscopic things," insisting the tech-laden model will help her attain that goal while honing an unabashedly self-sufficient educational perspective. "That we all work on computers," she said when asked what separated Alpha from most other public and private schools. "Not all schools work on computers, and this is a very special school. Maybe all the other schools everywhere can work on computers?" Read more Artificial Intelligence From AI to ABC's: Texas School Puts a New Spin on Learning Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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