Mixed Mythologies: Duality, Change and the Role of AI in Education
Keynote Speaker: Dr Martin Compton, College Lead for AI and Innovation in Education, King's College London, King's College London
AI inspires both promise and anxiety, urging us to rethink the foundations of education even as it destabilises long-held assumptions. In this keynote, Martin will explore the cognitive dissonance that generative AI provokes. Drawing on both Roman and Greek classical mythology, he uses figures such as Janus, the Roman god of thresholds and transitions, and Proteus, the shape-shifting Greek sea god, to frame AI as both a disruptive force and a potential vehicle (or catalyst) for transformation. Janus, who looks both backward and forward, might prompt us to reflect critically on conventional pedagogical practices while imagining radically different futures. Proteus embodies the volatility and fluidity of the AI landscape. AI's potential to adapt and reshape the contours of knowledge, teaching and assessment are set against its mutability and elusiveness. At the heart of his talk Martin will ask: What is the purpose of education in the age of AI? Have the purposes actually changed? What should we teach, and how? And what counts as meaningful assessment? With a nod to a less mythological Greek, Martin will invoke the Socratic paradox: “All I know is that I know nothing” as he argues for a nuanced, informed, forward-looking and reflective response to AI. Rather than react with fear or fatigue, educators can use this moment to catalyse long-needed shifts in curriculum, pedagogy and the design of teaching and learning.
Presentation: Mixed Mythologies: Duality, Change and the Role of AI in Education(Download)
Dr Compton has been an educator for over 30 years, affording him ample time to realise that it takes a lifetime of teaching to get the hang of it. In that time, he has had the privilege of teaching children, young people and adults. His teaching has spanned secondary schools, international schools, further education colleges and universities both in the UK and overseas.
Having spent a number of years at the University of Greenwich and then UCL, in July 2023 he took up a post at King's College London where he was employed to lead on curriculum and assessment design but as it turned out he has spent most of his time looking at ways in which the opportunities and threats of AI will necessitate changes to pedagogy, assessment and feedback practices across higher education.He is now the College Lead for AI in Education which is giving him opportunity to help colleagues reflect on, critique and reimagine teaching and assessment design and other ways of elevating a 'freedom to learn' philosophy.