At least one Arizona school will be handing off teaching duties to artificial intelligence in 2025.
The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools’ approved an application for an AI-based virtual academy on Monday.
Unbound Academy, which also operates in Texas and Florida under the name Alpha Schools, claims that kids can learn twice as much using a two-hour learning plan that gets customized by an AI program instead of a traditional human teacher in front of a classroom.
Kids begin their day with two hours of instruction on standard topics like language, math and science, guided by an AI that continuously adjusts the learning plan based on how the child is doing in each subject.
This is not the same kind of AI as the kind behind programs like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, but Unbound says it’s more capable than human teachers at tailoring lessons for individual students’ success.
Adults do have a place in Unbound’s classrooms, but it’s not in an academic capacity — they serve the role of motivation and emotional support to keep students on task.
Unbound also wants its students to develop other skills using the time freed up by the AI learning plans.
After the two hours of AI-guided learning, Dean of Parents Tim Eyerman said the kids get to work on non-academic subjects:
“The morning is taken over through our AI learning, and in the afternoon they get the opportunity to really hone in on those life skills,” he said.
Those “life skills” include things like teamwork, entrepreneurship, leadership and social skills.
During the board meeting, Eyerman brought up one specific example: the Harvard Business Study of climbing Mount Everest.
“We’re able to construct that online,” he said, “where students can do rounds of feedback with each other to determine what makes their team strong — their individual strengths, their weaknesses — and then work together to get up Mount Everest as one.”
Another example of skill-building exercises included narrating scenarios in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
Unbound’s Arizona school will begin hosting fourth through eighth grade and will potentially expand over the years to a K-8 structure depending on how successful it is.
In addition to Arizona, Unbound has also applied to open schools in Utah and Arkansas.
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