Abstract:
Online learning and the leadership of it has experienced significant disruption during the previous four years, with the pandemic and Generative AI impacting the landscape, changing the future of education. This roundtable presentation will share initial findings from the author’s longitudinal mixed methods PhD project. Data has been collected from Australian secondary school leaders through a quantitative survey, qualitative longitudinal interviews and a focus group. The qualitative longitudinal interviews have been conducted over a period of 18 months. To date, two rounds of interviews have been completed, with the third (and final) round to be completed shortly. At the time of writing, data has been collected from 30 school leaders through the survey, interviews and focus group.
Despite some of the positives that were realised by schools and leaders resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including stronger connections with families and increases in the efficiencies and use of online learning platforms, initial findings indicate that many of these were mostly forgotten with Generative AI impacting schools early in 2023. While some of the lessons learned from the pandemic continue to shape schools, schools and leaders are still grappling with the changes, particularly as technologies such as AI continue to develop and improve. As this project is longitudinal, additional findings will continue to emerge in the coming months as more data is collected from school leaders reflecting on both the current landscape and potential future of education in this domain.
As the research is still in progress, a roundtable presentation has been selected for the conference.
Despite some of the positives that were realised by schools and leaders resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including stronger connections with families and increases in the efficiencies and use of online learning platforms, initial findings indicate that many of these were mostly forgotten with Generative AI impacting schools early in 2023. While some of the lessons learned from the pandemic continue to shape schools, schools and leaders are still grappling with the changes, particularly as technologies such as AI continue to develop and improve. As this project is longitudinal, additional findings will continue to emerge in the coming months as more data is collected from school leaders reflecting on both the current landscape and potential future of education in this domain.
As the research is still in progress, a roundtable presentation has been selected for the conference.