An interdisciplinary exploration of AI in early childhood inclusive education: Professional judgement and teacher AI literacy

This LACAB seminar presents a work-in-progress offering an interdisciplinary exploration of AI in early childhood inclusive education, drawing on thinking from normative philosophy, inclusive education and early childhood education to examine the extent to which AI may be assumed to reduce inequities in education for children with disabilities.

First, the concepts of the right to education and professional judgement as an ethical act in relation to the learner are examined.

Next, challenges with providing children with disabilities access to inclusive education in practice are identified, including limitations in access to expert classroom support and professional learning for educators.

We then present a hypothetical case study of an early childhood educator responding to the needs of a child with hearing loss in her classroom and seeking advice from ChatGPT based on her limited knowledge of prompt engineering.

We consider the AI-generated response to our hypothetical case and reflect on technological determinist assumptions that AI-facilitated inclusive education has the capacity to attend to the human right to education in the absence of teacher professional judgements that also include AI literacy.

• Open to the public and all staff and students.
• This is a hybrid event, registration is essential to let us know if you will be attending the event in person or online and to receive the link to Zoom.
• Please note, this event is not being recorded.

Biographies

Susan Edwards is Professor of Early Childhood Education at Australian Catholic University. She has researched young children and their adults using digital technologies, digital media and popular culture in their play and learning for many years. Susan has been awarded over $1.5 million in research funding to develop insights into young children’s cultural meaning-making with digital technologies through play.