The School Development and AI Agency Research Lab (SD-AI) conducts research on school development, considering the role of agency in implementing artificial intelligence (AI) at different levels in schools. Applying AI for various purposes in the school system creates a socio-technical environment in which the attribution of agency to AI systems occurs. The overarching question of the working group is: can epistemic accountability be ensured when AI is used in the complex school system?
The main objectives are:
To achieve these objectives, the working group will compose a research review as a basis for deriving a theoretical model of school development and AI accountability. With interdisciplinary experts, this theoretical model will be validated and improved through workshops combining lectures by international guest scholars and in-depth discussions with national experts. Moreover, the working group will conduct an experimental study with teachers and school principals to explore the use of AI for specific areas of school development. The study will compare a setting with controlled conditions with special attention to perceptions, potential for action, and credibility of AI, to a setting with uncontrolled AI use.
The SD-AI project will serve as a starting point for further investigation of the challenges and potentials of AI integration in schools. It will pave the way for understanding the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders at different levels of the school system, and, most importantly, for deriving practical knowledge and guidelines that will help establish AI as an essential tool for maintaining and fostering school quality in a joint effort at all levels.
Dr Manuela Christina Endberg
University of Duisburg-Essen | Faculty of Educational Sciences | Working Group Educational Research
E-mail: manuela.endberg@uni-due.de
Manuela Endberg is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Educational Sciences. Within the working group ‘Educational Research’, she is head of the research area ‘School Development and Digitization’. In her doctoral phase she worked at the Center for Research on Education and School Development at TU Dortmund University. In her dissertation, she investigated teachers’ professional knowledge about the integration of digital media into teaching in a way that promotes student learning.
Overall, her research focuses on the opportunities, challenges, and changes that schools are currently facing and will face in the future in the context of digitisation, and on how school development processes can be designed against this backdrop. Furthermore, she investigates the support services needed at the micro, meso, and macro level of the school system for school development processes to be sustainable.
Website
Dr Ramona Lorenz
TU Dortmund University | IFS – Center for Research on Education and School Development
E-mail: ramona.lorenz@tu-dortmund.de
Ramona Lorenz is a senior researcher at the Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS) at TU Dortmund University. She is head of the research area ’School Development and Education Systems’, which focuses on how schools can optimally support learning and developmental processes while addressing contemporary societal challenges. Ramona Lorenz completed her doctorate in 2013 and her habilitation in 2018 at TU Dortmund University. With more than a decade of experience in digitisation in the education system, her key research areas are school development and the impact of digitisation on classroom and school level as well as at the intersection with other stakeholders. Within these areas, she focuses on structural conditions such as technical equipment, professional development, and school organisation, as well as on how technology is used in the classroom and on teachers’ competence.
Website
https://ifs.ep.tu-dortmund.de/institut/unser-team/ramona-lorenz/