A rationale for authentic AI integration in South African social sciences and history teacher training programmes

Abstract

In this conceptual review paper, we discuss the need for integrating AI tools in social science and history teacher training programmes in South Africa. Despite the proliferation of an ever-growing pool of AI tools, their uptake in pre-service teacher training has been limited in South Africa’s institutions of higher learning. Without clear policies regarding AI use, decisions on AI integration have often fallen to the responsibility of individual lecturers. Education students have ready access to free and paid AI tools; however, they frequently lack the skills to employ them as supporting tools. Instead, they attempt to shortcut the academic process rather than opting to enrich their learning. By default, these broad concerns within higher education are of paramount importance to didactic modules in professional teacher education degrees that prepare future social science and history teachers. This paper contends that AI integration should look beyond its use in higher education and consider preparing social science and history pre-service teachers for integrating AI into teaching and learning, as well as workplace practices. Without adopting AI integration practices, there is a very real danger of graduating teachers who are essentially untrained due to committing fraud by using AI to complete their assessments during their teacher training programme. This could have serious consequences for learners, the teacher, the schools and provincial departments that employ them as newly qualified teachers. AI tools have the potential to support and streamline tasks in the teaching workspace as well as promote teaching and learning in the classroom. As a conceptual review paper, a broad literature base on AI in education is employed that narrows its focus to social science and history education. The primary question this paper seeks to answer is “How should AI be integrated into South African social science and history teacher training programs?” This paper found that examining and adapting to the sociocultural-digital context of students, lecturers and future learners is of paramount importance in integrating AI authentically as a tool that can support teaching and learning and decolonial approaches within social sciences and history education. This paper considers the impact of South African university policies on AI integration within social science and history student teacher didactic training. The paper ultimately recommends that South African universities should continue to establish policies and procedures that can support and guide social science and history education lecturers in integrating AI into their modules. The implication is that a hospitable environment to ethical AI integration is crucial to any social science and history education lecturer’s attempts to train student teachers to ethically integrate AI as a tool.