Episode 15 - AI Equity in Learning Across Cultures

00:00:16:21 - 00:00:45:04
Jie Ren
Hello, everyone. Welcome to my podcast, When Tech Meets Ed. This is Professor Jie Ren. Today I have a great pleasure to be having the conversation with Professor Maria Mercedes Rodrigo from the Philippines to talk about a very important and interesting topic, which is AI equity in the context of learning, especially across multiple cultures and multiple countries. So Didith, welcome to my podcast.

00:00:45:06 - 00:00:53:02
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Thank you, Jie. Pleasure to be here. Very honored that you invited me. I'm grateful that you invited me.

00:00:53:04 - 00:01:08:09
Jie Ren
And Didith is a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and also the head of the Ateneo Learning Sciences Lab. So Didith could you please introduce yourself?

00:01:08:11 - 00:01:32:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Yes. Hi. My name is Didith Rodrigo and I'm a professor at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science of the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. I am head of the Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences, and I'm also co-head of the Ateneo Virtual Augmented and Mixed Reality Laboratory.

00:01:32:10 - 00:01:54:09
Jie Ren
Which makes her a wonderful candidate for today's topic. She is from the Philippines and we are right now in New York City. So, we will be talking about the cultural difference in terms of delivering education in today's age of AI. So, what is your role in your university and also especially your work at your life?

00:01:54:11 - 00:02:30:10
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
The Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences has two strands of research. So, the first strand is we develop software for education. So, these could be educational games, sometimes for mobile, sometimes for PCs, sometimes deployed on the internet. The second strand is learning analytics. So, we take software that is usually developed by our partners abroad. So, we have partners in the US for example we've worked with researchers also in the UK.

00:02:30:12 - 00:03:01:00
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
We've borrowed their software systems. We've deployed them here in the Philippines. And then usually these software platforms are instrumented to collect data from students as students transact. So, every time a student solves a problem or makes a mistake or asks for a hint, so on, those transactions are recorded and we collect the data and we analyze it for phenomenon of interest.

00:03:01:00 - 00:03:22:13
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, this could be things like can we automatically tell if a student is confused? Can we tell if a student is bored? Can we tell if a student is frustrated and so on just based on the transactional data. So those are the two broad categories of what we do. There's development of software and various learning analytics.

00:03:22:15 - 00:03:49:20
Jie Ren
That is a wonderful we definitely will look back to this in terms of the use of AI in the educational contexts. We know that there are AI agents such as AI tutors, right in the context of the education. And then how do we use these agents to better educate students so that they still have the ability to master the fundamentals and not using AI systems to cheat?

00:03:49:22 - 00:04:05:19
Jie Ren
Right. And then also how to cater to different people's different students’ cultural backgrounds. So yeah, so definitely a lot of details that we can cover. But before that I would like to hear your research projects. Could you please share some research projects?

00:04:05:21 - 00:04:40:02
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Yes. Thank you. The project that we're currently working on is called Calidris. It's a virtual patient system which is designed for use of medical students. One of the things that medical students need to develop as a skill is the skill of interviewing patients when they come to see the doctor. So, these are intake interviews. This is the opportunity for the doctor to find out things like what is the chief complaint of the patient?

00:04:40:04 - 00:05:17:00
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
What is maybe their socioeconomic background, they're eating habits, their use of, let's say, tobacco products or their maintenance medications and so on. And this is a skill that takes practice. Medical schools make use of actors who play the role of the patient. The actors are given scripts and medical cases which they have to memorize, essentially. The problem with using the actors is that they're quite expensive and it's difficult to scale.

00:05:17:02 - 00:05:51:21
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you have one actor perhaps working with five students. And so that's the only way to maybe have scale. But even then, if you have hundreds of students or you have students in different parts of the country, then it's sort of more difficult to gain access to these types of factors. And so, the solution, one of the solutions is using computer simulations to act as virtual patients.

00:05:51:23 - 00:06:18:10
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
This is not new research. This is research that has gone on in the US, in Japan, in Europe for many years already. It's just that with the advent of LLMS and the very conversational chatbots, these types of virtual patients are actually easier to implement. So, what we have done is we've created our own virtual patient called Caladrius.

00:06:18:12 - 00:06:47:00
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
We have embarked on this project in collaboration with the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health. So, part of our team are actually two doctors, two medical doctors who are also medical school faculty. They're the ones who are feeding us the medical cases, the rubrics, the faculty used to grade their students. They're the ones who make arrangements for us to work with the students to test the software and so on.

00:06:47:05 - 00:07:12:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And so right now we're on the project is on its second year. And during the first year, we got it up to the point of we have a minimum viable product. But when we tested it with the doctors and the medical school faculty and the medical students. There's a lot of comments about the level of realism.

00:07:12:20 - 00:07:42:15
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, they wanted, more personality, some conversations that were sort of more reflective of how patients really are. Some patients are actually quite hostile towards the doctors. Some patients are very shy, they don't want to give details. And some patients are extremely talkative. They just want to tell stories. Whether or not these stories are related to their medical problems or not.

00:07:42:17 - 00:08:15:23
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And so, they wanted to incorporate those characteristics in the in our patients so that the students, the medical students, get accustomed to working with these different sort of varieties of patients. And the reason why we didn't just use something, for example, that was made in the US or made in, in, in England or Japan is that we wanted to include characteristics that were particular to patients here.

00:08:16:01 - 00:08:46:11
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, for example, and this happens in many different countries, I would say many Asian countries where you have traditional healers, traditional medicines, those are very popular here, herbal medicines and so on. And we wanted to incorporate those in the medical cases because really many people will take an herbal supplement of some kind to try to address their vary aliments.

00:08:46:12 - 00:09:10:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you know, this is one example of a project that's currently ongoing. And as I said, it's on its second year. We're still under development, but we're hoping that by the end of, well, the fourth quarter, which is starting next month, it will be using it in at least one more medical school to try to get more feedback.

00:09:10:16 - 00:09:17:11
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And hopefully, you know, it's something that will become useful to the medical students and to the faculty.

00:09:17:12 - 00:09:51:22
Jie Ren
I think this is a fantastic effort that you are putting together Didith. I always feel like doctors are not only experts in their own domain, whatever their domain could be, allergy, etc. They are also therapists, right? They are facing anxious patients maybe sometimes where their family members at the same time all anxious. So yeah, it is definitely a skill to acquire in order to calm down the patients and also deliver the message in a very clear way and more importantly, in the very localized way.

00:09:52:00 - 00:10:09:08
Jie Ren
Exactly as you said. Right. So, it needs to fit into the context of the Philippines. Did you see any challenges in terms of, adjusting in the system that is from the West, for example, into this context?

00:10:09:10 - 00:10:15:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
There are some challenges, some technological challenges, like for example,

00:10:15:20 - 00:10:42:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Usually, Filipino patients who speak to the doctor in Filipino or the local language, whatever is the local language in the different provinces have their own languages. So, the doctors in those different provinces will have to speak to the patients in the local languages. But for our initial development of the software, we were focusing on Filipino.

00:10:42:14 - 00:11:08:14
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So the LLMs, one of the things that we had to determine with LLMs was how good or how well they can they can converse in Filipino. Fortunately, we found that the LLM that we're using, which is ChatGPT, is actually quite good at Filipino. The problem is sometimes it doesn't– So we use a mix of technologies. We have–

00:11:08:15 - 00:11:36:19
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
We have ChatGPT LLM as well. And then we have, we use Google speech to text and text to speech so that when the doctor actually tries to speak verbally, the patient can answer auditorily also. So sometimes doesn't quite catch the words. And so, the translation ends up being in another language. Or maybe there are words that are very similar in other languages.

00:11:36:19 - 00:11:59:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, the response ends up being in some other language that we weren't speaking. So, you know, and then of course there's the issue of code switching as well, where you speak Filipino and English in the mix. And then so that I think is a little confusing for the LLM as well. There are challenges like that.

00:11:59:03 - 00:12:27:09
Jie Ren
Yeah. We would definitely look back to this when it comes to, you know, the educational context, generally speaking, adopting AI systems in a non-western context. But before we go there, let's first set the stage about the topic of artificial intelligence. How about that? [Maria Mercedes Rodrigo: Sure.] So recently probably have seen the news as well is all over the place, especially in the US.

00:12:27:11 - 00:12:58:00
Jie Ren
There has been a growing concern that AI systems could go rouge, and we've seen some incidents already if associated with weapon systems. So, the concern is that AI systems might kill all of us by 2030. So, it could lead to human extinction. We see people from type companies are advocating for more regulation in the AI industry.

00:12:58:02 - 00:13:42:11
Jie Ren
Also, the New York City government has banned the use of AI in education from preschool to the eighth grade. So, it seems the overall public perception of AI is becoming less optimistic in the US. But globally speaking is not always the case. We also see other countries, for example, China, being more optimistic about this. So actually, last week I did a little poll, a little survey in my classroom just to ask my students that are primarily sophomores, what is your attitude towards AI?

00:13:42:12 - 00:14:13:11
Jie Ren
Are you more towards the pessimistic side or optimist optimistic side? And then a third of the students is like pessimistic and a third is optimistic. And the remaining third is like, I don't have a strong opinion. So right now, we are kind of having a mixed attitude towards developing AI and also using AI. So, first of all, my first question for you, I guess is what is your overall attitude towards the use of AI?

00:14:13:12 - 00:14:45:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I think my overall attitude, I think is hopeful. So maybe that puts me in the optimistic category. And but let me let me explain a little. I feel like there are two real powers when it comes to AI. There's the US and is China, and all the other countries are not sort of at the same level, especially a country like the Philippines, because we are we are small.

00:14:45:02 - 00:15:13:13
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Our budget for research is quite small. When you hear the dollar amounts of the funding rounds of the huge AI companies, you know, they're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. [Jie Ren: Yeah.] The kind of, funding that we have for our research is far, far, far from that level. It's maybe in the millions of dollars at best.

00:15:13:15 - 00:15:49:03
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And I'm talking nationwide to some extent. I feel like we don't really have a voice that can help sway the, the large companies or the large countries, the large powers, one way or the other. It's we don't have, a farm where we can where we can be heard. And so, I have no choice but to trust that the people who do have that power, that kind of funding will try to do the best for humanity.

00:15:49:05 - 00:16:13:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I hope that they care about the rest of us, at least to the extent that, they will not want something like this to happen this sort of destruction to happen and that they will use their brilliance, their resources, their, you know, their goodwill to, to prevent these things from happening. And unfortunately, I can't do much more than that where I'm coming from.

00:16:13:13 - 00:16:40:07
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
But aside from that, I don't know if you want to label that as a certain amount of learned helplessness, but whatever it is, it's like, I cannot say I feel like these are things I cannot control and I have no power over. And so, I need to kind of let them go. But the other side of the optimism or the hopefulness is that there are opportunities, I think, locally for good uses of AI.

00:16:40:12 - 00:17:14:02
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And I speak from the perspective of a very resource constrained country. So, our public school system is severely underfunded. We don't have enough teachers, we don't have enough classrooms, we don't have enough textbooks. So, these so these resources that will help our students learn are severely constrained. And then it's a very common occurrence that teachers will be assigned classes that they really have not been trained to teach.

00:17:14:08 - 00:17:38:20
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you might have a math teacher teaching B or vice versa, B teacher being told to teach math. And in cases like that, teachers are really underprepared. They don't have enough time to learn the subject matter and then to adjust it based on what their students need. So, I think for cases like that, AI can really help.

00:17:38:21 - 00:18:01:10
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I mean, it can help them prepare for their classes better. Maybe if they themselves don't understand the subject matter so well, they can ask AI to explain it to them in simple language. If they don't know how to explain it to their classes, they can ask AI to help them strategize activities and explanations that might be engaging for the for the target learners.

00:18:01:15 - 00:18:24:23
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
We have what they called last mile schools, which are the schools that are extremely underfunded. They're in far flung area. Some are in conflict areas. And so, and they tend to be small. But if I'm not mistaken, we have like 6000 of them in the country. And this is where teachers really have to do double duty.

00:18:25:01 - 00:18:47:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
They have to teach several classes and have different subjects. And also, they handle a lot of multi grade classes. So, in a classroom, instead of just having to take grade three students, you'll have grade one, grade two and grade three all mixed in a class. So, you're teaching the same subject matter. But you have to teach it at three different levels.

00:18:47:10 - 00:19:09:06
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So that's extremely challenging. And so, I see an opportunity for use of AI to support teachers in that in that sense, if they need to, if they need to teach addition. But to these few different grade levels, how do they do that or do the kinds of activities that are appropriate for grade one versus grade two?

00:19:09:08 - 00:19:22:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you know, there's this tremendous need that need that that has to be filled. And we don't have the manpower, the resources to fill it. And maybe, maybe the use of AI will help.

00:19:22:10 - 00:19:59:20
Jie Ren
I really like the two points that you have elaborated. First one is kind of like asking for good regulation, for AI. And then I totally agree with you. I myself is also a hopeful optimistic towards developing and using AI. Yeah, we definitely need to put good guard rail around developing AI, making sure that we are not facing severe AI risks such as killing our humanity.

00:19:59:22 - 00:20:23:00
Jie Ren
At the same time, it's not just one countries effort. We definitely need a global framework, a global collaboration in terms of setting a certain level of regulations. So that's the first point I really want to echo on the second point, I total agree with you. So, people say that AI could be very much like a cape to a superman, right.

00:20:23:01 - 00:20:54:10
Jie Ren
That could amplify one's ability. Going to the example that you gave. Right. The benefits that I could bring to users, right. Maybe they are not so resourceful at the beginning, but the way the use of AI, they are able to get a more diversity of information and with a greater volume of information so that they are able to get exposure to other educational opportunities.

00:20:54:13 - 00:21:25:14
Jie Ren
So, I really like this logic. Also, it goes back to the saying that AI right now is enabling one person companies. So, kind of like for the region that you mentioned that is now so resourceful. That is obviously understaffed for educators, right? So right now, you could have like very few educators, but you use AI. They could, for example, use the system that you are developing and using in the research that you mentioned.

00:21:25:15 - 00:21:50:11
Jie Ren
Right. So, in this context, so that kids could get their AI tutors. Yeah. This is wonderful. All right. So now we have set the stage. Let's continue to talk about the educational context. So, in the Philippines what is the current status of educators and students using AI in the educational context?

00:21:50:12 - 00:22:15:04
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
What I've read and a little so I've read some local studies about that, have looked at the student teacher use of AI. And then of course, I work in a university, so we see a little bit of that. So of course, the main concern is cheating. So there's a lot of reports.

00:22:15:05 - 00:22:18:04
Jie Ren
Same here. Same here in the US as well.

00:22:18:05 - 00:22:48:10
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Right. There's a lot of reported cheating among students. And this has been I've seen this anecdotally and I've seen it written about as well, although I have not seen numbers like I've not seen how many percent of so that's one. Other students and again, I've seen this anecdotally and I've seen this written about but I don't have numbers is students use AI for comprehension support.

00:22:48:15 - 00:23:27:21
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, if they don't understand something they ask AI to explain it to them. They also ask help for if they don't understand how to finish a particular problem, they ask for help there. What seems to be lacking is AI to support creativity or as or exploration of a topic. And I'm going to speculate that that's because maybe students are just too busy trying to submit the graded homework rather than, you know, using it as an opportunity to expand their knowledge and really learn the subject matter deeply.

00:23:27:21 - 00:23:51:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Because if it's not graded, it's difficult to convince students to sort of do the extra reading and so on. And then of course, as in all countries, and there's some evidence of over reliance that, you know, if students have easy access to AI and they'll just depend on AI for quick answers. And that's been noted as well.

00:23:51:20 - 00:24:26:11
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Now for teachers, I've seen this anecdotally, and we also did a study, a small study about two years ago. And what seems to be occurring a lot is sort of this bring your own AI situation where if you can afford to get your own subscription or you're willing to use the free versions, then you can just use AI to help you draft your lesson plans or design activities or assessments or some teachers

00:24:26:15 - 00:25:00:22
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
use it for generating ideas for ways to present their subject matter and then the features both in the basic education. So, the elementary and secondary school and some of us in the higher education institutions as well, we have administrative loads over and above our teaching load. And so, some of the teachers who have these administrative loads, you say I to help with their admin work.

00:25:01:00 - 00:25:35:15
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, one of the examples that was given to us was that occasionally, they have to–– they are visited, for example by the congressman or by the district superintendent. And so, they have to make a poster. That is Welcome Congressman XY. So, designing that is something– Designing that poster is something they used to do manually. But now because of AI, they can just ask ChatGPT or Gemini to or something like Canva to generate a poster for them.

00:25:35:20 - 00:25:55:15
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, there's things like that, there are ways. So definitely some of the uses of AI are for productivity gains. And then there are the sort of the less the kinds of uses that maybe we're not so supportive of, like bypassing the hard work and just trying to get the answer.

00:25:55:17 - 00:26:31:05
Jie Ren
Yeah, it is quite challenging, right? Because it's so convenient to use AI to deliver the final, you know, deliverable for a school project. So, students are having the tendency to use that, you know, to maybe replace their learning. But this is as educators, this is our biggest concern because we want students to master the fundamentals first. So that's probably why the New York City government has banned the use of AI in education for those age groups of kids.

00:26:31:07 - 00:26:56:12
Jie Ren
Also, I want to echo one of the points that you mentioned, which is it really depends on the computing resources students are having. So, kind of like at the very beginning of 2000s. Right? So that's when the internet was starting to boom. And then the many students, especially in certain areas, let's say rural areas, they don't have computers. And then you see, the whole world is changing.

00:26:56:17 - 00:27:24:18
Jie Ren
The whole world is starting to move everything to online world. So yeah, it's like you don't have those facilities and then you could miss out on great opportunities, especially to boost up your career. It's a similar kind of metaphor for the age of AI as well. So how badly do you see students in the Philippines have access to computers or smart devices that could have AI, especially for learning.

00:27:24:20 - 00:27:54:06
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
That access is divided along socioeconomic lines? You have most people in the Philippines regardless of social class, age, gender, religion, most people have a cell phone. Now, you were talking about smart devices. That's a good distinction because not everybody has a smartphone. They might have a feature phone or they might have a smartphone, but it's not the latest smartphone.

00:27:54:06 - 00:28:24:03
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
It might be, you know, it might have less memory. It might have, you know, it's not as fast and so on. So, everybody has some level of access. But definitely there's socioeconomics that determine the quality of your device and the quality of your access. That's true of schools too. If you have if you have a private school, privately run school in the cities, those are generally well funded.

00:28:24:03 - 00:28:54:04
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
They have the resources to get to have computers or tablets in their classrooms with internet access. But if you go to public schools, especially in poorer parts of the city or more distant provinces, you'll see they have they might have a few computers and maybe some internet access, but not definitely not one is the one. And then there's the problem of maintenance to the moment.

00:28:54:05 - 00:29:28:13
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
They might not have the funding or the support for repairs or for, let's say, if the keyboard breaks or whatever, you know, replacement parts, that kind of thing. So, it's quite uneven. And then I think the other challenge is having teaching staff who are trained to use the technology in ways that actually support education, because if you look at the curriculum, the basic education curriculum, what is prescribed is really learning of productivity tools.

00:29:28:17 - 00:30:00:22
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So how to use a spreadsheet, how to use a word processor and so on. And then there is some language about using computer-based interventions for Math, Science, English and other academic subjects. But the prescriptions aren't or stay at sort of that broad level if you want to. I don't know if they have, for example, lesson plans that actually stipulate, you know, use this software to teach addition or whatever.

00:30:01:00 - 00:30:36:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I remember there was talk about its years ago, but I know where it is now. One thing I do want to point out is that about, maybe two years ago, there was a Khan academy office that was established here. So, there is now a Khan Academy Philippines, and they've been working with schools. They started with 30-32 schools in the very beginning, and then now they have about 2000-2500 schools that they're working with, and they're reaching supposedly about 1.3 million learners.

00:30:36:14 - 00:31:07:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I don't work with them. I've just read about them and, I've attended some of their sessions. So, what's nice about what they've done is that they've really partnered with the Department of Education. So, there is that institutional backing and partnership. And then of course you have their suite of learning materials and you have Khanmigo, which is an AI based learning tool.

00:31:07:15 - 00:31:22:14
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you know, you bring all of that together. And I think it's a good formula for pushing education forward with the help of the technology. They also provide teacher training. So that's yeah. Yeah.

00:31:22:16 - 00:31:56:16
Jie Ren
These are wonderful points. I also want to say kudos to cancer economy. And then especially organizations like this that are not really pursuing profits per se. Right. They are they aim to provide free access to education for everyone. So, kudos to them for sure. So, for that we need not only educational institutions but also funding from the government altogether, working together to help students, especially students in the rural areas that are not having so many computing resources.

00:31:56:18 - 00:32:15:12
Jie Ren
So, before we turn to the topic of AI equity, I have a question burning question for every single educator. How do we prevent students from cheating in the age of AI and suggestions or observations or anything you want to share?

00:32:15:13 - 00:32:49:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I actually think we have to revisit the way we assess, because if you end up giving an assessment, it's very easy to sort of turn into a prompt and, and, you know, generate using something like Gemini or ChatGPT. Then it's almost too great a temptation to not use because these tools, you know, we go back to things like, handwritten tests and oral exams.

00:32:49:12 - 00:33:12:23
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And just one of the things that we do in our department is we have a lot of presentations. So, if you have a project, you don't just submit the project, but you actually––The project actually gets broken down into deliverables. And with the deliverable you have to have a presentation and some kind of defense. So hopefully we see your project growing a little bit at a time.

00:33:12:23 - 00:33:45:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And it's not 100% foolproof of course, but because students are smart. But you know, we try I mean, it hopefully makes it a little less easy. The other thing that we do is we have a lot of community engagements. So, we have projects that, that are tied up, some big projects of our subjects. And I can only speak of computer science hours are required.

00:33:45:18 - 00:34:06:15
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
A partnership with the community. So maybe, again, let me give you just an example from my class. I teaching a class on AI in education this semester, and one of the projects that I have opened to the students is really this project with the last mile schools. So, we have a, a couple of people from government.

00:34:06:19 - 00:34:27:11
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
One of them is with the Department of Education and the other is from the Department of Health, and they are working on a project to try to help teachers in these last mile schools. And so, the person from the Department of Education, her name is Sabrina Kiko. And she's quite–– she's a science teacher for elementary.

00:34:27:11 - 00:34:52:20
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And she's extremely, extremely charismatic and brilliant and a wonderful person in general and proud to call her my friend. She was telling me that one of the things that the teachers wanted was some kind of app that would help them, you know, do things like classroom administration and generating lesson plans and so on. And so, I said, do you want me to give it as a project in my class?

00:34:52:20 - 00:35:21:21
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And she said, sure, that would be great. So that's where we are now. And some of my students have tried to generate like these minimum viable products, these things are probably not going to be production ready, meaning the teachers probably can't use them. But perhaps Sabrina and her partners can take this minimum viable product to a funder like our government funder and use it as leverage to ask for more funding to develop it into something bigger.

00:35:21:21 - 00:35:45:09
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And so, I think what's nice is that that kind of partnership gives the students an opportunity to work with real problems with real people. And at that point, I was like, you know, you want to you want the vibe coded, go ahead and vibe coded. But you have to make sure that it aligns with what the teachers really need.

00:35:45:14 - 00:35:58:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, you know, I think I think that that sort of approach helps with interest, some of these problems. But it's difficult. It is difficult to find these, these sorts of partnerships. It takes a lot of extra effort.

00:35:58:20 - 00:36:29:09
Jie Ren
I agree with you because at the end of the day, we are all holistic people, right? So, we are not only one-dimensional thing that we are represented by that homework that we made online. Right? And then in order to fully assess us as a, I don't know, potential job candidates, you know, like presentations, like how you communicate with people and then how you try to understand the task easily or clearly from your clients, etc., so that altogether we will need a really good skill.

00:36:29:12 - 00:36:53:16
Jie Ren
So having this kind of internship-ish. Right. Opportunities, the projects in your classroom are definitely wonderful to train students along that line. So great. Kudos to you, Didith, this is really good. Alrighty, so let's start to talk about AI equity in education. So, when you first hear about AI equity in learning, what does that mean to you?

00:36:53:18 - 00:37:18:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I think to me AI equity is using the resources like AI to help those who most need assistance. Because I notice that the very, very bright students and you probably noticed this as well with your students. They don't really need a lot of help. We can be terrible teachers and they will still do well because they are very, very smart.

00:37:18:20 - 00:37:53:09
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
They will find their way. But the students who are disadvantaged because they don't have enough support at home or they don't have certain resources that they need to learn, etc. I think these are the people that that we need to direct resources to, and if only to sort of level the playing field. I think there's a lot of talent that is left on the table because here, because people just don't have the resources to move forward.

00:37:53:14 - 00:38:03:23
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
But if we can somehow get them what they need, then maybe, yeah, I think we'll all be better off for it. It'll be a better world.

00:38:04:01 - 00:38:34:00
Jie Ren
Yeah. Agree with you. I mean, our original goal of developing technologies overall, not just the AI per say, is to create a better world, right, with say, higher efficiency, higher effectiveness, and especially to help the people that are most in need. Right. So yeah. Absolutely. So, let's shift our conversation to kind of tap into the cultural difference among students from different countries.

00:38:34:00 - 00:38:46:17
Jie Ren
For example, Filipino, I assume Filipino students culturally are different than American students. Could you please explain to our audience what is a Filipino culture?

00:38:46:19 - 00:39:18:09
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
There are many values that they're a characteristic of Filipinos. So, for example, we have values like it's called Utang na loob, which is translated to English, it means a debt of gratitude. And it just signifies this indebtedness in the context of students. It might be an s to their parents because their parents put them through school and, you know, feed them and house them and support them.

00:39:18:11 - 00:39:48:11
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And therefore, students feel this need to make sure that their parents are happy with them. We're also very communal in our thinking. We tend to worry about what other people think of us, and we're we want to make sure that we have smooth interpersonal relationships. Smooth interpersonal relationships are very important to Filipinos. So outward conflict is not something that we engage in.

00:39:48:11 - 00:40:15:02
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So even if there's somebody you don't like, it takes a lot for you to push back against that person. Typically, if you can just sort of smile and nod and just accept whatever that that's what we do. We do that a lot. And I think these are very different from American culture, especially New York culture, I think, so energy, if it's okay with you.

00:40:15:03 - 00:40:42:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I'll mention some of this, some of the differences as well that are I don't know if they if they qualify as cultural, but maybe these are sort of socio-economic realities. So, for example, there's a very high incidence of bullying in Philippine schools. In fact, we have I'm not sure if it was the PISA of 2022 that recorded that we have.

00:40:42:10 - 00:41:11:22
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Yeah, the highest of allow the survey of the countries that were surveyed. And it's a really high figure. It's something like, 65% of students reported being bullied a few times every month. So that that's quite and I mentioned it in the sense that, these are factors that affect learning and schooling. You know, the learning experience, right?

00:41:11:23 - 00:41:39:23
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
You can't have a good learning experience if you're experiencing bullying in school, of course. And then we have a lot of mental health problems as well about I think, I don't know if it was PISA who reported like 30% of students reported psychological distress and then their figures, like the rate of depression rose like doubled from 2013 to 2021.

00:41:40:00 - 00:42:13:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And then again, I say this because if you're having mental health issues, if you're having depression, it's very hard to learn, right? And then of course, we have, we're in the typhoon belt. We lose about 15 class days to, on average to calamity related events. In fact, recently we've had, the monsoon rains, and last week we lost about four class days just because of all the rain.

00:42:13:13 - 00:42:38:08
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And so, when you have this kind of severe weather, it really affects the regularity with which students can go to school. If your school is flooded or if the roads going to your school or flooded, or if your house is flooded. We have reports of people whose who have water in their houses, up to the waist, up to the neck, you know, it happens again.

00:42:38:10 - 00:43:01:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
How can you how can you study and how can you sort of bounce back? At the very least, you're going to have to help your parents clean out the house when the water recedes. Right. So, and then schools have to have to find a way to bounce back also. So, the all of these things make learning actually quite difficult.

00:43:01:20 - 00:43:12:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And there's something I know it's not I don't know if that qualifies as being cultural, but these are the things that our students have to contend with.

00:43:12:18 - 00:43:40:14
Jie Ren
Yeah, those definitely those severe weather definitely will add challenges to students’ day to day learning experience. So, I visited Manila this March. Beautiful city and I see everybody smiling and also singing too. I took several taxis and the taxi drivers were singing about. Driving is very cute. It's like everybody is so happy, right?

00:43:40:19 - 00:44:11:00
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Actually, you know, one thing I have to say about that, one of the things that they keep saying about Filipinos, Filipinos are so happy. And I think that speaks of us as a people that that we're very positive. We can find a lot of joy, even in these dark situations. But I also think maybe we should be less cheerful or less resilient because then, you know, because sometimes when you hear that

00:44:11:03 - 00:44:22:20
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
oh, you know, Filipinos are resilient, It's almost used like an excuse to not improve upon systems, because.

00:44:23:01 - 00:44:23:17
Jie Ren
I know what you mean.

00:44:23:19 - 00:44:45:13
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
It's okay because Filipinos are resilient. We'll smile through it. Yeah, but make the system better also. I mean, we could we can say happy and cheerful, but exactly. This is the matter, you know, control like address the flooding problem, have better infrastructure for schools and homes. You know, all these things.

00:44:45:13 - 00:45:16:07
Jie Ren
After all, we are all human beings, right? We have our limit in terms of how we how resilient we can be and be resilient. Doesn't mean that you can just keep bullying us. Right? So, kind of like students, right? Being bullied. And then maybe I'm just a assume, correct me if I'm wrong so the students could, worry more about interpersonal relationships and then maybe that could make them lose face, bring shame to the family, whatever.

00:45:16:08 - 00:45:39:18
Jie Ren
Even though they are just a victim so they don't really report this to their teachers or anyone that is, in power in charge to address this. So yeah, that could very much go back to the Filipino culture about focusing more on interpersonal relationships and being resilient. Do you think that's true?

00:45:39:19 - 00:46:39:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I mean, it sounds reasonable, I wouldn't. There are people who have studied this much more and can probably give a better opinion. I have a colleague, Doctor Gina Hechanova, who is the Dean of our School of Social Science. And the group of Doctor Hechanova is trying to raise awareness about how these different forms manifest themselves, and they want to help students develop the emotional strength to either walk away and not be subject to that bullying or to maybe intervene or be supportive of victims.

00:46:39:13 - 00:47:01:20
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, if it’s not you being bullied, but your friend who’s being bullied, how do you now provide support for that person? Or how do you dissuade the bullies from continuing? I think sometimes people don’t recognize that what they’re doing has actually crossed over to being harmful. And then, the group of Doctor Hechanova is also working with parents because parents themselves don’t realize that these things that are happening to their children are already, you know, already count as bullying.

00:47:01:22 - 00:47:32:03
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So there. My lab has worked with Doctor Hechanova’s group, and we've tried to develop some games that sort of carry that message and also developed some interactive videos and so on for them. Yeah. And it's really, they're all just, they're basically to help carry these, these messages of, you know, how do you, how can you recognize bullying as it's happening, and how do you protect yourself?

00:47:32:05 - 00:47:37:02
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And perhaps how do you help your friends if they are victims?

00:47:37:04 - 00:47:59:17
Jie Ren
Yeah. Agree with you to raise the public awareness of this also matters very much. So, if you see someone being bullied or if you see someone bullying others, and then you need to do something right and you need first recognize is actually a form of bullying. It doesn't need to be physical. It could be verbal. Right. So exactly.

00:47:59:18 - 00:48:00:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Yeah, yeah.

00:48:00:18 - 00:48:35:12
Jie Ren
All right. So given our discussion on the cultural difference as educators using AI systems in the Philippine culture. Do you see students having challenges, for example, as they are interacting with AI tutors? If there are any and then they are the AI tutors could be very much trained in the Western culture or Western context. For example, be more straightforward and less maybe interpersonal communications and less using the local dialect, something like that.

00:48:35:13 - 00:48:40:22
Jie Ren
Do you think students are facing any challenges in learning in the age of AI?

00:48:41:00 - 00:49:17:19
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I'll just try to give two examples, but they are somewhat limited. So, for Khan Academy Philippines, what I read is that they try to localize the materials. So, the materials, I think either in the local language or the cultural references are local. And so that tries to address some of these cultural differences. My second example is we I actually did the study with Jacqueline Ocampo, who is from the University of Houston, and then the other colleagues from one from Singapore.

00:49:17:19 - 00:50:00:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And there were also based in the US, and we tried to see how LLMs would grade essays that were well, we started with a good essay and a bad essay booth, both in English, and then we started inserting sort of Filipina-isms and so like quirks about how we are, how we speak English. So, I guess in the same way that you have Singaporean English and you have, African American English, and so you have all these English dialects, which I do introduce some of these characteristics of Filipino English.

00:50:00:03 - 00:50:38:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And we found that the LLM would actually grade, we would actually penalize essays that had those, those Filipino characteristics in them. We didn't do this with real students and with actual student essays. These were tests that we had just ran with, with synthetic data sensually. But it pointed out that if we were to use LMS to grade student essays, this might we might have a fairness problem, especially when students are writing in English when English is not their first language.

00:50:38:03 - 00:51:02:18
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And we tried this with ChatGPT, with Deep Seek and with Sea Lion, which is from Singapore, and which is, I think, based on Quinn. And all of them, penalize the essays that had the sort of the dialect characteristics in them. So, it was interesting to us because, more and more receiving the answer is to grade student essays.

00:51:02:18 - 00:51:12:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And, you know, we just have to be aware that the bias has that they're sort of embedded in the training data. They do come out in the grading.

00:51:12:03 - 00:51:36:10
Jie Ren
We definitely need AI system to be very localized to fit the local culture, because at the end of the day, learning is a very personal thing, right? Students want to feel familiarity first in order to be comfortable, to start to learn. Right. So, I, I totally agree with you. So, I have final two questions for you. And then in order to end this wonderful conversation.

00:51:36:14 - 00:51:57:10
Jie Ren
So, in the perfect world, I know that we have discussed the pros and cons of using AI especially, you know, related to this topic that we discussed today, AI equity in learning. So, in the perfect world going forward, in your opinion, how does a genuinely equitable AI environment in learning look like?

00:51:57:12 - 00:52:16:21
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I mentioned before, that what I think is a shortcoming of the way we're using AI is that it's bring your own AI. So, if you are very comfortable and proficient with the AI and I am not, then you will use AI and you will reap all the benefits of AI and I will, I will not, I will be left behind.

00:52:16:23 - 00:52:54:17
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
So, the gains are very individualized. And I think in the perfect world, what I would like is sort of more across the board adoption of AI in, in a way that is institutionally strategized and formulated. So, what do I mean? I wish there was some sort of minimal level of teaching assistant that maybe had our prescribed curriculum and maybe exemplary lesson plans, and maybe what AI can do is just sort of be the coach or be the teaching assistant of the teacher.

00:52:54:17 - 00:53:17:16
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And so, the teacher can ask, okay, what, you know, what I need for my class, bring out of the materials, what are the recommended assessments. And that will all be based on something that has been vetted and quality controlled at an institutional level. And I do mean sort of across the board so that the teachers don't have to just rely on themselves.

00:53:17:17 - 00:53:31:03
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
You know, they can actually there is some kind of institutional foundation that that will help sort of prop them up. So, I think that that would be one when we for it.

00:53:31:05 - 00:53:57:05
Jie Ren
Yeah. Let's be hopeful, optimistic, hoping that day could come soon. Right. So, my final, final question for you is that as an educator, any advice to, teachers or educators or professors that do want to use AI to cater to students’ different cultural backgrounds?

00:53:57:07 - 00:54:32:01
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
I think it starts to get really getting to know your students, getting to know what their cultural roots are, what their limitations are, what their insecurities are, and then trying to see how you can reach them where they are. And that can mean using AI, and that can mean not using AI. AI doesn't have to be the thing that gets you closer to your students, but I think understanding where they would sort of–– where do they see themselves?

00:54:32:03 - 00:54:53:09
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
Education is education for something, for some future. So it is that future that they want for themselves. And what are the things that they're holding them back? What are the things that they're enabling them? How can you strengthen the factors that enable them to reach those goals? How can you dampen the factors that are holding them back?

00:54:53:11 - 00:55:19:10
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And that doesn't mean that the solution is AI. It could be chalk and talk could be paper. So, I think maybe that's the second thought that. So, I think getting to know your students and figuring out how best to reach them. I think be open to the possibility that the solution is not technology. The solution may be much more basic.

00:55:19:10 - 00:55:22:12
Maria Mercedes Rodrigo
And that's okay if it works.

00:55:22:14 - 00:55:38:13
Jie Ren
I agree with you. It is truly the man set that matters. AI just one of the many facilitators. Thank you so much, Didith. I truly learned a lot from our conversation, especially about the Filipino culture. Thank you so much, Didith!