For courses that teach communication, leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution, the hardest resource to find is not theory but practice. Educators working in asynchronous online environments report that while learners can master concepts through readings and reflection, they seldom receive enough opportunities to rehearse the interpersonal skills they will need in workplaces, communities and public decision-making.
Practice, not answers
“The most valuable thing artificial intelligence gave my students wasn’t answers. It was practice.”
That observation, shared in recent reporting on AI-integrated teaching, captures the shift many instructors are experimenting with: using generative systems to simulate realistic interactions so students can practise responses, test strategies and reflect on outcomes without risk to real relationships.
The need for repeated practice is particularly acute where classroom activities aim to shift how students approach emotionally charged conversations. In a course on leadership and conflict resolution framed around environmental challenges, for example, learners often bring examples of polarised debates from personal life — with family, roommates or friends — rather than formal workplace disputes. Early course participants tend to equate success with "winning" or changing the other person’s mind. Structured practice, combined with guided reflection, helps them reframe success as preserving relationships, keeping dialogue open or creating conditions for future understanding.
How AI is being used
Instructors report a few consistent uses of AI in these contexts:
- Simulated dialogues: AI models generate realistic conversational partners with varying viewpoints, allowing learners to practise de-escalation, persuasion and listening.
- Anonymised practice spaces: Chat-based interactions can remove personal risk, encouraging students to try different approaches.
- Asynchronous availability: Learners can engage in practice at times that suit them, which supports access for students balancing work, caregiving or other commitments.
Those affordances matter in South Africa’s diverse higher education landscape, where the mix of full-time and part-time learners, varying access to synchronous sessions, and geographic distance from campus make anytime, anywhere practice especially valuable.
Benefits and limits
Reported benefits include more frequent practice opportunities, quicker cycles of trial and reflection, and exposure to a wider range of interlocutor styles than a single peer group can provide. Students often find the experience transformative: repeated simulated encounters can shift their immediate goals from proving a point to maintaining relationships and fostering ongoing dialogue.
At the same time, AI-based practice is not a panacea. Models can fail to capture the full emotional texture of human interaction, and ethical questions arise about bias in generated responses, learner privacy and how feedback is framed. Instructors emphasise that AI should complement — not replace — human-guided reflection, debriefing and assessment.
| Challenge | AI role |
|---|---|
| Lack of safe, repeatable practice opportunities | Provides simulated interlocutors for asynchronous rehearsal |
| Limited exposure to diverse viewpoints | Generates a broader range of conversational styles |
| Emotional complexity of real relationships | Offers lower-risk practice but cannot fully replicate human nuance |
Implications for South African classrooms
As South African universities and colleges continue to expand online and blended offerings, the practical question is how to integrate AI-driven practice responsibly. Key considerations for education leaders and practitioners include:
- Designing tasks that pair AI simulations with structured human feedback so that insights from practice are translated into changed behaviour.
- Safeguarding learner data and ensuring anonymisation when chat logs are used for assessment or reflection.
- Training educators to curate and moderate AI interactions, including recognising model limitations and potential biases.
When these conditions are met, AI can serve as a scalable rehearsal space that helps learners convert conceptual knowledge into durable interpersonal skills. For teachers and parents, the priority remains the same: creating reliable opportunities for learners to practise what they must be able to do in the world, not just what they can memorise on a test.
