The Pillars Supporting the Future of Education: AI and ML
Do you know the difference between a student and a teacher? (No, not the age)
Students are those creatures who freak out a day before the examination. And teachers are those who freak out a day after the examination. Why? Well, you won’t understand the pain of teachers until you are in their shoes.
When you have a huge pile of answer sheets to be corrected, stacked in front of you, you too would want to rebuke your younger self for choosing this profession.
It’s not just about the time required, it’s also about the level of patience. How desperately do the teachers wish for a magic wand which could correct those answer sheets!
But now, their wish has been granted! And there is indeed a magic wand — AI.
AI and ML have brought about a revolution in the education sector. Edtech innovators are using this technology to change the face of education. They not only make the learning process efficient and easier for kids but also prove to be a great help for the teachers.
What do AI and ML mean?
AI refers to artificial intelligence. It is the intelligence demonstrated by machines that mimics cognitive functions of the human mind such as learning and problem-solving. In simple words, AI makes machines capable of learning from experience and adjusting to new inputs, thus performing human-like tasks.
Autonomous vehicles, drones, search engines, online assistants, are all applications of AI. It is also being used for making art, playing games like chess, image recognition and for medical diagnosis.
And the process of making machines artificially intelligent is known as machine learning. It teaches a computer system to accept variable inputs and make accurate predictions based on it.
You might wonder how AI and ML are useful. To understand it better, let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen a video on YouTube which is in a foreign language that you don’t understand? What do you do then? Switch on the auto-generated captions.
Now, who do you think generates these captions? It is AI. Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to recognize speech accurately, to predict whether an email is spam, and to sense an obstacle when a self-driven car spots people crossing the road.
AI is different from the traditional computer software. The latter involves codes written by a human programmer which instructs the machine to distinguish between two objects, say an apple and a mango.
But AI doesn’t have predefined codes. AI involves training where the machine is taught to accurately identify objects and reliably distinguish between them, based on a huge amount of data fed to it. In this case, the data refers to a large number of images of the two fruits labeled with their names.
It is similar to human intelligence. You do not need an instruction manual to distinguish between various objects, but instead, you can do it based on your past experience. This is exactly what AI does as well.
AI and ML have become increasingly popular over the past decades. They have a huge impact on almost every field, especially on the education sector.
Problems with the present education system
The present education system can be aptly described as a factory where students are programmed, but not educated. It is not agile enough to adapt to the changing times. Ask kids what their plans for the vacation are and an overwhelming majority would have either a blank face or an “I haven’t still decided” to offer. Not knowing what to do during vacations proves that the present system of education has stolen the life from our lives.
The schools are overcrowded. In order to succeed, the students, today, require personal attention, more than ever. But instead, the present system makes it difficult for students to learn and for teachers to teach effectively.
The system is highly flawed and needs reforms. We had already discussed this in one of our articles. You can check it out here.
AI is possibly the agent of that much-needed reform. It has the capability of improving the teaching-learning process, making it more effective and reshaping the educational world. Let us see what applications AI and ML have and how they are being incorporated in this field.
Personalised curriculum
The phrase that every student is equal, is a myth. Every student is unique, with his or her own abilities, resources and constraints.
Every student has a different level of understanding and requires a personalized way to be taught.
Google uses cookies to provide ‘personalized recommendations’. Even Netflix offers suggestions based on personal preferences. So why not a personalized syllabus for every student?
But teachers too are human beings, with their own limitations. They may not be able to cater to every individual needs. This is where AI provides a solution.
AI enables educators to meet the student requirements from the beginning itself, instead of trying to identify them during the course year.
Many softwares help teachers to identify the students at risk so that they can assist them. Access to the student’s data in advance, allows an educator to curate a personalized curriculum for him or her, focusing on the individual strength. Apps like SmartEd customize textbooks to personalize the learning process better. For instance, JusttheFacts101 generates summaries on-the-spot and when you wish that your textbook was a study guide, Cram101 comes to the rescue and grants this wish of yours!
The small details which usually escape our eyes can be identified by AI. This can help determine the student’s needs. For instance, some students might understand better by reading the provided material, while others may require a real time lecture. These needs can be better understood by implementing AI.
Performance assessment and automated grading
Being a class representative is a matter of pride. However, not everyone wishes to take up that responsibility (especially people like me, who hated the idea of having to run behind the teachers, carrying the record book all through the school building).
But mostly, students opt out of this idea because they believe that additional responsibilities might hamper their studies. It is true to some extent and may alleviate the effective study hours.
The same applies to teachers as well. Unfortunately, they do not have an option to opt-out of it. Today, with a large number of students in every class, teachers are burdened with several administrative responsibilities, which include grading assessments, preparing course material, checking the facts and figures, marking attendance and so on, that deviate them from the sole purpose of effectively imparting knowledge to the students.
AI can be used to automate the process of checking test papers and grading students through solutions like Gradescope. AI can even grade the handwritten work of students, which helps to keep a watch over their daily class activity. Teachers can then monitor the class performance or individual students by easily analyzing the data through apps like Socrative and Diagnoser. This can help the teachers to save a lot of time which they can devote to developing better lesson plans. This will also help to eradicate any instances of partiality or favoritism while grading assignments.
The automated process due to AI helps not just the teachers but also the students. Students, who need an extra class or have some doubts, don’t have to run after a teacher to fix an appointment. The system using AI can do it for them, by matching the students’ routine with the teacher’s schedule. AI can recognize a student’s shortcomings better and can even suggest learning material to improve.
Adaptive learning
A student’s skills and learning abilities can be checked and identified better using AI. It can help to analyze the student’s interaction with the study material and collect this data for you to have an insight into their learning process, in order to provide the necessary assistance. iTalk2Learn is one such open source app that serves this purpose.
The adaptive learning programs can help predict academic performance which is important for determining the task to be assigned to a student. It enables students to self contemplate on their knowledge and abilities and also provides adaptive assignments to bridge the gap in their knowledge. This helps to keep them involved in the learning process.
Tutoring chatbots
Do you know what teachers fear the most? The phrase, “Sir, please repeat it again” after they have already explained a long list of instructions.
Tutoring chatbots can be a great support to the students outside the classroom. These teaching assistants can understand a student’s query and provide personalized answers, unlike certain softwares which have pre-scripted text. MATHiaU is one such personalized virtual tutor that provides immediate feedback and guides students and mirrors a human coach.
Such chatbots can assist students with the course material, inform them about necessary announcements or changes in curriculum and can clarify their doubts quickly. This helps students to understand better and at their own pace, anytime and from anywhere, while allowing teachers to take a much-needed break.
24 × 7 mentor support
This is one of the most useful applications of AI. The chatbots mentioned above are available all the time. You can access them from anywhere and get your doubts clarified anytime.
Most of the students have doubts when they solve their homework or do self-study at home. And at this time, usually, there is no one to solve those doubts. Thus, students have to wait till the next day to get them clarified and complete the task.
However, this reduces their attention spans and also hampers their studies by hindering the continuity. When students are stuck with doubt they can’t solve, they get distracted easily.
Smartphones and other gadgets are far more engaging than geometry or science. And they get an upper hand when students lose interest in their studies due to some question that couldn’t be solved or a concept that they couldn’t understand.
Moreover, even when in class, there is an entire bunch of students who require attention and only one teacher to handle all of them. The teacher is usually too busy, and a student’s each and every doubt getting clarified, is rare.
This is where AI provides an effective solution. Help is available 24 × 7, unlike humans who have certain limitations. This makes the students independent learners and also helps them to access resources at their convenience. One such example is FLEXA, a personal AI mentor developed by the International Business School of Politecnico di Milano.
Facial recognition
Students can be identified through facial scans and thus there’s no scope of using duplicate ID proofs. This helps to keep students under the supervision of their parents and teachers at all times, thus preventing them from going astray.
This can be done through AI-powered face recognition solutions like SmartIdentification™, which can be quite useful (though not for the students who love bunking classes) in providing proper guidance and also in preventing any mishap. It also helps to keep a record of students who are not regular and sincere in their daily activities so that their parents can be notified.
Predictive analysis to track the right career path
Choosing the right career is essential. It should be given some thought, and should be decided after considering one’s abilities, limitations and expectations.
Just because someone knows how to make a cup of noodles doesn’t mean he should be a chef. There can be other areas of interest in which a person is an expert, but they are yet to be explored.
AI, based on the data collected and the user experience, offers a transient procedure to identify and track a career path for each student. Teachers’ opinions about a student’s future based on favoritism can reduce the morale of many bright minds who may consider themselves inferior to others.
AI offers a predictive analysis based on proofs and performance, which are real facts. It analyses the past and present data to make predictions about the future.
Thus, teachers can pay more attention to the students who are likely to score less or perform inefficiently in the future, based on this predictive analysis through learning systems like that of IBM’s vision of Smart Classrooms. This would help to create an all round profile view of the students and also to improve the performance of every student so that no one feels left out. Moreover, it would aid students in analysing their own capacities and choosing the right career path without being influenced by others’ opinions.
Identifying gaps
Just like students struggle with revising the syllabus in time, teachers too have deadlines to meet. They have to teach at a certain pace in order to complete the syllabus in time. This leads to the creation of gaps in their lectures which might confuse students.
AI can help to bridge these gaps through platforms like Thirdspace Learning and Alta from Knewton. Students would be able to clear all their concepts by interacting with a personalised program to get instant feedback. This would also make them self reliant without having to depend on the teacher to complete the syllabus.
It can also work the other way round. These programs can inform the teachers about gaps in the learning process of their students and thus they would be able to assist their students personally, asking them to speed up or to go through a particular topic that they might have missed.
Using smart techniques
It is truly said that smart work overpowers hard work. When opportunities have to be grasped and there’s no time to waste, we have to evolve and adapt to smart techniques.
Smart content refers to study material that can engage students. Do you remember your school days? Didn’t you watch out of the window at least once, wishing you could play out with your friends instead of attending the class? Or didn’t you glance at the watch to see how much time was left before you could run out of the door?
This was because the material you were being taught couldn’t engage you or couldn’t hold your attention. Today, the situation is even more difficult with gadgets surrounding us on all sides. Thus, teachers have to work a lot harder to keep students hooked to the lectures.
But they seldom realise that they don’t need to put in so much of hard work. They just need smart content which AI can generate like the Blippar’s products. For instance, textbooks should not have those long paragraphs and pages filled with text and text and text (yeah, text-books shouldn’t have only text).
They should have more visual content and flowcharts to help grasp concepts better. Moreover, there should be multiple choice questions, summaries and assessment papers included in every chapter. 3D models and augmented reality can help explain complex concepts in an easy way making them easier to visualise. AI can provide the required byte-sized content that is easy to learn, the simulation and the web-based study environment as has been displayed by the AI virtual tutor engine of Querium.
Lectures should be transformed into interactive video tutorials, flashcards, educational apps and assessment quizzes, which can be done via AI. AI can provide the basic facts and figures to students so that teachers can be mentors and motivators and not just information providers. Moreover, AI can automatically update the content which helps to ensure that the information being provided is up to date and correct.
This would help students to access the resources at all times and would also help to boost their performance. Virtual teachers can help provide personal assistance to students and can also help the introverts to evolve, thus enhancing overall performance.
An aid to online education
Online education helps to erase all boundaries and reach out to students in every corner of the world. It has already become a lot popular with students opting for digital classes. With AI improving the quality of education and making it more engaging, online education is sure to get a boost. As said earlier, the smart content generated by AI, its 24×7 accessibility and virtual assistance tailored to suit personal needs would add to the benefits of online education, making it more preferable.
Conclusion
AI has a tremendous scope in the near future. Apart from the applications mentioned above, AI and ML have many other benefits. They need to be integrated into the education process for students to learn better, faster and with increased efficiency. If encouraged and given the chance, AI and ML would definitely prove to be strong pillars supporting the future of education.
Disclaimer: We are not sponsored by any sites or links provided in this article, we just want to spread information to educators and parents to improve and help in the education of young curious minds.
