The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in every era of our future work and life is undeniable. It contributes to the development of healthcare via surgery robots and new uses of medicines. HR departments make use of AI and Machine Learning to automate the recruitment process or parse candidates’ resumes to streamline the screening process. The content marketing industry dramatically benefits from AI with the creation of human-like writing tools.
AI, without a doubt, has also been increasingly recognized as a powerful solution to transform education. These cutting-edge technologies highlight enormous challenges and limitations in today’s education to assist teachers and drive better learning strategies.
Today’s article centers on the benefits of artificial intelligence in education, for both teachers and learners. We’ll also clarify some concerns educationists may have when taking advantage of AI in teaching and learning.
Advantages of Artificial Intelligence in Education
You may be surprised at how powerful AI is in the growth of the education sector. Below are just a few typical roles of artificial intelligence to transform the future’s teaching experience.
Personalization
There is a rising trend in personalized learning programs for students. As a matter of fact, spelling out the custom demands of individual learners is never simple, especially when you have classes with many students.
AI technology helps educational providers identify learners’ knowledge levels as well as their learning speeds to design best-fit learning approaches. On top of that, some tools even take data from previous courses, then figure out their strengths and weaknesses and offer suitable lessons to their capability.
Take Duolingo, a popular language-learning app, as an example. It uses deep learning algorithms to analyze the human brain’s behavior, analyze data, and make predictions. The tool can determine when a user will get a correct answer or when they forget a specific term. Duolingo will later take this information for personalizing the adaptive learning test and content.
Tutoring
Asking teachers for extra help is a major part of the learning process. Unfortunately, students hardly appeal to teachers for one-on-one help after class as they don’t have time.
That’s where AI systems come in handy. AI tutors and chatbots offer customized support and one-on-one tutoring experience. They can answer all questions students may have 24/7 with the existence of teachers.
Cognii turns out to be a simple yet powerful application to give students individualized attention via its virtual learning assistant. It provides one-on-one tutoring and real-time feedback that applies to each student to sharpen their skills.
Grading
Scoring tons of exams takes time, A LOT OF time, especially when all students in a school/university have to participate in the same examination.
Artificially intelligent solutions make grading exams as easy as pie. Not only can they score multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank tests using answer keys, but AI systems also grade essays and other more abstract assessments. Since then, teachers can spend their spare time on student engagement or self-professional development.
Project Essay Grade (PEG) is doing a great job of applying AI technology to automate grading. The software scans through, understands, analyzes written prose, and gives the results. It will evaluate many factors, from fluency and diction to grammar and construction.
Providing Feedback on Course Quality
There may be gaps between training materials and the way teachers transmit information. This will definitely confuse students, leading to different conceptual foundations among students. Consequently, the majority of students keep answering questions incorrectly.
Teachers must figure out places for improvement and provide better materials for that information/concept.
Fortunately, artificial intelligence can handle that with ease. Coursera is worth the notice when alerting teachers about specific points in a course. Instead of puzzling students, the software even gives hints of the correct answer.
Real-time Feedback for Students
Many students find it hard to receive feedback from professionals or instructors in front of the class, negative feedback in particular. It’s difficult for them to take risks to express their new ideas.
When learning with human-like systems, they’re free to make mistakes and learn from these errors. They will receive instant help from a personal virtual assistant as well as a plan for improvement in the future.
24/7 Learning
Students have to attend classes on a fixed schedule. They have to absent themselves from the class if any urgent situation happens. After that, they will need to ask for help from teachers or classmates to re-explain the lesson later, which takes up a significant amount of time.
AI helpers are far more flexible by allowing students to access courses anytime and anywhere. They can decide their schedule without worrying about the day’s plan. Learners are also able to pick the teachers and choose who they prefer to learn with at their fingertips.
Steps to Implement AI in Education
Once you understand the outstanding benefits of artificial intelligence in training, it’s time to learn how to adapt it in educational organizations.
- Identify problems – The first and most vital step is addressing existing issues of the organization and how AI can resolve them. Once spotting the pain points, you can seek AI solutions to optimize the process.
- Define objectives – Before selecting an AI solution, clearly understand its essence as well as the capability to fit the education organization. Don’t forget to consider the drawbacks of AI. Besides familiar technologies, some others are still new to users. So, make a smart decision to be an early adopter or a follower.
- Narrow down areas that need automation – Not all departments in a school or university can adopt technology quickly and effectively. It’s the head’s responsibility to set up the right environment for the right one to implement AI tools. Neurond offers an ideal AI consulting approach for every educational institution. The company firstly identifies areas that need innovation and then designs suitable solutions for your demand.
Disadvantages of AI in Teaching and Learning
It’s evident that edge-cutting AI technologies can sometimes harm educational organizations, despite mind-blowing advantages.
- Human Interaction Limitation
Honestly, AI reduces the time teachers and students spend on each other. Learners interact with computers or phones, eliminating the chance to practice and learn social skills. The high number of children struggling with stress and committing suicide during the COVID-19 lock-down has proved that.
- Teachers’ Unemployment
AI software and teaching robots are believed to put an end to teachers and professional’s career. They can create lesson plans, guide learners, generate tests, and grade assignments automatically. Students can learn on their own most of the time without help from instructors.
In fact, AI just reduces teachers’ work, not completely replacing them. Schools still need teachers for instant situations that machines can’t solve.
- Financial Problems
It costs a lot of money to research, develop, and launch artificially intelligent systems specially designed for education.
Plus, AI and automation require educational organizations to have hardware and software ready. It would help if you had at least facial recognition and natural language processing tools to implement it. There would be no problem with International and Private schools. However, schools with little funding find it impossible to implement these technologies.
Out of the box, education institutions may face maintenance issues. For example, one software or machine serves a particular function, and you need several of them at a time. Frankly, each device operates on different rules, so it isn’t easy to have all of them perform well together.
- A Lack of Emotion
Machines are senseless. Although we’re trying to produce robots with facial expressions, it’s unable to replace human beings. If you expect a bot to communicate with you the same way as a human, it will not happen.
Teachers are intended to strengthen the bonds between students, engage them, and give them motivation. Apart from knowledge, kids will learn social skills like empathy, communication, and reaction skills.
- Laziness in the Students
There exists a disadvantage that AI systems make students more dependent on technology than on solving problems themselves. “Why do I have to waste time thinking about this while the answer is ready with just a click?”
Reap Artificial Intelligence for Education
AI delivers a massive package of benefits to improve education methods. It helps create tailored training programs for individual students, provide feedback on the course’s quality, and automate administrative tasks such as grading and planning lessons.
Bear in mind that artificial intelligence is not as perfect as we might think. It can probably reduce the interaction between teachers and students, make many teachers unemployed, and remove the power of thinking in learners.
Deploying technologies in education is never a hassle if you’re clear on your issues, objectives, and financial potential. Let us address your pain points and approach a specific solution for your educational institution now!