A.I. Emerges into Education
- Charles Shewell
- Jun 23, 2022
- 3 min read
Bringing Education into the Future
The Emergence.
This is NOT a post apocalyptic world where robots destroy everything standing in their way as they take over the world... yet. However, in our post pandemic world, education has forever changed thanks to hybrid and online learning. With the integration of technology in a classroom setting and lives being reshaped through remote living, learning is in a transformational era. With this changing environment comes the need for support and that support can come from the trending area of artificial intelligence. "As computer systems that have been designed to interact with the world through capabilities (for example, visual perception and speech recognition) and intelligent behaviors (for example, assessing the available information and then taking the most sensible action to achieve a stated goal) that we would think of as essentially human", Oxford Dictionary (2005).
Why is This Important?
AI in education can benefit educators and students through a multitude of systems that will enable evaluation to make valuable judgements in terms of support and deeper learning. Educators are constantly struggling with time management due to their growing number of tasks asked of them. AI can provide support through automating assessments of student performance and simple online chores, providing more time for the teacher to spend one on one with students in need. Jobs that can be automated could include grading papers, question response, and measuring learning patterns. Through the automation of assessment, AI can provide teachers with information on what students are struggling with, so that they may reevaluate their learning plan. This helps a teacher spend more time in areas of need, preventing learners from falling behind and closing the knowledge gap.
Teachers and students alike would benefit greatly through one on one experiences and artificial intelligence can help with that. AI can impact the journey of a student's education through personalization. AI would allow a customization of learning to each student by adjusting to individual levels of expertise and learning speed. Through this, AI could detect a students improvement in their educational history and recommend a course of improvement. If or when a student is in need of assistance outside of class time, AI systems like a chatbox can offer additional one on one experiences without a teacher's presence, allowing tutoring at anytime. “Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) comes in and uses AI techniques to simulate one-to-one human tutoring, delivering learning activities best matched to a learner’s cognitive needs and providing targeted and timely feedback, all without an individual teacher having to be present,” Luckin (2016).
More Professional Development, Yay!
I feel this is where I need to add in the line spoken by Uncle Ben in Spiderman before he passes away, "With great power, comes great responsibility". The responsibility of the school district will be to train educators on how to operate and manage the AI applications or programs within their classrooms. Teachers will have to research and interpret the AI provided data as they will be responsible for managing the processed information. There will have to be a deep understanding of what these AI systems can do in order to make sound judgements on the technology. Artificial Intelligence will also bring a "teamwork" component through assistance, which demands a need for more management. “Here models of effective collaboration – known as ‘collaboration patterns’ – are used to provide interactive support to the collaborating students,” McLaren (2010).
What's Slowing This Thing Down?
Artificial Intelligence is still a rather new technology still being developed which creates some barriers bringing it into the world of education. The biggest two, in my opinion, are cost and a lack of infrastructure. Districts will have to expand their budgets to cover expenses for not only the high cost of the product, but for maintenance and future repairs as well. AI also requires a great amount of power that is needed to run 24/7, and at this moment the majority of districts have not been able to find alternatives to balance the consumption of power. With the capabilities that AI can bring to a school, the district would need to enhance their infrastructure, allowing storage of data constantly being obtained. At this point in time only highly funded schools have the finances to use Artificial Intelligence in their districts.
Food for Thought
"The application of artificial intelligence to education (AIEd) has been the subject of academic research for more than 30 years. The field investigates learning wherever it occurs, in traditional classrooms or in workplaces, in order to support formal education as well as lifelong learning", Luckin (2016).
Works Cited
(2005). ODE: The Oxford dictionary of English (Oxford dictionaries online). Oxford: Oxford University Press. AND Russell, S. J., Norvig, P., & Davis, E. Artificial intelligence: A modern approach. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Luckin, Rose; Holmes, Wayne; Griffiths, Mark and Forcier, Laurie B. (2016). Intelligence Unleashed: An argument for AI in Education. Pearson Education, London.
McLaren, B. M., Scheuer, O., & Mikšátko, J. (2010). “Supporting Collaborative Learning and e-Discussions Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques”. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. 20(1), 1–46.
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