As artificial intelligence systems play a bigger role in everyday life, they are also changing the world of education.
ChatGPT from OpenAI, Bing from Microsoft And Google’s bard they all involve risks as well as opportunities.
I’m a literacy teacher and researcherand here are four ways I think these types of systems can be used to help students learn.
1. Differentiated instruction
Teachers are taught to identify the learning goals of all students in a class and tailor instruction to the specific needs of individual students. But with 20 or more students in a classroom, fully customized lessons are not always realistic. Everyone learns differently.
An AI system can observe how a student completes an assigned task, how much time they take, and whether they are successful. If the student is struggling, the system can help; if the student succeeds, the system can present more difficult tasks to keep the activity challenging.
This kind real-time feedback is often difficult for an educator or school to do for a single student, let alone an entire class or campus. AI adaptive learning tools have been shown to quickly and dynamically make changes to the learning environment, content and tasks to help individuals learn more and improve quickly.
For example, researchers at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University taught a system how to solve a mathematical problem. The system can following instructions from a human supervisor to understand mathematical rules and adapt his approach to problems he has never seen before. The system can also identify areas where it took several tries to arrive at the correct answer, mark those for teachers as places where human students could become confused, and highlight methods the system used to arrive at the correct answer more efficiently .
2. Intelligent textbooks
Researchers at Stanford have developed and tested a prototype of what is being called an “intelligent textbook,” titled “Please inquire.” It is an iPad app that monitors students’ focus and attention while reading by observing how students interact with the app. The interactive text includes key word definitions accessible by touch or click and allows students to highlight and take notes as they read.
The textbook may also suggest questions about the content and areas for future research that are customized for each individual. It can change the reading level of the text and also contain additional photos, videos and materials to help students understand what they are studying.
3. Improved rating
Educational assessment focuses on how an educator knows if a student is learning what is being taught. Traditional assessments—essays, multiple-choice tests, short-answer questions—are little changed from a century ago. Artificial intelligence has the potential to change that by identifying learning patterns that may not be apparent to individual teachers or administrators.
For example, the language learning company Duolingo uses AI and machine learning to create and score tests of English proficiency for universities, businesses and government agencies. The tests begin with a series of standard questions, but based on how the student handles them, the system will select more difficult or easier questions to more quickly identify a student’s exact skills and weaknesses.
Another review project, Reach every reader, staffed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, MIT and Florida State University, creates educational games for parents to play with their children while teaching them to read. Some games have adults and children role-play as characters based on real-life scenarios.
These games can help parents and teachers efficiently determine whether children are reading and reading at the right level get them on track if they are not.
4. Personalized learning
Personalized learning occurs when the student’s interests and goals drive learning. The teacher is more of a facilitator, while the what, why and how of learning is largely dictated by the student. Artificial intelligence systems can provide individualized instructions tailored to the individual interests of each student.
AI adaptive learning systems can quickly identify when a student is struggling and then provide more or different support to help them succeed. As the student demonstrates mastery of the content or skill, the AI tool offers more difficult tasks and materials challenge the student even more.
Chatbots have been used to respond to typed or spoken input. Many people interact with a chatbot when they ask Alexa or Siri a question. In education, chatbots with artificial intelligence systems can guide students with personalized, just-in-time feedback or assistance. These chatbots can answer questions about course content or structure. This helps students keep track of their own learning keep them motivated and engaged.
Like an automated playlist with music or video recommendations, an AI-powered recommendation system can generate customized assessment questions, detect misunderstandings and suggest new areas for a student to explore. These AI technologies have the potential to help students now and in the future.
