HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE INDIAN EDUCATION SPACE?

Artificial Intelligence in the Education space is here to stay, and we know it; AI & associated technologies prominently play-out in education today, more than ever and it is bound to grow steadily.?Moreover, we are sure to experience in this 3rd decade of the 21st Century that AI in Education continues to emerge as mainstream-Tech in education and more specifically in both segments of education - K12 and HED (Higher Education).

Over the past 2 decades, and specifically in the last 2-3 years, we have seen a paradigm shift in policies around education the world-over, including India’s education system via National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.? The shift has been from an education system that's limited to grading systems, with traditional textbook delivery, rote teaching methods and finally content that is a far distant cry from academia meeting industry today. ?

With Industry 4.0 prevalent in our world today, and as Klaus Schwab said “The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, or Industry 4.0, conceptualizes rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation.” ?The term Industry 4.0 has been used widely in scientific literature, and was popularized by Klaus Schwab in 2015, the World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman.

With Industry 4.0 on our doorsteps and into our homes, workspaces, it’s now time for classrooms to transform to Education 3.0.? Decades ago leading to today, education was more of a knowledge transfer from teacher to pupil.? Learning with Tech Tools in classrooms was thought of as a distant and futuristic concept where technology in any form was embedded in learning and teaching.? However, pandemic in 2020 changed the way we worked and learnt, the pandemic has been a catalyst to Transformation in Education and in workspaces as seen world-over.? The salient benefits of the Pandemic era were accepting technology for human interaction in an inclusive method, and more so especially in Education.? Today, the education sector has adopted the role of technology tools in teaching and learning, and emerging ed-tech & AI-based firms came to the forefront to innovate, implement, and revolutionize learning for students and teaching for teachers.

In Higher Education, whether it’s supporting and/or helping students to select a course or a major for a specific career, completing of a course at the university or college, or in pursuing a career-path, there are many significant areas and points of concern in their journey where students need that extra support. ?Changing student expectations and new models of learning have brought new challenges to educational institutions in India, and we have seen many of these institutions in Higher-ED and K12 looking forward to making it easier by using AI, Machine Learning & Data Science solutions to acclimate towards the changing technology landscape and this trend is not just for India but the world over.

At Juana Technologies through bespoke R&D in education we build custom Data + AI-driven solutions for Adaptive Learning & Teaching that help to enhance the Student Lifecycles.?

The most noteworthy or specific areas (5) of a Student Lifecycle where Artificial Intelligence plays a significant importance today are: (1) Student Acquisition - Virtual assistant for prospective student outreach, Automating emails to prospective students course recommendation (2) Student Enrollment – Processing of Student Documents, Enrollment Prediction, SOP analysis, Virtual admissions consultants (3) Learner UX or Experience – Super AI tutors and Teacher Assistants, Courseware & Content explanation with AI&ML including translation, Predictive Analysis including Student Attrition and dropout rates (4) Student Assessment – Automated Student grading, Automated online proctoring and finally Learner engagement modeling and finally (5) Student Career Services - Career placement, Alumni engagement modelling, ?Student Gap analysis for Career Skills. ??

With Artificial Intelligence here to stay and is paving the way for embedded technology tools that will be an integral part of the Indian education space in 2022 and beyond.?AI will amplify Education 3.0 further in India and WW.?The Indian education space, today, is realizing the power & potential of AI&ML technologies like never before.?

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science (DS) & Machine Learning (ML) is fast acknowledged & also embraced thereby enabling more efficiency and accuracy in processes, personalized learning and teaching. ?Assistive technologies in the education space is now becoming predominant, be it in grading, student support and career services. ??In turn, resulting in giving teachers more time & freedom to be with students when its needed most especially in personalized attention and human interactions. ?Experiential learning systems through gamification methods for teaching & learning are now becoming mainstream in classroom and workspaces as well.?Creating intelligent & connected environments for students in K12, on foundational understanding of AI is evidently critical for today’s digital economy and tomorrow’s workspaces. ?Multiple research reports have indicated that teachers using gamification methods for teaching students of this digital age, on academic subjects like Maths, Languages, Arts and Sciences has shown higher retention of information in learners.?Learning to solve real-world problems is essential for future work-environments.?Experiential learning helps in learning skills, required to meet industry 4.0 work-place environments, where skills like collaboration, critical thinking and creativity are sort-after by every industry be it engineering, production, manufacturing, architecture, pharma, banking, retail and others.?

AI promises personalized learning for students, adjusting to the knowledge state of each student, pace of learning and assistive technologies which aids in equity of learning for all learners. Thus, assistive technologies influence in education help and support students to achieve expertise in a particular subject area.?

AI systems and Assistive Technologies (AT) are cohesive to learning, where concepts are not well understood by students. ?AI & AT systems are shown to have higher capabilities for re-enforced learning techniques like alternative teaching methods that students have not mastered, through predictive Q&A methods and possibly different levels of interactive challenges. ?AI & AT can also be a tailored form of tutoring that specializes in clarifying & giving a better understanding of specific topics to students. ?In terms of teachers, AT automates the grading process which nearly saves?40%?of workload & time. It smoothens the invigilation process, with minimum human intervention by taking half-time than the fellow teachers.?

In nations like India, where it’s somewhere close to impossible to adequately reach very remote and rural schools and institutions, today's emerging AI & AT based Ed-tech powered with AI&ML&DS tech can help ease last-mile teaching to help solve half of nation's concerns by bridging the educational gap & leveraging more educational opportunities enabling equity for all. ?

The development of virtual assistants (VA) and automated Super AI facilitators makes online classroom learning more fun, gamified and experiential. ?Boosting and motivating learners to be more engaged on learning and concepts and gain subject matter expertise in contract to recall of knowledge. ?AI systems and Assistive technologies (AT) in Education are promising in the space of Intelligent tutoring, Motivational diagnosis and feedback to students, Interactive pedagogical agents and learning companions. ?Additionally, AI agents that encourage and promote metacognition, educational data mining, learning analytics and teaching support, and finally adaptive Q&A are fast becoming evident that AI is here to stay and is pivotal to Indian education space.?

Author: Osborne DSouza