How can Artificial Intelligence Influence Education?

AI is transcending and disrupting industries across the line by transforming and challenging the conventional methods. AI has enormous role in the evolution of the educational system and the educational experience of the future. The ability to sift through the complexities of interpreting and processing enormous amounts of unstructured data, gives AI an important role in modifying and revolutionizing the educational system. The fact that we are at the narrow phase of AI should not anchor us from the enormous potential AI has once it has reached the General AI phase. AI has the ability to drastically change the educational system as we know it today and transform how the learning content is delivered resulting in a better personalized and adaptive experience that aligns with the required outcomes.

Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, and education, learning and development programs should continue to be updated to reflect that fact. Education is headed into a personalized educational experience using the latest algorithms, deep learning, and tailored learning processes. Smart data mining and gathering systems that are enabled by advanced computing systems will also help substantially.

If we look at the conventional classroom from centuries ago, the standard is to have a teacher in front of the class providing knowledge to a number of students in the class at the same level. Not taking into amount the variability in student’s intellect. Some student will be left behind struggling to understand the concepts, while others will be ahead of the information being taught. In essence, the teachers teach and deliver the content to the average of the class. Students needs are different, some students learn by repetition, while others understand by examples, etc. In order to deliver the best educational experience, the delivery of content has to be personalized according to the student intellectual ability and learning behavior in a way that is adaptive to the student’s needs.

In reality, it is not possible to do so with the current educational system due to lack of resources. AI is a technology that can have a big impact in achieving the needed individualized education and bring people learning need to where they need to be. The new learning process also needs to be complimented with social activities outside the individualized learning process in order to give a rounded approach to a better education.

As technology is advancing at a fast rate, so should the curriculum used in teaching. By the time a five-year engineering student graduates from college, some of the information learned may be obsolete and not relevant anymore. AI can help by continuously working to ensure the knowledge taught is up to date, and regularly reassess changes needed to the curriculum and incorporate them as they occur. AI will also be able to provide better comprehensions gathered and analyzed from large sets of data.

The system may help the students learn at their own pace until they master certain topics or skills. That in return will give better insights into the learner’s behavior and will improve the customized learning program based on the needs. It will also help understand learning behavior of students and better understand how students learn and absorb information. Using all these methods AI will be able to better track the students’ progress, performance and retention, and then adapt the system as needed to become more effective. Another important element that needs to be incorporated into the learning process will be developing AI algorithms that help students learn independent thinking and creativity.

Bias is also an important element in the educational experience, in certain cases a teacher may be biased against a student which may be reflected in the grading of his or her homework, exams, projects, etc. Same can occur when developing the AI tools, we also need to ensure that bias is accounted for and eliminated. Especially when it comes to interpreting the analysis of the learning progress, or what material and curriculum better fits different individuals.

AI learning systems may also help physiologically as some students for example feel uncomfortable when being put on the spot in front of their classmates. Artificial intelligence will enable student to learn in a judgment-free environment. AI-systems can offer suggestions for improvement on a private basis making certain personality types more at ease. In the short term however, AI- based individual education may fall short of providing assessments compared to what a human teacher can have, for instance having an eye for “Character”,” integrity” and an understanding to the unique individual characteristics and personality.

An automated type of learning may be good at the personalized educational content, but risky in the short term when determining anything else in individual development. As the technology matures in the upcoming decades, this statement will become less relevant. Will these technologically advanced tools level up the field in terms of the learning experiences? Students using AI- systems can learn from anywhere in the world at any time. If these tools are made ubiquitous for students around the world including poor and developing countries, would that help improve their long-term education. Would it result in superior economical outcomes and societies? Only time will tell.