How is AI Taking Education a Step Further?

One of the most significant ways AI can affect education is by applying higher levels of individualized learning from kindergarten to graduate school. All of this is already taking place due to the increasing number of adaptive learning programs, games, and applications available.

FREMONT, CA: Although one may not see humanoid robots serving as teachers in the next decade, there are still several projects in the works that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help students and teachers get something out of their educational experiences. Here are a few examples of how such tools and those to come will affect and characterize the student experience of the future.

AI Can Optimize Basic Activities in Education, Like Grading

Grading homework and exams for massive lecture courses in college can be tedious, even though TAs share it. Also, in lower grades, teachers often feel that marking consumes a considerable amount of time, time that should be spent interacting with pupils, planning lessons, or working on career development. Although AI will not be able to overtake human grading completely, it is getting close. Teachers will now grade almost all types of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank tests automatically, and automated scoring of student writing will not be far behind. Today, essay-scoring software is still in its infancy and far from perfect, but it can (and will) evolve in the coming years, enabling teachers to devote more time to in-class tasks and student engagement rather than grading.

Educational Apps Can Be Customized to Meet the Needs of Students

One of the most significant ways AI can affect education is by applying higher levels of individualized learning from kindergarten to graduate school. All of this is already taking place due to the increasing number of adaptive learning programs, games, and applications available. These programs adapt to students' needs, placing more attention on those subjects and repeating information that students have already learned. These systems adjust to the student's needs, placing more emphasis on those subjects, repeating items that students have not learned, and merely assisting students in working at their own pace, whatever that may be.

This type of custom-tailored education may be a machine-assisted approach to allowing students of various levels to collaborate in one classroom, with teachers supporting the learning and providing assistance and guidance as appropriate. Adaptive learning has already had a significant effect on education across several countries. Moreover, as AI progresses in the coming decades, adaptive programs like these will undoubtedly strengthen and grow even more.