For decades, futurists, science fiction authors, and movie makers have been predicting the remarkable changes that will arise with the arrival and use of artificial intelligence. Slowly but surely, AI became essential in various aspects of our daily lives. From the smart sensors that help us take sharp and flawless pictures, to cars that park on their own, AI is around us, omnipresent and working.
When it comes to education, it is obvious we won’t see robots replacing teachers within the following decade. However, there are numerous projects that use computer intelligence to help teachers and students get more out of the school experience. Here are several examples of how AI can affect and shape the educational experience in the future.
1. Using AI for grading
For teachers, grading test and homework can be a tiring and time-consuming work, even if shared between teaching assistants. Low grades often take up a significant amount of time. The time a teacher spends on grading is precious, especially when you keep in mind that they can use it to prepare for class, interact with students or work on professional improvement.
It is clear that AI will never be able to truly replace human grading, although it is getting rather close. Teachers are now able to automate grading for almost all sorts of fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice tests. On the other hand, essay-grading software is still taking its baby steps and has to improve over coming years. Its development will allow teachers to focus more on student interactions and in-class activities rather than grading.
2. AI can be adjusted to fit student’s needs
From elementary school (or even kindergarten) to college, one of the principal ways AI will change education is through the improvement of individual learning. One might agree this is already happening with a growth of educational games, adaptive learning programs, and other school software. These programs answer to the demands of the student, placing greater emphasis on specific topics, repeating questions that students haven’t learned, allowing students to study at their own pace.
This sort of customized education can be a solution in helping pupils at different educational levels work together in the same classroom, with teachers promoting (and monitoring) this way of learning and providing help when needed.
3. AI as a student support
While it is a certainty that human teachers can do things machines can’t (yet), it is also certain that the future will produce a new type of tutors: the one that only operates and function in zeros and ones. Some education software can provide academic transcription services, which helps you to follow any lecture without fear of missing any notes. Other programs based on AI exist, and they guide students through writing, basic mathematics, and other subjects. These programs can guide students through basics of learning but aren’t suitable for helping them master creativity and high-order thinking. Although the accelerated pace of technological progress and AI improvement has marked the past decade, creativity and imagination is still something that belongs to real teachers.
4. Teacher’s new role
Teachers are an inalienable part of education (fact as old as mankind), but in these modern times, one must ask the question: what is their role now and how it may change due to the development of AI? As we’ve previously explained, AI can assist students while learning and take over responsibilities like grading (to the certain extent). AI systems could provide expertise and serve as a place for students to find information, ask questions and possibly replace teachers for elementary course materials.
For the most part, however, artificial intelligence will change the role of the professor to that of a facilitator. Teachers will complement AI lessons, help students who are coping with a complicated material, and implement a human interaction as well as personal experiences for students. In many ways, artificial intelligence is already encouraging some of these innovations in the classroom, particularly in schools that are using online model.
5. Learning can be less intimidating with AI
Trial and error is an essential part of every learning process, but for most of the students, the thought of failing or not knowing the answer is frightening (often paralyzing). Some of them don’t like to be put in the spotlight in the presence of their peers or teachers. A programmed computer system, created to help students to learn, seems like a less daunting approach to deal when it comes to trial and error. AI could grant students a way to explore and learn in nearly judgment-free conditions and suggest a solution for further improvement. As the matter of fact, AI is the ideal format for promoting this kind of learning, as intelligent systems themselves often learn and improve themselves by a trial-and-error method.
Conclusion
While significant breakthroughs are still a few decades in the future, the fact is that artificial intelligence has the potential to completely revolutionize just about everything we know about education. By using programmed systems, AI software, and support, students can learn from anyplace in the world at any time. With these kinds of educational, intelligent programs taking the place of some types of classroom preparation, there is a chance that one day, AI might just replace teachers in many instances (for better or worse). Educational software powered by AI is already helping students acquire basic skills and recognize the potential of these “artificial teachers.” As AI improves, it will offer to students a wider range of services.
Still, no machine can fully substitute a human teacher. The position of teachers under AI will undergo a huge change with many proposing that teachers should assist AI tutors in education in the future. This type of symbiosis can prove to be beneficial both students and teachers, as AI has already proven to be more effective and efficient concerning grading.
Yet certain phases of creative thinking and problem-solving still remain to be the strength of human teachers and a backbone of every education.
Author Bio
Claudia Paisley Propp, graduated journalist, digital marketing lover, based in Sydney. Copywriting, Online Marketing… Let’s just say – Communication in all shapes and sizes is her passion and what she does best. She is that lucky girl who gets to live her dream. Here to share her knowledge and write about latest trends in (social) media that can help small businesses grow really big. Writes for Bizzmark blog.
