Excitingly, students frequently experience extended periods of anticipation for responses to their inquiries from educators. With AI-powered chatbots, students can soon ask questions without waiting.
Educators should focus on the tools that invite creativity and encourage students to be producers instead of consumers in their futures. This is a goal of personalized learning.
Personalized Learning
For students, personalized learning means a more tailored education that fits their interests, abilities, and progress. This can help with student retention and motivation. It can also help professors understand what students are doing well and what they need more support to tailor their teaching methods accordingly.
However, some concerns come along with personalized learning. First, many students worry that more-automated support could positively impact their agency and take away from the process of exploration and discovery. Second, they are concerned that AI may not be reliable enough to answer their questions and give them confidence in their learning, especially if it’s not human.
In addition to providing more personalized learning, AI tools can also reduce educators’ time on administrative tasks. These include grading, managing large data sets, processing applications, and coordinating extracurricular activities. It is estimated that these types of tasks take up to 40% of a teacher’s time, and AI has the potential to automate them in the future.
Artificial Intelligence in Education
While artificial intelligence news holds immense promise for education, it raises concerns about depersonalization and ethics. Students and teachers must understand and have confidence in using these technologies. This includes fostering AI literacy, collaborating with developers to ensure the systems are designed and implemented ethically, and ensuring students remain informed about how the algorithms use their data.
Another concern is that students may need more realistic expectations and understandings about using AI systems. For example, students are likely to assume that an AI system’s response results from their actions or that the AI will be able to “feel” and understand their emotions.
However, as technology evolves, these concerns will likely diminish. AI can significantly improve the educational experience by addressing educators’ most significant challenges, including time spent on administrative tasks and grading assignments. It can also make higher education more affordable by providing a personalized learning experience for students across socioeconomic backgrounds.
Personalized Feedback
Personalized feedback is vital to student success and motivation. In traditional classrooms, teachers and instructors may need to have the opportunity to give students individualized comments due to class size, time constraints from other academic responsibilities, or student-teacher ratio.
AI can enable personalized feedback that is more timely and scalable. For example, AI-based adaptive learning platforms can adjust the complexity of the curriculum for each student.
Additionally, AI can provide immediate, just-in-time feedback on assignments and quizzes. Instructors and learners alike appreciate the instant feedback that AI can provide, such as informing students on where they struggled during a test and providing tips to help them improve.
Similarly, students like the idea of an AI virtual assistant communicating student facial expressions and body language to their instructor via a virtual avatar. Students believe this will make them less afraid to ask questions in lectures as they don’t have to worry about appearing dumb or distracting their classmates. In addition, they expect anonymity to be helpful in online classes when they are not face-to-face with their instructors.
Automated Grading
Many teachers spend much time grading homework, exams, and assignments. AI can automate this process faster, saving them work hours. AI software is already able to mark multiple-choice quizzes and is close to being able to assess more nuanced essays and complex mathematical equations.
However, instructors also worry that the potential for AI to create more communication between students and their instructor is negative. They fear such technology could lead to miscommunication, accountability, and responsibility issues.
In terms of learning resources, many teachers believe that AI can help them find and share content. For example, a system that can translate presentations into different languages would make education more accessible for international students or those with disabilities. It could also identify the best teaching strategies and improve existing instructional materials.
Automated Assessment
The ability to automate the process of grading is a significant benefit for educators. This frees up time to focus on pedagogy and student support. It also helps to improve accuracy in grading. In addition, students can receive immediate feedback on their work, which can help them understand where they are making mistakes and how to fix them.
Instructors also appreciate the potential of AI to provide just-in-time personalized support for students at scale. However, they also expect that excessive use of this technology could reduce student agency and ownership of learning.
One way to address this issue is to give students a choice of how they want to submit assignments. For example, they can submit their work via an online portal that allows them to choose from various formats, such as video, text, or images. This will enable students to find a format that best suits their learning style. It will also allow them to avoid the stigma of “stupid questions” that often discourage student participation in class.
