Imbibing Artificial Intelligence in Education
Opportunity India Desk
Sep 29, 2017 -
5 min read
For a society to be innovative, it is mandatory to come out of the fragmented Education system. A society needs to go from just studying via books to a more hands-on approach and look to solve real-world problems from scratch.
While AI may not ever be able to truly replace human grading, it’s getting pretty close.
Talking about the Innovations needed to capture the mark in the Education Industry, there are Innovative models that include group and peer learning, game based learning and freeform pathways have been used in schools with a certain degree of success. Some have gained credibility over the years while others have more skeptics than supporters, such as pure online learning.
Challenges in the current Education scenario
Students are focusing on getting into specific branches or discipline. India has hundreds of great educational institutions and research labs that actively engage in research and which are making great strides, the challenge currently is in terms of applied sciences. The attainment of growth as a country without making advances in the fields of education is quite an impossible task. It is time to look at the bigger picture.
How Artificial Intelligence enhances Education?
In the past years, a collection of hardware, software and online service have managed to bring changes and reforms to classrooms and teaching methods. But the true disruption of education is yet to arrive. Artificial Intelligence has proven its role as a game changing factor in an increasing number of fields causing transformations unimaginable in the past
Class Teaching
Traditionally schools adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. But students learn at different paces and have different progress rates. Meanwhile, teachers often find it hard to identify and deal with the educational needs of students attending their classes.
Machine Learning algorithms, programs that clean patterns from data and provide insights and suggestions, help teachers to find gaps in their teachings and point to where students are struggling with subject matter.
Online Tutoring services:
In recent years, thanks to online services, students have been able to get help from peers thousands of miles away. Now with the help of AI and Machine Learning, finding remote help is becoming even easier.
Brainly, a social network that helps millions of students collaborate, is exploring the power of AI on its platform. Brainly uses Machine Learning algorithms to automate the filtering of spam and low quality content and help moderators focus on providing quality services to students.
Virtual Facilitators and Learning Environments
The idea of creating virtual human guides and facilitators for use in a variety of educational and therapeutic environments is a promising area of development. Though not yet a reality, the ultimate goal in this field is to create virtual human-like characters who can think, act, react, and interact in a natural way, responding to and using both verbal and nonverbal communication.
Artificial Intelligence changes where students learn, who teaches them and how to acquire basic skills
While major changes may still be a few decades in the future, the reality is that artificial intelligence has the potential to radically change just about everything we take for granted about education.
Using AI systems, software, and support, students can learn from anywhere in the world at any time, and with these kinds of programs taking the place of certain types of classroom instruction, AI may just replace teachers in some instances (for better or worse). Educational programs powered by AI are already helping students to learn basic skills, but as these programs grow and as developers learn more, they will likely offer students a much wider range of services.
Experts speak
"Artificial Intelligence gratifies the creative longings built deep within us. With tremendous possibility to do good, it represents a whole constellation of different capabilities that are all beautifully orchestrated in working together", said Mr. Rohit Manglik, CEO EduGorilla.
At EduGorilla, we are leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to add value to Indian education system."
Mr. Vikalp Jain, Co-Founder Acadgild expressed his views on 'Artificial Intelligence'.
"Technology is making inroads in every possible field today and the education sector is not far behind. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one such technology which is bringing about a massive change in the way education is delivered, making it more personalized. It is time to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach as different individuals learn at different speeds and in different ways. Teachers may also be unable to cater to the demands of every student. AI can aid in understanding these learning patterns and help teachers address the gaps. Further, they can also assist the students with understanding specific subjects. We believe, that way forward is going to be a hybrid approach where AI helps mentors in identifying patterns and improve their effectiveness. AI is thus set to herald a promising future for education."
Conclusion
Progress in artificial intelligence and machine learning has been impressive, but there is still much work to be done to advance learning science. It is evident that progress is being made to bring artificial intelligence to the education space.
However, beyond the passing of knowledge, teaching is a complex social interaction. This means teachers can rest assured -for the moment at least - that robots won’t be replacing them. They will instead assist teachers in becoming better at their job.
