AI has the power to transform education

Dr Mark Nasila | Chief Analytics Officer | Chief Risk Office | FNB | mail me |

“My hope is that by 2030, most of humanity will have ready access to health care and education through digital agents.”

– Gabor Melli, VP of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Medable and former Senior Director of Engineering at Sony PlayStation.

Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are changing every industry and sector, including education. If students are to take advantage of AI, it’s essential they are exposed to it early and taught how to harness it. The changing educational landscape, accelerated by the pandemic, offers an opportunity to enhance inclusion and accessibility through AI technology.

Personalised learning

AI tools offer the potential to enhance personalised education at unprecedented scale, and it’s already being used by a number of services.

Quizlet, for example, is a study tool that uses AI to create custom plans for students that address the areas they’re weakest. Language-learning application Duolingo does something similar, using AI to target the areas users most need to practice, boosting engagement in the process.

Grammarly, the grammar- and spell-checking service, employs NLP-powered technology that students or working adults improve their writing by providing constructive feedback.

Measuring progress

Platforms like Zoomi make it possible to use AI to create comprehensive digital profiles for individual students through real-time data gathered from their interactions with course materials and context. That makes it possible to figure out what sort of materials a student responds best to and glean real-time insights about their progress.

It also makes it possible to identify potential pitfalls, recognise similarities between students, and make predictions about how students may perform down the road.

“By analyzing specific student data, AI has the potential to help surface more quickly areas in which students may need more help, thereby improving student achievement and teacher support.”

– Jessie Woolley-Wilson, President and CEO of DreamBox Learning

Finding and addressing gaps

Third Space Learning, an online education platform founded in 2012, now employs AI algorithms to enhance teacher performance.

Partnering with University College London, they mine session data to identify successful learning patterns and provide real-time feedback to online tutors. Its AI model also powers intelligent tutoring systems, delivering personalised content. based on historical and real-time data, addressing individual strengths and weaknesses.

Maths-teaching AI service MATHIA, meanwhile, employs “knowledge tracing” and “model tracing” techniques to assess a student’s comprehension of various concepts and their approach to problem-solving. This enables the software to adapt its support based on the individual student’s cognitive process, rather than directing them to a generic approach that might not resonate with them. This approach facilitates personalized content delivery, potentially offering a multitude of unique learning paths.

“The less students need educators to be the main source of knowledge, the more educators can focus on developing the ability to curate, guide, critically assess learning, and help students gain skills that are so much more important than memorising information.“

– Vriti Saraf, CEO and Founder of K20 Educators 

In Lagos, Nigeria, meanwhile, educators are witnessing the advantages of AI in their work. Oluwaseun Kayode, who previously taught in Lagos and established Schoolinka, observes an increasing number of teachers across West Africa using AI to assess students’ literacy levels, identify learning challenges, and enrich personalized learning experiences.

A similar trend is underway in the U.S. State of Illinois, where Diers Marin, an 8th-grade maths teacher, likens ChatGPT to “a personalized 1:1 tutor that is incredibly valuable for students.”

Enhancing social learning

While acknowledging that AI lacks qualities such as self-awareness and empathy, Professor Luckin from UCL Knowledge Lab emphasises that AI can greatly complement education when designed with insights from learning sciences and combined with learner data. This can aid learners, teachers, and parents in tracking progress across subjects and skills, empowering learners to improve their effectiveness and acquire knowledge. This augmentation can enhance teacher productivity by enabling them to focus on content creation, impactful lectures, and addressing challenges.

Additionally, AI’s potential extends to collaborative learning. The joint UCL and Pearson paper, “Intelligence Unleashed,” co-authored by Luckin, suggests AI’s role in facilitating collaborative learning by analysing student models and suggesting suitable groups based on cognitive levels and skills.

AI can actively engage in learner groups, contributing content, questions, and diverse perspectives to guide discussions constructively.

AI for students with disability

Globally, there are between 93 and 150 million children under 14 with disabilities. In Africa, around 6.4% of children in this age group have moderate or severe disabilities, with less than 10% of them attending school. UNESCO estimates that in the global south, 90% of children with disabilities are not in school, and in Africa, less than 10% of children with disabilities attend school.

AI is being explored to address the educational barriers faced by students with disabilities in an effort to improve accessibility and create supportive tools.

Some of these include advanced speech synthesis through machine learning, which can benefit students reliant on assistive tech immensely. The quality of synthesised speech is improving rapidly, as seen with Educational Testing Service (ETS) using Amazon’s tech to replace human-recorded audio, yielding faster alternate material production and clearer text-to-speech for improved user experience among disabled students.

At the same time, efficiently generating text or complex questions for visually impaired students is vital. Here, again, AI techniques offer solutions. AI systems can describe images automatically and generate initial content descriptions, and human experts can review it. Expanding AI’s visual capabilities could transform interactions.

A “seeing” AI can help students navigate complex webpages by vocalising headings, enhancing navigation, and potentially reducing the need for separate accessibility tools.

How AI will change the education market

The integration of AI into education presents a multitude of advantages for both students and educators. It enables learning resources to be accessible anytime and anywhere, eliminating limitations of time and location.

Additionally, AI can automate time-consuming tasks such as record-keeping and grading, as well as provide quick responses to frequently asked questions through chatbots. This trend in leveraging AI for education holds promising market growth opportunities, too.

Predictions from sources like Global Market Insights indicate that the AI education market could reach $520 billion by 2027. Another report by Global Market Insights forecasts that the AI segment within the education market is expected to exceed $80 billion by 2030.

These projections are also significant for their potential to alleviate the workload of educators on a global scale, ultimately leading to improved learning outcomes.

A catalyst for transformation

The potential of AI tools to revolutionize education systems hinges on a shared commitment to an inclusive educational vision that fosters the growth of every child.

In pursuit of this objective, a set of guiding principles emerges. first, the concept of co-creation is pivotal. By convening a diverse assembly of educational technology leaders and equity-driven educators, collaborative efforts can be directed towards AI applications rooted in effective pedagogy. These initiatives should resonate with local requirements, cultural contexts, and combat prevailing biases and disparities.

Facilitating easy entry points into the integration of AI is paramount. Empowering teachers to harness these technologies for personalised learning while alleviating administrative burdens necessitates accessible resources and shared spaces that facilitate collaboration and the incorporation of AI into teaching practices.

In tandem with the digital transformation, cultivating digital literacy becomes a critical facet. This involves investing in foundational IT knowledge and AI literacy to bridge the digital divide, ensuring equitable access to tools, bandwidth, and digital literacy for both educators and students, thereby dismantling barriers.

In conclusion

Fostering innovation and adaptability necessitates concerted efforts. Collaboration with educational leaders can foster teacher professional development and infuse an ethos of innovation.

Recognizing and incentivising novel AI applications in teaching, promoting knowledge exchange, and tailored training further substantiate the potential of AI as a transformative educational tool. AI has the potential to transform education. It’s up to us to realise that potential.