How Artificial Intelligence is making the education system better?

As we envisage artificial intelligence, the vision or image that we perceive is usually of huge thinking equipment and machines operating in a sci-fi environment. This picture is the result of the science fiction that we have been adapted to since our childhood. However, we go dive deeper into it, artificial intelligence can be understood as an advanced form of an algorithm that helps machines to imitates human behaviour under real-life situations. Today, there is hardly any industry left that has not been touched by the ripples caused by artificial intelligence and education is no exception to this. As predicted by the Artificial Intelligence Market in the US Education sector report, the role played by AI in the education sector is likely to raise up by 47.5% from 2017-2021.

There are numerous ways in which Artificial Intelligence is making the education system better:

Personalized Learning: With every child’s learning and grasping capacity differing from the other, a good education system is one which is able to deal with it. An education system can do justice only when it is able to help every child with individualised or personalised learning. Since a single teacher can not pay attention to and cater to every student’s need, AI’s inception is acting as a great helping hand. Various educational content institutions are designing curriculum with the help of AI which is able to transmit learning, testing and gather feedback on students on various stages. This whole process is helping in providing better education for students.

Automation in Grading: There are various educational institutions which are keen on implementing different AI-based computer programs. These programs are extremely helpful as they hold the power of imitating the teacher’s behaviour to assign grades to tests done by the students. This has been of great help in improving the process of assessing every child’s knowledge and their answers while sharing individual feedback with respect to their performance and then cultivating a suitable study plan for them.

Enhancing Accessibility: With AI in place, education knows no contours. It has crossed all the boundaries and barriers. There are various AI-enabled tools which are making classrooms accessible to every irrespective of the language, boundary differences or impairments in vision or hearing. This is aiding students in undertaking education in every circumstance.

Freeing Teachers from Admin Work: The human-technology collaboration has always been a boon for the civilisation and AI-teacher collab proves the same. As more and more teachers are taking the help of AI, the efficiency of teachers is going up. Their job is never restricted to teaching in classes alone. They have to spend a good amount of time in preparing assignments for students, assessing them and sharing the feedback. With AI, this task has taken an automated face and has given free space to teachers to devise better teaching methods.

Support Outside Classes: With AI in place, students no longer need to wait for the next day to see their teachers to get their doubts cleared. There are various tutoring programs based on artificial intelligence which can help students with basic mathematics, language, scientific concepts and facts. If a student is stuck up at some fundamental level, these AI tutors can be of huge help. As the technology will take an advanced form, the level of help would also progress.

Encourages Trial-and-Error Learning: Trial and error is an important part of learning; however, many students are intimidated with the thought of failing or not knowing the answer. To some students, owing to the lack of confidence, some are afraid of raising their voice in front of teachers to get their doubts cleared or ask any question. This completely dismisses the purpose of education. With the help of an intelligent computer system, the education system is able to overcome this drawback. Artificial intelligence lends an environment to students where they are free to experiment and learn without the apprehension of being judged. It provides a supportive environment which matches no else mode of teaching.

Efficient Management of Educational Institutions: As the number of schools is increasing along with the student base, there is a need for better management of these institutions. Educational institutions are utilising AI to construct such platforms which can help them in gathering smart data that can be further used intelligently to help students to pick the best course for them, and meeting their needs in the best optimum manner. These platforms can extremely be helpful in the recruitment of teachers, sharing important information with students as well as fee collection.

Ensuring Safety of the Educational Premises: For any educational institute, it is very important to keep their premises safe and secure in order to keep their students safe. This certainly requires a sharp eye on every activity that’s being conducted on the premises. With the assistance of technology, this task can be done in a better way. AI can help in identifying patterns in the student’s way of conduct in order to gauge the violence in school.

The right implementation and usage of technology can always prove beneficial. The pace at which educational institutions are making use of AI, the benefits that could be reaped by them could be humongous in nature. While helping students a great deal, administrative and safety benefits are also going to attract a lot of attention.

--Mr Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder and CEO, Engineer.ai