Artificial intelligence has entered every industry, and the educational sector is no exception. The administrative staff, management, teachers, and students are all using AI in different ways to achieve similar goals. During the last few years, AI has spread its roots much wider and deeper in this sector.
Markets and Markets has predicted that the global market share of AI in education is estimated to reach $3.68 billion by 2023 at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 47%. Another platform, Market Search Engine, has predicted that the share will reach $5.80 billion by 2025.
Though we haven’t seen humanoids replacing teachers, we sure are seeing AI systems taking over teaching and guiding students during their online courses. Whether it is automating tasks or personalized training courses based on students’ capabilities, AI is changing the way people look at education.
Before we say the various ways in which artificial intelligence is contributing to the education sector, let us look at how an educational institution should implement AI in its establishment.
How to Implement AI in the Educational Sector?
Do you want to implement artificial intelligence solutions in your educational institution? You will first need to define the long-term goals and understand the limitations of the existing system. Without knowing what you want to achieve, investing in AI will not be beneficial.
Then, you will either have to hire AI experts to bridge the talent gap or outsource the responsibility to a machine learning consulting company. If you want to hire a third-party company, it is recommended to do so in the beginning. This will ensure that your institutional goals and the company’s services are aligned and in sync with each other. Well-known institutions such as Nuance (Massachusetts), Querium (Texas), Kidsense (California), and many others have successfully adopted AI models in their educational systems.
Identify Needs: What do you expect AI to do in your establishment? Which processes do you want to automate? Which training areas do you want to focus on?
Determine Objectives: Are you aware of how AI works? Do you know the drawbacks of using AI systems? How do you plan to overcome the challenges in adopting artificial intelligence?
Align Processes: The AI solutions you choose should create the right environment to align your establishment’s talent, technology, and work culture. You need to convert your institution into an analytical-based model that focuses on actionable insights to make better decisions.
Control the Environment: The new work environment should accommodate and allow humans and AI systems to work in tandem. The processes should be transparent, efficient, effective, and secure.
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Role of Artificial Intelligence in Education
Automating Administrative Tasks
Is there an establishment that can function without backend work by the administrative department and the teaching faculty? Whether it is filing paperwork, sending emails and messages, contacting students and their parents, or making periodic reports, the administrative staff constantly works from morning to evening.
Similarly, the teachers and professors have to mark the homework, test papers, create a teaching schedule, prepare for the next classes, etc. Do you know that a teacher spends less than half their time actually teaching the students? According to an article posted by The Telegraph, teachers spend only 43% of their time on teaching.
The remaining time is allotted to marking test sheets, planning future lessons, and completing the administrative work. The artificial intelligence consultant will help you create an AI system that will allow the staff and the teachers to be more productive at work. Teachers can use smart question generators like PrepAI that help them set better question papers for the tests and save time in the process.
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Personalizing Learning for Students
Personalized learning is pretty much similar to personalized recommendations offered by online marketplaces or Netflix. The courses and subjects are recommended based on the interests and preferences of the students. AI for online learning doesn’t replace teachers. Instead, it helps teachers understand the abilities and limitations of each student. It makes things easier for the students and teachers to create an exclusive course plan for each student.
Smart tutoring systems also offer instant personalized feedback to help students understand how they can do better. Teachers can convert their lessons into interactive sessions and flashcards so that students will take more interest in learning the subjects.
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Creating Smart Content
Smart content is a popular topic in the education sector. It is nothing but creating virtual content by digitizing textbooks, notes, creating video lessons and lectures, developing interactive training sessions, and more. Artificial intelligence in education helps create customizable interfaces for the students to learn easily and understand better. Be it the elementary level or the postgraduate level, smart content can be developed for any subject and any class.
Microlearning and skills mapping are two concepts that belong to this category. Skills mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of the skills needed by students to perform well in their studies. Microlearning is a skill-based learning module that deals with specific areas to achieve expertise in the field.
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Breaching the Geographical Barriers
Online courses have made it possible for students from any region to join a course from any other country. The physical barriers between countries have been eliminated in terms of online education. Technology made it possible to acquire specialized skills from the best teachers, no matter where they are located.
Now, students have even better chances of updating their skills through AI-powered training sessions. Information Technology is one area where numerous courses are using AI. That shouldn’t be surprising since artificial intelligence is an inherent part of the industry. Students and professionals who wish to become AI and ML experts are enrolling for these courses.
Education Made Easy for People with Special Needs
It has always been a challenging task to create a learning program for people with special needs. Though there are exclusive schools for students with hearing, speech, and visual impairment, the teaching process could have been more effective.
Also, students with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, etc., have to be enrolled in special schools to help them deal better. But why can’t these students continue to be a part of regular schools? Is there a way teachers can understand and pay more attention to these kids? Artificial intelligence is making it possible for kids with special needs to study most comfortably. SpeakIt!, Widex’s Evoke, and Empower Me are a few examples of AI in education that cater exclusively to kids with special needs.
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Providing 24*7 Access to Learning and Study Material
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a student can study anytime he/ she wants to? We aren’t talking about studying at home with the books a student owns. Several teachers would have gotten calls from students asking for references or study materials even in the middle of the night. What if students can directly access the online library and download the material? What if students can rely on AI-powered sessions to learn a difficult concept instead of troubling the faculty at odd times?
People need rest, but systems don’t. AI strategy consulting for educational institutions provides solutions to these questions by creating a model that is accessible 24*7 by students. In fact, the student’s training schedule can be created based on when he/ she is most productive and likely to pay the maximum attention to what’s being taught.
Increase Student Engagement and Interest
Taking a lead from the previous point, artificial intelligence also provides a solution to make learning interesting. Even the best faculty can have some tough moments when students just don’t pay enough attention to the class. It could be the lack of interest in the subject, the teaching approach, or the environment (be it at school or online classes). One teaching program doesn’t fit all, and it’s time to focus on customizing learning sessions.
You can use artificial intelligence to create interactive modules and lessons suited to different types of students. Visualization is a great way to make students understand a concept. Graphs, charts, 3D images, etc., keep kids interested in learning. Interactive training through touchscreens is now fast becoming a part of online education.
Reducing Workload for Teachers and Students
One of the major advantages of hiring artificial intelligence consulting services is that the AI-powered systems and processes can reduce the workload for teachers and give them enough space to focus on making education better. We have already discussed how automating administrative tasks can cut down the work of the office staff.
The same theory is applied to students as well. Students can create schedules that allow them to work at their own speed. They don’t need to feel burdened about completing multiple assignments for the same day. This allows everyone involved to breathe easily and give their best shot. The pressure to learn at the same pace as other students is also eliminated. This gives students more confidence to study even those subjects they are usually terrified of.
Helping Teachers Understand Students’ Abilities and Limitations
With many students in each class, it can be difficult for teachers to pay attention to individual students and understand the limitations of each one of them. Artificial intelligence solves this problem by creating a model training session for each student. Teachers and students can work together with the help of AI-powered tools to improve the comprehension skills and fine-tune the abilities of each student.
When a teacher is in a better position to understand their students, it will create a healthy relationship between both parties and enable effective communication. The teacher can rely on AI to chart the next course program from the students and use it as a basis to plan their lessons.
Creating a Virtual Learning Environment
An AI business consultant can create a virtual learning environment where students can clear their doubts by asking the chatbots and virtual assistants instead of contacting the teacher. If a student feels susceptible to get their doubts cleared by the teacher, they can take the assistance of technology. There is no need to feel demotivated or give up on the subject because of these reasons.
The topics that students don’t understand at school or cannot be properly explained by parents are better handled by artificial intelligence. The same virtual environment can be used to conduct online exams as well.
There are already various such test tools for recruitment. The same is implemented in the educational sector as well. AI services can be used to build a secure online examination tool that allows the teachers to create and customize test forms.
The students can attempt the tests from their existing locations at any time they choose. These tests are evaluated by the system rather than by the teachers. The teachers can, of course, track the entire process.
Increased Security Using Facial Recognition
Security has become a point of concern in many schools, especially in the US. China has started using facial recognition systems to scan the identity of the students and confirm it before allowing them to enter the campus. Instead of the regular student ID cards, the scanners are used to recognize the student and mark their entry, be it at school, library, or the canteen.
With CCTV cameras not being enough to provide security at educational institutions, the establishments are working with the leading AI solutions company to revamp and upgrade their security systems and provide a safer work environment for the staff, teachers, and students. Schools across the globe are looking at this development with an eagerness to implement it in their establishments.
However, AI in the educational sector is not entirely a rosy picture. Excess use of technology can make students, especially young kids, get addicted to smartphones and computers. This can harm their physical, emotional, and psychological health if parents and teachers are not alert at right times. The increase in cyberbullying is another aspect you need to consider before adopting artificial intelligence in your educational institution.
Conclusion
As machine learning algorithms improve and refine themselves to become even more accurate, the education sector will depend more on technology to create a holistic learning environment for students and teachers to interact.
While the future of AI in education is still not fully defined, we can be assured that students of abilities and limitations will have better chances of learning and proving themselves. As new AI tools are developed, students can plan their career paths with clarity and work in achieving their goals. Educational institutions can build smarter next generations by investing in artificial intelligence.
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