Education is the fundamental human right in society. It’s the means from which knowledge is acquired, discovered, shared and distributed in order to advance our world and our civilisation. Since the explosion of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, various Artificial Intelligence (AI) Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged and are advancing and improving at an exponential rate. Thus, artificial intelligence will (if it has not already) become one of the most powerful tools in education.
What is artificial intelligence (AI)?
Artificial intelligence refers to the development of computer systems being capable of performing human tasks that requires human intelligence. In fact, artificial intelligence, with the aid of human intelligence can stimulate humans simplifying tasks, finding better solutions to problems and stimulate thoughts and conversations. The way AI does this is by constantly learning from data, experiences and improve from past mistakes.
How will artificial intelligence transform education and/or classroom learning?
There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence will transform education, even at the classroom. It can only be made possible by the ease of access to artificial intelligence models (such as ChatGPT). With AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, Apple Intelligence, Google Gemini/Google AI, Galaxy AI, etc., at our disposal, access to these AI models are at the palms of our hands, even in our mobile phones.
The ease of access to AI will allow learners and teachers to use AI assistant models to provide educational materials on any topic at their required level of depths.
Every learner is unique, so such personal learning experience AI can analyse a learner’s strengths and weaknesses and tailor the lessons accordingly. It can provide additional resources if someone’s struggling with a concept or offer advanced material if they’re breezing through the curriculum (remember, every learner have different learning paces and comprehension styles).
From the teacher’s perspective, AI can collect the course materials and content, adapt it to the learner’s progress accordingly according to their learning pace & provide feedback to the teacher.
Such dynamic feedback from both the teacher and the AI assistant can help provide study materials and soft skills needed by the learner for the betterment of the learners.
Automation of administrative tasks.
Teachers dedicate vast amount of tasks outside of teaching, such as examination marking, classroom management, extra-mural activities. Such tasks can be automated with AI assistance.
As mentioned previously, AI can monitor student performances and provide feedback to the teacher with prioritised issues that needs to be addressed before it becomes chaotic.
Personalized educational content
- AI can adapt to the learner’s learning styles and needs and provide personalised content for the learner.
- AI can also be a virtualised tutor, providing additional tutoring to the learner with examples and step-by-step guide to tackling problems.
Things to consider in the AI educational model
Despite all the advantages and benefits of having AI in our educational systems and classrooms, the implementation poses some risks, challenges and ethical issues that needs to be considered.
Training of AI models
To better have a consistent curriculum suitable for learners, research on the available AI models and training will have to be performed and understood in order to ascertain which AI models are suitable match to implement in our educational systems. Also, clean and accurate data must be used to train these AI models in order to get value from AI. This is an expensive and costly exercise and cutting corners will result weak and/or inaccurate results.
Ease of access to education.
Learners will have to access content at anytime, anywhere. This is particularly important for learners and teachers in certain geographies who have difficulty to attend classes or do not have facility to further their education through research and further reading.
The cost of data is also one such challenge for learners in some geographies, who may have no internet connectivity or the cost of connectivity is a barrier of entry to access such quality educational material.
Data Privacy & transparency
Data privacy is extremely important as we are dealing with learners, of whom majority will be minors. AI tools should not be able to study students beyond the scope of education. Thus, transparency is crucial in understanding what data are collected from the learners, which algorithms are used to study the learner’s progress and vetting what learning materials are provided to the learners and are these materials suitable for such learners.
Parents of minors must be able to request such information from their learner’s respective teachers.
AI should not discriminate learners based on their demographics, race, gender and history and that everyone have the same opportunities of quality learning.
Soft skills
As people, we learn faster in a collaborative environment. This fosters creativity and communication to improve our critical thinking skills. Thus, learners and teachers will have to foster their soft skills in order for the AI to help with the harder skills, such as solving complex math problems through creative AI prompts.
Government regulations
Government must put regulations in place in order to ensure that AI and educational institutions must comply with to ensure our learners have the quality of education they rightfully deserve.
Government regulations must focus on the following criterias and have it enforced to ensure that the quality of education and student rights are enforced:
- Data Privacy
- Fairness and bias
- Transparency
- Training and ethics
- Continuous evaluation
- Ease of access to quality materials. Government must also consider the affordability of learners to access AI-assisted facilities and equipments so that learners are not impaired from having access to quality educational materials.
These will ensure that educational institutions will provide better quality education to their learners and guarantee their learners their human rights to quality education.
In conclusion
We are, now more than ever, moving in an AI revolution. Thus, with education fast evolving as well, AI is paving the way for a self-directed, self-paced, and self-empowered AI-enabled learning. As society, this will be inevitable and we should embrace and ensure that AI-driven education remains an opportunity and growth for our future learners.