According to the latest United Nations report, India should focus more on AI in education. UNESCO in its policy recommendations stated that AI can accelerate the growth towards sustainable development which is its fourth goal. This aspires to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. It also aims to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. 2022 State of Education Report (SOER) for India also emphasizes on the importance of AI. It has identified the education space as a major segment for using AI-driven technology. UN body also had another recommendation. It was in regard to adopting techniques to eliminate biases. Joyce Poan, programme specialist and chief of education for UNESCO New Delhi states that “Biases are directly related to the data fed into the programme, which is often influenced by preconceived human stereotypes and prejudices”. Regardless, the integration of AI into education is rapidly increasing with no signs of slowing down.
AI in Education Market
According to Global Market Insights, a market research and strategy consulting firm, AI in the education market is set to grow in the coming years. Their report states that the market will exceed USD 80 billion by 2030. The report also says that AI in education managed service segment will grow. It will grow at a CAGR of more than 55 percent through2030. One of the primary reasons behind this growth will be the cost-effectiveness of AI solutions. With the impact of AI growing rapidly, let’s analyze some of the AI technologies that will disrupt the education market.
Personalized Classroom Experience
Lack of personalization is a major concern for education in India and with the number of students in classrooms increasing, educators have their work cut for them when it comes to ensuring a more personalized learning experience to each student. Luckily, solving this issue and ensuring better personalization is possible with AI. As adjusting the learning according to the individual requirements of each student is close to impossible for a teacher especially in a multi-student class, incorporating AI technologies can be a huge boost towards ensuring a personalized classroom experience. As the processing power keeps improving, AI can create accurate student profiles. It can also read the expressions and according to that alter the lesson. Most importantly, AI can adapt to the knowledge, and speed of learning of each student. Then, it can understand their strong points and weaknesses, and formulate course recommendations to enhance the learning process. Taking it a step further, building AI that can be a live assist platform for teachers will be a game changer in the market. This technology will give real-time input to the teachers. It will also assist them to take better learning decisions which suit the student the best.
Operating out of the US, Querium provides an AI platform which is helpful for STEM students. This platform help students master critical STEM skills and it relies on personalized lessons. Their StepWise AI creates an individual learning path for each learner. After that, it adapts to the students progress. This allows the student to move forward as soon as they are ready. At the same time, it provides valuable insights to the instructors so that they can have a better understanding of the skill level of each student. Keeping in mind the jam-packed schedule of the students, this technology is developed in such a way that it can be accessed on the student’s mobile devices itself. This ensures that they can learn anytime anywhere. London-based Century Tech is another leading player in this segment. They offer an AI platform which uses cognitive neuroscience as well as data analytics. Though this, it creates custom learning plans for the students. Not only does this help with the personalization challenges many educational institutions are facing but it also helps in reducing the work load of the instructors. This technology tracks the student progress while at the same time it lets them know about the knowledge gaps in learning. It also provides individual study recommendations to the users.
Self-learning Platforms
Self-learning platforms is another disruption AI can bring in the education market. This technology can not only help in increasing the engagement of the learners but it can also ensure that the drop off rates remains low. Altitude Learning, USA is one of the leading players in this market. This professional learning and software platform enhances growth through learner-centric education. One of the most unique facets of this AI platform is that it drives students toward self-learning which can make the whole learning process more engaging. Aside from this, this technology also allows the educators to cater to the individual needs of the learners throughout the learning cycle. Altitude Learning allows the educators to assign work individually to the learners. This can motivate the students to shift towards self-learning while at the same time, have the guidance of the teacher. Aside from this, companies in this space have come up with technologies and chatbots that can do query resolution. This AI technology helps the students to ask questions or upload the picture of the problem after which AI tools will analyze the problem and come up with solutions.
Increasing the Efficiency of Teachers
Most teachers spend a significant amount of their time on filing paperwork, grading tests, and managing teaching materials among many others. The more time they spend on these activities, the less time they will have to focus on teaching the students. With AI, a lot of these activities can be automated which allows the teachers to prioritize on imparting knowledge to the students and addressing their queries. This is a win-win situation for both the teachers and students. As student assessment is one of the crucial aspects of higher education, it should be done accurately which makes it a time consuming process. Gradescope which is an American ed-tech company has an efficient solution for this. The AI tool allows the students to assess each other and offer feedback. By combining AI and ML, this technology makes it easier to grade and helps teachers to focus on other priority areas. It also allows the teachers to grade paper-based exam as well as online homework. Aside from this, Gradescope can help when it comes to preparing projects as well.
AI is not only helping educators to streamline their operations and by doing so, improving the quality of education but it is also expanding the horizons of students and teachers alike. Apart from the aforementioned technologies, now there are AI tools and technologies which allow real-time language translation which helps in eliminating the barrier of language in education. Student-teacher matching is another area where AI is progressing. Further developments in this space will help create tools that can give inputs to the teachers regarding where to accelerate or slow down the speed of teaching. This will thereby make the learning better and more effective.
