FUTURE

How AI Is Currently Being Used In Higher Education

The potential for implementing artificial intelligence in the educational space is huge. AI is a tool which, when designed well, allows both students and educators to facilitate and greatly level up the quality of educational processes. In the educational sphere, AI is able to provide a wide array of uses. From enhancing the learning experience for students on an individual level, to assisting teachers, there’s much that the current academic landscape can benefit from. 

However, using AI in such a way can also be daunting given what most people associate with the term artificial intelligence. In order to hold a conductive dialogue above about AI in education, one must acknowledge just how AI is to be utilized and its outcomes monitored, both in order to fully understand grasp how it can be implemented correctly, and to ensure that it does not remove the human element of ethics from education, which is a fundamentally human activity.

With that being said, AI is already being integrated into higher educational institutions. 

It is being used to create engaging tools, to provide better feedback, to help students better develop their skills. The following are a few of the ways in which this is being all, all through the use of AI technologies.

Personalization

One of the most widely adopted uses for AI in education has been the use of AI systems to adapt to each student’s individual learning needs. This is done easily, and allows for targeted course instructions which are based on each student’s strengths and weaknesses, something which quickly becomes overwhelmingly difficult for one human educator within a secondary educational institute to figure out given the hundreds of students they have to see.

Adaptive learning

In the same vein as personalization, AI is used to assess students’ current skill levels, and create guided instructional experience. These teach them both basic and advanced skills, helping them to become proficient, and as they learn more the guides update so that they are adapted around their new levels of knowledge and experience.

Tutoring through AI

By combining the assessment of students’ strengths, weaknesses, and skill levels, AI systems are able to compile data regarding how students perform, and consequently gauge a student’s learning style and which knowledge they already have.

In addition to this, several AI-powered chatbots have been built to cater to the education sector specifically. They support students by answering their queries, and because of machine learning, they become more and more effective over time. These chatbots allow individual students to learn anytime and anywhere, at their own pace all while providing targeted, result-driven learning. This allows students to access better tutoring resources, and to receive customized support for their academic journeys.

AI-based accessibility

More students with special needs are now able to access services for a more equitable education thanks to AI and machine learning. For example Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) algorithms provide real-time subtitles, language captions, and translations for video content for those who need an alternative to audio.

There are AI-powered tools that use natural language generation to read passages to visually impaired students, and computer vision machine learning which can define what is in an image and then describe it aloud. AI technology also reduces time by auto-captioning images. Higher education is more friendly now than ever towards those who require assistive technology.

Providing feedback to students and educators

Oftentimes, students are hesitant to raise questions or receive critical feedback in the classroom. However, with AI, more students feel comfortable with making the necessary mistakes for learning, and can receive the feedback that they need for improvement.

AI can narrow in on the specific concepts or information that students are missing when answering questions, which lets educators know which changes and improvements to make in their material, and their methods of delivering information. This subsequently allows students to benefit from the more targeted lectures and course material.

In addition to this, while machines have already been able to grade multiple-choice tests, because of the advancement of AI technologies, they are now able to assess free text written responses and provide feedback on what they say.

AI use in educational administration processes

Although much of the potential for AI in education that first comes to mind is related to improving the experience for students and teachers, there is much potential for AI to improve the efficiency of how administrative tasks are carried out.

Many of these tasks, such as filling our necessary paperwork, are tedious, and when done manually they require much more work. However, these processes can be automated, or semi-automated, through AI solutions. For example, in many cases AI can go through the fields of a form and can partially or fully fill them.

Below are some of the ways which AI is being used to improve the way higher education institutes manage their administration processes, and how it betters their overall school management.

Customizable experiences

AI is currently being used by both teachers and education administrators to analyze and interpret data, enabling them to make better-informed decisions with regards to students.

More specifically, colleges and universities that are making use of AI for administrative processes can provide more customized experiences for students when it comes to admissions, visa processing, registering for courses, and student housing selection. Not only are these activities more personalized, but they become faster as well.

Scheduling

Administrators can run AI programs to automatically manage daily, weekly, monthly or yearly schedules for the school, and this extends to individual scheduling services used by teachers to keep track of their courses.

Managing facilities

Currently, AI is being used to manage the facilities for entire schools. It is able to monitor the status of power systems, IT and Wi-Fi services, power student record systems, and takes care of maintenance by alerting facilities management should any problems arise.

Challenges with using AI in higher education

While there are many benefits to using AI in education, there are also challenges that need to be addressed.

The key foundation of the educational system is human interactions. While conversational artificial intelligence exists and can mimic human interaction, it is not and cannot be a replacement for real human activity. Therefore, finding ways to incorporate AI-powered education tools in more supportive roles is a must. By using AI to automate teachers’ routines, they can diminish the amount of repetitive tasks they have to do themselves, allowing them to put more of their time into developing styles of teaching that resonate better with students..

One of the biggest difficulties is ensuring the accessibility of AI-powered tools and platforms to all students. While classrooms can become digital and globally available to all students through AI tools, having access to those tools is something that not everyone is privy to. Ensuring inclusive and universal access to AI in education is necessary in order to uncover new possibilities for students. Students learn at different levels, may want to pursue a subject that is unavailable at their school, or may be unable to physically attend school. While AI helps provide solutions for all of these problems, the AI itself needs to be provided to students as well.

In addition to this, there are concerns regarding AI potentially perpetuating existing biases and discrimination in education. For example, administrators of higher education institutions may use artificial intelligence in admissions and testing systems, but the AI on its own may not account for the specific affirmative action procedures that the institution takes. 

Conclusion

AI-powered education tools provide immense support for students, teachers, and administrators alike. As these technologies continue to develop, the capacities of these tools will improve as well. Even better personalization, the complete automation of repetitive tasks, the ability to oversee more facilitation systems, and much more is sure to come. But AI also comes with its own limitations, and should therefore not be seen as a complete replacement for the types of tasks which require the human mind and capabilities to carry out.