Artificial intelligence in education - positive?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science aimed at developing software capable of mimicking behaviours and cognitive processes characteristic of humans, including faculties such as reasoning, learning, problem-solving and creativity. AI-based systems can be deployed to carry out a wide range of tasks such as translation, image recognition, driving and even medical diagnosis.

As in many other sectors, it is predicted that AI is set to bring about a genuine technological revolution in the education sector for students, teachers and parents alike. That is why, at Euroinnova, we are bringing you this article on the benefits and applications of artificial intelligence in education, as well as the potential risks and challenges we will have to address as a society.

Benefits and applications of AI in education

There are four ways in which AI can revolutionise education and add value to classrooms and students’ learning:

Customisation

AI learns by analysing thousands of data points on learning trends from around the world, identifying patterns of common learning difficulties and offering effective solutions. This could put an end to the dilemma of personalising education for each student.

It is very difficult for a teacher to provide a personalised learning pathway for each pupil, but AI could identify certain special needs or different learning styles so that they can tailor their teaching style and set homework to suit their needs.

Answering queries

Intelligent chatbots are a tool that can serve as an automated mechanism for answering students’ questions; unlike a teacher, they would always be available. Thus, students they would receive more support with their homework and explore a subject in greater depth.

Grade

Admittedly, there are already systems that do not use artificial intelligence to mark students’ work automatically, such as online multiple-choice tests. However, these tests simply involve adding or deducting marks based on a set of pre-selected multiple-choice options.

AI could go one step further and to provide support in assessing open-ended responses of a more complex nature such as, for example, in subjects like Language or History.

Evaluation of educational materials

Teachers could make use of AI to produce more rigorous, better-structured and more comprehensive content. It all depends on each teacher’s skills and ingenuity in using AI. 

In any case, Teachers could use generative AI to supplement their teaching materials, come up with new ideas for content and methodology, and even accompany them with visual material.

Similarly, if the AI is fed with students’ exam papers and marks, It would be possible to analyse the students’ overall performance in each section of the exam, by identifying shortcomings in teaching. This would indicate to the teacher that there may be a problem with part of the syllabus covered or their teaching method.

Dilemmas surrounding the application of artificial intelligence in education

Whilst the effective implementation of artificial intelligence in education would bring undeniable benefits, there are certain risks that must be considered so that appropriate solutions can be found:

Cheating by students

If students have unlimited access to artificial intelligence programmes such as ChatGPT, It is very likely that they will be tempted to use it to do their homework: from solving maths problems to writing text analyses. 

Apart from the ethical implications of cheating and taking shortcuts in homework, pupils who frequently use AI for this purpose they might neglect their studies even more and learn less and skills as expected.

Privacy concerns

When students and teachers interact with generative artificial intelligence applications, all their conversations are stored as feedback for the system. Therefore, Data privacy and the correct processing of data are not guaranteed.

That is why, as a general rule, teachers are advised not to enter sensitive or confidential information – whether their own or that of others – into current AI-powered tools. By ‘confidential information’, we mean data such as private messages, personally identifiable information, medical records and marks, amongst other things.

Less socialising

A significant part of children’s socialisation at school stems from homework and mutual support. Whilst the average daily frequency of technology use is already reaching worrying levels amongst children and teenagers, AI could exacerbate this problem even further.

The students would already have a virtual assistant which would be more efficient when it comes to clearing up any doubts, meaning they would not need to contact their classmates so often.

Dependency

Both teachers and pupils run the risk of becoming overly reliant on artificial intelligence. In the case of pupils, Relying on AI too often could hinder your learning, particularly their critical thinking skills.

And teachers are not immune to misusing AI. Artificial intelligence serves as an auxiliary resource for teachers when preparing their lessons. However, if they become too reliant on it, they may end up planning their entire lessons based on whatever an AI system spits out. 

In other words, teachers might allow themselves to be overcome by laziness in some of their duties, which would undermine the quality of the educational content they provide.

Equal access

Just as with other technologies, not all students everywhere in the world have easy access to the internet or a computer. By extension, not all pupils have the same level of digital literacy. 

AI is expected to be incorporated into the core digital skills curriculum; consequently, the digital divide between pupils with unrestricted access to the internet and those without could widen even further unless a decisive response is taken to this long-standing problem.