The Future of Education: Can AI Make Us Smarter?

Whether you realize it or not, AI has found its way into our daily life. The best examples are your smartphone’s virtual assistant and Netflix’s recommendation system. AI has also crept its way into education. Students use AI to improve their learning, while teachers leverage it for online assessment and identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses. As we look at the future of education, we must ask the question: can AI make us smarter?

Technavio, and many other companies, have published interesting market research reports that show an incremental growth of the AI market in the U.S. education sector. If the market keeps growing at a CAGR of nearly 48%, it is expected to reach a whopping value of $85 million by 2022.

And this is all because of the huge benefits AI brings to both educators and learners.

But can AI make us smarter? Can artificial intelligence boost your intelligence through education?

Personalizing Learning

Do you know how Netflix recommends just the right movies and TV shows you’ll like? You have AI to thank for that.

AI does the same in education, personalizing every student’s learning path to acquire better and retain knowledge.

Tools such as cloud-based LMS software can monitor and record a student’s activity to learn more about their learning habits and needs. AI then analyzes that data to personalize the student’s learning materials.

Business needs to “think education” and education has to “think business” during these pandemic times — because the bases of the digital world will work the same in all areas. And personal learning has to adopt both a business and education attitude.

Armed with customized materials that meet their needs and preferences, students can reach their full potential.

Increasing Efficiency

AI can automate various administrative tasks, freeing up a lot of time for educators. They are increasingly using it for many online assessment tasks. AI enables them to evaluate papers, grade tests and exams, and mark various homework assignments quickly.

But what does this have to do with boosting intelligence?

By using AI to automate all those tasks, educators can focus more of their time on interacting with students. They can provide their learners with instant feedback and devote more time to one-on-one sessions. They can focus on further personalizing their courses and delivering better learning experiences.

All the best cloud-based LMS tools provide automation features for online assessment. Having said that, grading essays is still not AI’s strong point, but that could change in the near future. We’re bound to witness AI evaluating and even teaching creativity.

Digitizing Textbooks

Technology in education can help students retain knowledge better. Multimedia can significantly improve their memory and knowledge retention because it’s easier to remember something you see and hear than something you read.

It can help develop higher-order thinking, improve problem-solving skills, and gain a deeper understanding of course materials.

With the help of AI-powered LMS software, educators can create online courses with pretty much any type of content. They can add images, interactive videos, presentations, charts, surveys, quizzes, and anything else that will help students learn efficiently and effectively.

They can even use AI to turn textbooks into flashcards and various tests for practice.

Improving Online Courses

Yet another great benefit of AI in education is helping educators make their online courses more effective. And when the courses are better, students too perform better and retain more knowledge.

AI can analyze student feedback to help teachers deliver high-quality learning experiences. For example, it can pinpoint various problems in an online course and help teachers fix them immediately.

Let’s say the majority of students provide a wrong answer to a particular test question. Perhaps the course materials were a bit confusing so that they couldn’t understand the concept. Or maybe the question wasn’t clear enough.

What can AI do? It can flag that question and instantly alert the teacher. The teacher can then either rephrase the question or make the necessary adjustments to the learning materials.

Identifying issues on time can help educators resolve them quickly and boost their students’ knowledge. Again, this is one of the features that most cloud-based LMS tools provide.

Targeting and Closing Knowledge/Skills Gaps

Everyone has different learning styles and habits, so not one teaching approach will accommodate everyone’s needs. Of course, that’s where personalized learning comes in.

But even with personalization, knowledge and skills gaps can still occur. AI can solve this problem by analyzing every student’s learning patterns.

An AI-powered LMS can identify their strengths and weaknesses and suggest course improvements that target specific gaps in learning. By closing those gaps, AI will ultimately improve the learning curve.

Turning Knowledge into Practice

Acquiring knowledge makes us smarter. But applying that knowledge allows us to boost our intelligence further.

Many educational institutions fail to provide their students with opportunities to apply what they’ve learned. They can usually do so only when they get a job. But how will they perform well at that job without any previous experience?

Artificial intelligence comes to the rescue!

AI-driven courses can provide students with real-life scenarios to help them gain practical knowledge. Not only will learning from experience enhance their knowledge retention, but it will also help them understand how to apply their knowledge and skills.

Providing an Intelligent Virtual Learning Companion

Technavio’s report also found that one of the critical trends for the U.S. education sector’s AI market is the increased emphasis on chatbots.

AI chatbots in education are widely used for tutoring, helping students comprehend various concepts better and enhance their learning. Students can seek their help 24/7, instantly receiving relevant and helpful responses.

Chatbots themselves can learn, as they’re powered by machine learning technology. The more they interact with users, the more intelligent they become.

They can also monitor a student’s activity in real-time to offer proactive help. Whenever they detect an obstacle on the learning path, they can jump in and help the student overcome it.

There are already plenty of cloud-based LMS tools with integrated AI chatbots for enhanced learning. But the best part is you can integrate your chatbot into virtually any LMS software you use, without any coding whatsoever.

Wrap Up

So, can AI truly make you smarter through education? Absolutely! AI tools are designed to make our lives easier. When you utilize them for educational purposes, you can revolutionize learning.

Both students and educators can significantly benefit from artificial intelligence, which is why we see a growing number of AI applications in education. We’re bound to see even more innovations that completely change the way we teach and learn.

How are you using AI in your daily life? Are you already harnessing its power to enhance your teaching and supercharge your students’ knowledge? If not, you and your learners are missing out. Embrace AI and take a step towards a more intelligent future!

Robin Singh

Robin is a Technical Support Executive. He is an expert in various LMS and employee training software. Currently, he is a resident learning management expert at ProProfs. In his free time, Robin enjoys cycling and sky diving.

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Robin Singh