Introduction
Technology has always facilitated human beings. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thriving technology in the modern era that has transformed the lives of human beings in all spheres. In education, AI is emerging as a transformative force. According to the UNESCO, AI has the potential to accelerate progress towards SDG 4. It has enabled many reforms in the education system, ranging from quality education, enhanced accessibility, and interactive learning to effective assessment, proactive teaching methodologies, and efficient administration. AI has transformed academic goals and vision by offering creative content design, research methodologies, and an efficient tutoring system. It provides people equal access to digital learning, fostering a sense of the democratization of education. With its various features, AI has transformed our traditional classrooms, making them a hub of interactive learning. It has influenced learning outcomes by offering enhanced academic assistance to learners through tools like ChatGPT (a generative artificial intelligence Chabot).
The AI-based education system has enhanced diversity and inclusivity factors in education. Although it has the potential to reform the education system of a country, it poses some challenges as well. It raises concerns regarding the digital gap, creativity, critical thinking, and plagiarism. Countries across the world have started focusing on integrating more and more features of AI into their education system. The investment has grown in this regard. There were already over 30 multimillion-dollar-funded AI-in-education corporations in 2022; some analysts expect AI in the education market to be worth more than $20bn in less than five years.
Artificial Intelligence: Meaning and Features
Stanford Professor John McCarthy defines artificial Intelligence as the “science and engineering of making intelligent machines”. It is a branch of computer science that aims to create machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include machine learning, understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, solving problems, and making decisions. Its features include adaptability, automation, image recognition and processing, chatbots, etc. It is also associated with Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality(VR). Its role in our lives has grown unprecedentedly as it has started influencing activities in our daily routine.
A Glimpse of Traditional Learning
The traditional education system is characterized by limited personalization and limited technological penetration. Students rely on text books and printed material, and teachers follow fixed curricula. The teaching style is teacher-centered and is totally driven by old teaching methodologies. Classrooms are designed to facilitate students physically. Teachers assess and evaluate students based on their performance. Moreover, teachers are supposed to undertake some administrative roles as well.
Opportunities
AI has the potential to enhance access to education, promote educational goals, and empower teachers and students. Its advent has brought many opportunities to reform education and facilitate learners.
A path to interactive learning
AI can reform the education system through interactive learning. In contrast to traditional classrooms, AI-based classrooms make students more engaged and imaginative. AI enables students to understand things easily by incorporating AI-generated images, digital visualization and story-telling. Moreover, AI tools are helpful in making lectures more interactive. For example, Canvas and Gamma are AI tools that are used to make AI-generated PowerPoint (PPT) for lectures or assignments. In addition to this, AI gamification platforms have the potential to enhance the multiple skills of students and teachers by making them engaged.
Promoting digital equality
AI is a potent tool to promote digital equality in the educational sphere. It fosters a sense of democratization of education by providing equal access to learning for all, irrespective of socio-cultural differences. Students can have equal access to the knowledge provided by AI-generative tools. Moreover, AI-based remote and blended learning facilitate students to learn virtually. It helps educators develop culturally diverse curricula, promoting digital literacy.
Personalized learning
We are living in a diverse world where people have unique needs and learning abilities. AI is a potent tool for personalized learning. It facilitates students by offering customized learning paths. This individualized approach enables them to adapt to the learning pace. With the help of AI tools, students can have 24/7 access to learning.
Content development and design
AI helps academics develop and design content. AI text-generative tools create compelling content. Using these tools, they can design study plans, lessons, presentations, assignments, and learning objectives. AI can help students create content for prose and poetry writing. Moreover, it can suggest the user write new ideas, topics, headings, subheadings, examples, and comparative analyses.
It can also suggest educators design a required curriculum. Within a few responses from the GPT, users can easily get a curriculum plan for a particular course. Resultantly, educators can allocate more time for teaching.
Academic research in an effective way
AI tools can help researchers achieve productive outcomes. While doing research, a researcher usually spends days or even months collecting data, reading literature reviews, and organizing information. The advent of AI has made this journey smooth for a researcher. With the help of AI tools, a researcher can go through a number of literature reviews and datasets within a few minutes. AI can help identify hidden research gaps and recommend viable solutions to fill the gaps. Moreover, AI translator tools can be helpful in understanding the research material written in a language other than the native language of a researcher.
Promoting diversity and inclusivity
AI-based education system promotes diversity and inclusivity. It has enhanced access to education by offering remote and blended learning to diverse learners. It creates inclusive classrooms by offering real-time translation, providing auditory and visual aids, and facilitating students with special abilities. It enables those students to understand, comprehend, and analyze things. AI language support tools facilitate students who face language barriers. In AI-driven classrooms, special children can be offered adaptive technologies like text-to-speech, speech recognition, or customized interfaces for children with impairments. Furthermore, AI can assist educators in incorporating culturally diverse curricula to express solidarity and inclusivity.
A tool for assessment
AI can also assist educators in assessment tasks. It can handle tasks like preparing questions, test grading, report management, evaluation, and comparative analysis. It can be used for formative feedback, helping students work on their knowledge gaps and learning strategies. By automating assessment, educators can spare time for other learning activities.
AI-based teaching methodologies
AI can also reform teaching methodologies. Data-driven approaches can transform traditional educational models, enabling adaptive learning. AI encourages educators to learn new and innovative methods for interactive learning. For example, educators can use AI-generated text, audio, visuals, etc., to make students understand things easily. Moreover,
Challenges
Although AI can be a potent tool for reforming education, it is likely to bring some challenges to the education system.
Affecting creativity
The growing penetration of AI technology in students’ lives can affect their creativity. Currently, AI tools are used to write prose and poetry. AI can write an attractive poem or a piece of aesthetic poetry within a few minutes. A single AI prompt can write an intriguing story for you. This, however, can be detrimental to the imagination power of students. They will rely more on GPT than on their own creative ideas.
The renowned author Yuval Noah Harari argues that human beings’ overdependence on AI will leave them to a place where they will doubt their own thinking abilities. Students might not explore the full potential of AI if their reliance on AI continues to grow. This will limit their cognitive skills development.
Propagation of disinformation
In the age of AI, it has become difficult to differentiate the truth from the false. The rise of chatbots and echo chambers has blurred the line between fact and disinformation, making learners vulnerable. It can affect students’ knowledge by giving rise to bias. For example, a secondary school student can easily believe information generated by an AI tool without acknowledging facts.
Rise of plagiarism
AI generative tools have influenced learners by offering them content for various subjects. These tools generate similar content and repeated patterns. Students seek help from GPT to get their assignments done. This will give rise to plagiarism because fragile academic systems are especially susceptible to the detrimental impact of ChatGPT and AI.
Maintaining a delicate balance between AI and human intelligence
The advent of AI has raised concerns about human intelligence. Maintaining a delicate balance between artificial intelligence and human intelligence is a daunting task. The overdependence on technology has led human beings to the point where they prefer AI tools for their choice, decisions, and goals. They have limited the use of human intelligence for common questions and choices. In fact, they need to create a balance because overdependence on AI will have enormous effects on their mental health.
Digital gap and financial constraints
The growing digital gap between countries is another challenge to the education system. The lack of technological access will create more educational problems for countries with a limited AI-driven education system compared to countries with a well-established AI system. Moreover, financial constraints will discourage countries from implementing and maintaining AI-technology in educational institutes.
A way forward to address challenges
AI can be a blessing for human beings if it is harnessed responsibly. While incorporating it into the education system, ethical considerations must be kept in mind. Children must be given media literacy so that they can counter disinformation. Moreover, children must be taught strategies to maintain the balance between artificial intelligence and human intelligence. Educators must focus on enhancing the critical thinking of students. Furthermore, authorities must consider regularizing the role of AI in education in order to utilize the full potential of AI.
Conclusion
In summary, AI technology can be an essential tool for reforming education. It has multiple benefits pertaining to learning goals, curriculum design, teaching methodologies, and assessment. Although there are some concerns regarding its use in educational institutes, it can be a blessing if it is harnessed responsibly. If AI regulations are intact and ethical considerations are kept in mind, AI can potentially reform the education system, empower students, and address the enduring problems in the education system.
