The COVID-19 pandemic that struck the world in 2020 was a forgettable event, especially for education systems across the globe. Student learning suffered a lot during the pandemic, since less than 20 percent of students in India could get access to education during the pandemic. Stress for teachers, increasing dropout rates, interrupted learning, high economic costs, job losses, unprepared schools and teachers were some of the major challenges seen during the pandemic. However, there was a silver lining during the pandemic for teaching and learning, i.e. the hybrid and remote learning option. Also, the use of AI in the education sector during the pandemic provided more opportunities to students to learn independently, at their own pace, and become better problem-solvers.
Artificial Intelligence is a part of the industry and day-to-day life
- Artificial Intelligence is not something new. It has been a part of various industries and business verticals. Not just this, but we see the application of artificial intelligence in day-to-day life as well.
- The use of cab-hire services like Uber for traveling from one place to another, and the use of virtual assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are all powered by artificial intelligence.
- Driverless cars and the recommendations made by YouTube and suggested playlists are all due to artificial intelligence.
- Artificial Intelligence empowers machines and computers to think and make decisions, just like we human beings do.
- From natural language processing, problem-solving, and reasoning, AI can perform different functions to make things easier for humans.
Artificial Intelligence in schools
- We see artificial intelligence as a part of different ecosystems – hospitals, banking and finance, pharmaceuticals, industries, etc. However, the use of AI in schools is not much spoken about.
- When it comes to artificial intelligence in schools, there is a fear of replacing teachers with robots that will make teaching dull and boring. However, this is just a myth.
- In reality, teachers are going to stay forever, and no AI powered robot can replace them.
- There needs to be an educational system where both teachers and AI powered bots can coexist and complement each other.
- The combination of teachers and AI powered bots will help create personalized learning experiences for students.
- Artificial Intelligence can help solve the queries and questions that learners have, while teachers can focus on improving the academic performance of children.
- The teachers can also provide support and guidance to the students. However, a 24/7 system that can answer student queries is something amazing.
Socratic – A real-world AI powered app developed by Google for students
- A real-world learning app powered by Google AI is Socratic.
- This app makes use of AI technology to search the web for answers to students’ questions.
- With AI integrated as image-to-text into Socratic, it helps students to find solutions to a problem within seconds.
- Socratic also provides a detailed description of every solution and a lot of extra information as well, which students can use as a reference.
Here are some of the lessons that educators learned during the pandemic.
Flexibility in teachers as per students’ needs in necessary
- For a student, everyday is different, both physically and emotionally. The learning experience must be tailor-made according to the needs of students.
- Also, every student is different and learns at his/her own pace. For this purpose, learning material should be accessible to students at all times, to provide flexibility in learning times.
Teachers must use various teaching aids to facilitate teaching and learning
- Teaching aids are the various tools used by teachers in the classroom to make teaching and learning fun, interactive, and interesting.
- It is essential for teachers to adopt and use various teaching aids in the classroom. Some of these include pictures, visuals, symbols, sounds, motion pictures, exhibits, flash cards, maps, etc.
- The use of various teaching aids helps to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Teaching and learning is all about developing strong relationships
- Knowing and understanding the students well forms the foundation of teaching.
- A student-teacher relationship is far beyond just books.
- In the long run, a student may not remember what lesson a teacher taught them in school. What they will remember is the one-to-one meeting held to help them improve, or for that matter even some useful tips provided to a student who is finding it difficult to understand math or physics.
- For teaching to be successful, fostering a strong bond between students and teachers is essential.
Mental health of students essential
- The pandemic was a difficult time for everyone, including many students who saw their parents lose jobs, loss of loved ones, and many even experienced economic instability
- Now that the students have come out of the effects of the pandemic, it is important for teachers to keep in mind the mental health of students and have conversations with such students who are still suffering from various problems and societal challenges.
Artificial Intelligence in teaching and learning – Providing a completely new perspective in the education industry
- The pandemic gave the students and teachers a completely new viewpoint to online learning.
- Majority schools shifted to online learning, since physical in-person learning was not possible with the schools being closed.
- Both the students and teachers have become familiar with online learning.
- However, with the declining number of COVID-19 cases and schools reopening as usual, the online mode of learning must not be forgotten.
- Instead, schools in India must nurture online learning with the use of AI.
- Online classes powered by artificial intelligence can still be conducted even after the schools have opened.
- Moving ahead into the future, AI will become an indispensable part of teaching and learning, as it enables schools to focus on students and their individual needs.
- The use of AI in the education sector will make learning more learner centric rather than instruction-based learning.
The future of education is not about giving direct instructions to students. It is about allowing them to grow as problem-solvers and independent learners. For this purpose, the implementation of artificial intelligence in teaching and learning is vital.
