It is of utmost importance to use Artificial Intelligence based educational tools in today’s time. With the growth in population, the various streams of learning, varied interests of learners and different styles of learning, AI can be an efficient tool to address the learners’ needs.
While we understand personalization in education can be achieved with the use of AI but not without the teacher or the facilitator or the mentor. We can name them differently but technology without the efficient, empathetic human touch cannot be fruitful for the learner.
Artificial Intelligence is the human infused intelligence in the machine. A typical task that can be done by human intelligence, such as critical analysis, problem solving can be easily made to be done by the machine. It would prove to be more efficient with the time and accuracy parameters when compared to human intelligence provided the machine is well acquainted with such a problem or situation. AI can learn from big data analysis and learn from the patterns in that data. What is BigData? In a lay man’s language, big data is a lot of data which is feeded into the machine to learn from it. The machine can think on the basis of analysis without any intervention by human.
“Boyd followed the logic that since we cannot predict exactly what the future war might
look like, we need to find general patterns, the “common elements” as he termed them,
that will apply to any battle, conflict or war.”
Certain to win- Chet Richards
Although it is nowhere close to a war like situation but we can use this as an analogy to affectively address the learning needs of the students. While, the response of the students cannot be predicted, but some of the common learning elements can be put together to form a pattern. This pattern can help us determine what could be the response of the student and thus provide them with the solution to their learning needs accordingly.
Humans and the Machine
A child when born has a clean slate of mind- ‘Tabula Rasa’. It is the life’s experiences and learning that define us humans. We form our perspectives and mind set according to the way we experience the world around us. Be it the family, society, nation or the world at large, they all influence our thinking in one way or the other. Negative experiences make our perspectives negative and vice versa. Just how we think is how we develop ourselves and mould our lives. The number of degrees and accolades we achieve helps us rise high in our career and the real life experiences help us grow internally.
Similarly, the machine is a clean box with no memory or data at an initial stage. It is the data that we feed into the machine that the machine learns from. The kind of software we use in the machine depends on the configuration of the machine. And the configuration would depend on the purpose of using the machine. Similarly for human beings their strengths and weaknesses decide the avenue best fit for them. A marathon runner or a gymnast would find their space in the sports world somehow whereas a person addicted to music composition would find his/her place in the world of music. These are different interests and none is right or wrong. It is just a matter of preferences that we make for ourselves. This too might be influenced by the world around us, probably a person listening to music found peace and solace in that and developed his/her interest in it. On the other hand a person who does not like to be cocooned in a room and like to remain fit would explore the gymnasium and get inclined towards it. Thus it is all about our liking that we develop over the years while learning from the environment around us. Some might grow spiritual while some might just become too practical in life to be more focused on certain things. This also helps to develop the emotional quotient in a human being. Your experiences and emotional bonding with the people around you would determine your emotional balance.
How to empathize without being self-oriented is a learning, which can take ages for someone to grow with. All these patterns pertain to emotional intelligence. Machine is a dummy which will learn what you will teach. This is where a teacher can never be replaced. As we know teaching is a noble profession, it not only relates to a teacher as a subject matter expert but also as a compassionate, empathetic, mindful mentor that a learner needs. Thus teaching intellectual quotient is easier than teaching emotional quotient.
Use of AI in Education
AI in education can be used for adaptive learning but learners also need emotional support for their wellbeing. Machine based learning via AI is getting widespread now. Activities and content of the course is made available based on the learner’s aptitude and learning style. This form of learning can help in providing personalized learning experience to the learner. But even with the use of AI we cannot negate the need of having a human teacher.
“The human heart and the psychology of the individual fighting man, have always been
the ruling factors in warfare, transcending the importance of numbers and equipment.
This old maxim held during World War II and I think it will always do so.”
-Major General F.W.von Mellenthin(1956) - (Major General F.W. van Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, University of Oklahoma Press, 1956. The quote is on page 349 of the 1971 Ballentine edition.)
Emotional support and virtues of life cannot be taught by a machine but only by a human. It is true that AI based learning makes you future ready but the need of learning life skills has become even more important.
In machine learning there is huge amount of data that is fed into the machine using which the machine learns. This data can be related to any field of study depending on the requirement. This would include patterns of data to analyze and provide a suitable solution. The same experiences that govern our mindset and perspectives are fed into the machine as data, in a refined manner. All this information forms the basis on which the machine takes a decision. But the only difference between human intelligence and machine intelligence is that the human being will only see things through their perspective which is limited to their own experiences, whereas in machine learning, data from various sources is fed into the machine. This increases the horizons of the machine to think and find suitable solutions. Depending on the configuration i.e. the hardware and the software used, the machine can prove to be more efficient in problem solving in regards to accuracy of result and the time taken to solve the problem. The only challenge that the AI faces today is emotional intelligence.
This is one aspect which is being worked upon by the software and hardware industry. In near future we might be welcoming a machine based human who would be more intelligent both in terms of intellect and emotions. In education especially the students need to be presented with technology that teaches about the virtues of life and not just the preprogrammed course curriculum. It is required for an all-round development of the learner making them good human beings before any other professional.
Although it is difficult to convince the teachers to adapt AI based teaching learning, but it surely can do the grunt work for the teachers. Whenever the teachers are asked to address the learners’ needs they show an uncanny attitude. Teachers need to be convinced that the learners’ needs are of paramount importance to be addressed and not the completion of the syllabus. Their apprehensions regarding adoption of technology also needs to be addressed by assuring that their status and stature as a teacher is not diminished by using advanced technological tools for teaching. They would rather be appreciated by the learners for being upgraded and keeping pace with the changing times.
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