AI + Education = 🤯

Late at night, imagine being a student struggling with a difficult algebra problem. Nevertheless, there is no one to assist you. This is the struggle of not having personalized learning, no late-night support and teachers being overwhelmed by the administrative part of teaching. It’s hard for us students to be taught that way. But what if it were easier? What if during those middle-of-the-night cramming sessions, someone or something would walk you through? That would be awesome! 

Problems With Our Current Education

Lacking the Personal Touch: Do you ever feel like your education system is a monotonous routine that seems to have left you yawning? It makes sense to me. We are in this default mode of education where personalized learning remains as elusive as finding a unicorn on campus. Just assume your schooling was like a tailored playlist whereby educators gave you the best mental tune-up, guided your thought process, and equipped you with skills needed for practical problem-solving in real-life situations. Unfortunately, we often bumble around with random educational mixtapes hoping that we will eventually come across the right track.

Late-Night Brain Fogs: There are moments when you find yourself at midnight, staring at a question on your homework and just wishing there was someone to help. I have been there before. It is a fact. When you need it most, the existing system acts like a 9-5 job thus leaving you stuck in confusion at this time. What if there was an all-day-everyday hotline that could haul you out of late-night brain fog? 

Teacher Jugglers Extraordinaire: Have you ever wondered why sometimes your teacher appears to be some kind of superhero who has to juggle a million things all at once? They really are! But here’s the catch, their administrative avalanche? Adding fire-torching and unicycles to the juggling act…it’s just that like! Lesson plans, grading papers, paperwork – it keeps spinning constantly! Let us therefore imagine reducing the bureaucratic load so as to free teachers in order for them to do what they know best: teaching. It is high time we spared our educational magicians unnecessary ball bouncing and let them practice their wizardry inside classrooms where reality sets. 

Brainpower Ignition Needed: Have you ever had a feeling that your brain is like a bullet train racing through textbooks and lectures without making any stops for a critical thinking journey? It’s a common ride in the current education system. We’re so focused on reaching the destination of answers that we forget to enjoy the journey of questioning and reasoning. Imagine if education was a treasure hunt for understanding, where critical thinking wasn’t just a side quest but the main adventure. After all, who doesn’t want a mind that’s both a speedster and a philosopher?

Lost in the Internet Wilderness: Are you caught in the middle of an Internet wilderness, as if you’re navigating educational content alone through a vast online jungle with a compass but no map? It’s a struggle facing every modern learner. We have all this knowledge at our fingertips; like Khan Academy and yet it is simply like getting lost within a digital bristle. Can you envisage having a virtual guide, some learning GPS helping you to effectively navigate this information wilds? High time we change the educational internet into a well-marked trail so that there are sign posts guiding you to where those treasures of knowledge lay.

Why Is The Problem Important?

The next President or the Prime Minister is currently in our Educational System so that the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs get the best education and the resources needed to excel.

According to research, students who do not pass algebra I (which most students take when in 9th grade) are unlikely to complete their high school studies on time or attend four-year colleges. Additionally, math competency has more effect than other subjects on future earnings for individuals and the productivity of countries where they live.

We need to care for the next generation, which comes after us!

Let us examine some companies as a case study to understand the level of technology and where we are.

• Khanmigo

Khanmigo is an example of such a tutor, backed by OpenAI’s latest large language model, GPT-4, which Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that offers free online lessons, implemented into its online videos in July. As students watch videos on topics ranging from geometry to AP US History, they can access an AI assistant via a pop-up window that will provide Socratic-method-type questions and hints if they’re stuck.

Tutoring is expensive in the US, and AI tutors aim to help students receive low-cost personalized support. Khanmigo costs $9 a month, which helps cover the cost for the company of running on GPT-4. Some school districts will even take care of that cost, Khan said.

Khanmigo also provides AI-driven lessons where students can debate, learn how to fine-tune arguments, or converse with a historical or literary figure — though it’s limited to a pre-defined set of questions and characters. Each response from the AI assistant comes with a thumbs up or thumbs down emoji, and Khan Academy will use that feedback to improve the generative AI tool. Teachers can also chat with the AI tutor to help create lesson plans.

To date, some 30,000 students and teachers use or plan to adopt Khanmigo in the coming month, according to the company.

Khan Academy’s partnership with OpenAI

Last July, Khan said that OpenAI’s co-founders Sam Altman and Gregg Brockman contacted him to discuss GPT-4. At first, he did not think an AI tutor would be possible during his lifetime, but after seeing the demos, Khan’s opinion changed. “This changes everything about what Khan Academy is and could aspire to be,” he said.

A big concern around generative AI is its ability to hallucinate or make up facts. In response, Khan said many user interactions with Khanmigo are trained on Khan Academy content, making it more difficult for the generative AI tool to hallucinate since it is being trained on specific data.

AI Transforms Online Learning For The Better

One common criticism of online education is the lack of engagement, which is why not every class is virtual. The biggest benefit of the AI tutor right now is that it can benefit the “super curious kid,” as Khan puts it. But, there’s another category of students who are stuck while they are working on a problem set or watching a tutorial, and that’s where Khanmigo can start to help, he said.

In the future, Khan said AI tutors will be able to act as “memory” where they can send students messages and hold them accountable for the goals they set — promising this feature for as soon as next year. “Stuff like this is going to be really powerful,” Khan said.

The online learning platform is one of several ed-tech organizations that harness powerful new AI technology that can hold conversations and produce all kinds of text in response to prompts to support tutoring. Interest in individualized student support has swelled after the disruptions of socioeconomic status, and it is closed by nearly 50%.

• Saga Coach

Using Saga Coach they can learn 2.5 years of math in one year. Working with the Saga Curriculum in an intensive tutoring setting can allow students to learn 2.5 years’ worth of math in one academic year, reducing math failures by as much as 63% and reducing non-tutored subject failures by as much as 26%. Additionally, our research has shown that the opportunity gap, the observed and persistent disparity in educational performance.

AI Supporting Tutoring

One way is for AI to streamline some of the work that has to happen behind the scenes for tutor-tutee sessions to go smoothly — acting as a sort of support staff for tutoring.

That’s how Saga Education, a nonprofit that works with districts to design and implement tutoring programs, is approaching this new technology, said Krista Marks, the company’s chief technology officer. The organization has partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder to embed AI developed by the institution’s researchers.

Saga Education feeds the technology recordings of tutoring sessions, which evaluates tutors’ work against a rubric and then provides feedback. Tutoring site directors can then review these notes before meetings with individual tutors, to inform coaching conversations.

The tool was piloted this past school year and will be rolled out fully in 2023–24. The company hasn’t yet released an evaluation of the tool’s effectiveness, but Marks said that reports from pilot schools were positive.

The hope is that tools like this can help schools scale tutoring programs, Marks said. Ongoing coaching and training make tutors better at their jobs, but it puts a financial and logistical burden for schools, she said. If AI could take on part of that work, schools might find it more realistic to maintain these programs over the long term, Marks said.

AI Being A Tutor

What if AI could ask students questions to prompt their thinking, or offer a suggestion about what to do next when they’re stuck? That’s the premise behind Khanmigo, the new AI chatbot that Khan Academy debuted in March.

Khanmigo uses the technology behind ChatGPT, coupled with data from Khan Academy’s platform, to help students with assignments. The bot is designed to be a helping hand, rather than give students the answers outright, said Kristen DiCerbo, the company’s chief learning officer.

Still, she emphasized that the technology can’t replace all human interaction. Most schools that are piloting the tool now are using it in a classroom setting, to help kids get “unstuck” during independent work, she said.

The bot can also get things wrong — like ChatGPT, it makes some mistakes in math problems. It’s important to impress upon students that “you shouldn’t take this as the source of truth,” DiCerbo said.

Ideally, teachers — or other adults — would work in concert with AI tutors, said Helen Crompton, an associate professor of instructional technology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Some students might get the help they need from the bot alone, while others might need more guidance and direction from a human.

AI Building Relationships With Students The Way That Tutors Do?

An AI can be programmed to be encouraging and supportive. In some cases, it may demonstrate empathy more readily than humans do.

One recent study found that an AI delivering written medical advice had a better bedside manner than human doctors. The researchers asked healthcare professionals to compare written responses to patient questions — one set of responses from doctors and one from AI. The raters found the AI’s responses to be higher quality and more empathetic.

Ultimately, though, AI doesn’t actually feel empathy or connection. “It’s faking that interaction,” Crompton said.

Crompton said there will always be a need for human connection in tutoring. “We know our students personally better than AI,” she said. She said that teachers and tutors can pick up on subtle emotional cues that a bot can’t — the body language or demeanor that can signal a child is frustrated or overwhelmed.

A tutor-tutee relationship can also provide motivation and accountability, said Carly Robinson, a senior researcher at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education who works with the National Student Support Accelerator, a group promoting research-based tutoring programs.

Tutors push students to keep trying; they can help kids focus their attention. They remember what students have struggled with over time and what stumbling blocks continue to trip them up. That demonstrates care about kids in a way that technology can’t.

Conclusion

The AI in education as it stands today is demonstrated by platforms such as Khanmigo and Saga Coach thus exemplifying the transformative potential of Large Language Models. These technologies, which are built on models like GPT-4, enable personalized learning experiences, 24/7 homework help, and streamlined administrative functions for teachers. For an illustration, Khanmigo incorporates AI into online videos that provide individualized support to students with Socratic-style questions and interactive learning experiences. In a similar way, Saga Coach uses AI to assess tutoring sessions giving tutors feedback thereby potentially reducing the financial and logistical burden on schools.

Looking ahead, AI’s future in education is filled with potential. As another option, AI-based tutors may become memory aids that message students and hold them accountable for their academic goals. Furthermore, there is room for improvement regarding directing students through the massive landscape of online educational content so as to ensure effective navigation. While AI can offer helpful assistance, it is important to strike a balance between its use and preserving human interaction elements like empathy connection, and motivation in the educational process. The ongoing collaboration between AI technology and human interaction aims to offer