How AI is an Intelligent Use of Education Time with Tangible Benefits for Teachers and students

One of the technologies poised to have the most profound impact on the education sector is artificial intelligence (AI); an impact that will be felt not only by global education leaders, but by a broad spectrum of our communities and especially teachers and students.

For AI to work effectively, it needs large amounts of data – much like a teacher requiring weekly homework across a school year to judge a student’s progress.

Education is a particularly rich source from which to collect data. It’s a centralised repository of, for the average student, 10 or more years’ worth of assessment activity – essentially, millions of data points per student. Currently there is little raw or deidentified education data available but if it were examinable in a safe and secure fashion, innovation would explode in the edtech sector.

At its core, the biggest potential benefit of AI is how it could support the true role of teachers. That means making sure that teachers’ time is freed up so that they can direct their uniquely human skills and abilities where they have maximum impact: interacting with students. To this end, many of the applications of AI that are being explored involve removing as much of teachers’ routine administration, record-keeping, and assessment work as possible.

AI and particularly machine learning – where systems learn and improve with data and experience without being programmed – is already making a deep impact on education in three areas:

1 Differentiated and individualised learning tools
AI-driven edtech is supporting adaptive learning and enhanced augmented environments that enable educators to reach and support large cohorts of students, while improving learning experiences and outcomes. For example, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) highlighted during the latest NAPLAN Online that the digital format of the assessment allows for tailored or adaptive testing, meaning that each student is served a unique difficulty level of questions based on their answers.

In order for teachers to deliver increasingly personalised education, it is critical for them have a granular understanding of how students exactly how their students are performing and learning at each stage of their schooling. AI has the potential to allow educators to do this at scale, including identifying children at risk of falling behind or a common learning gap among a particular cohort, and being able to efficiently design tailored programs that target these issues.

2 The time-saving power of automation and analysis in a school context
Algorithms and automation can lighten – and in some cases eliminate – the substantial cost and time burdens involved in delivering school assessments, while also pinpointing transformational insights and analysis.

Tasks such as administration and marking can be streamlined, allowing educators to redirect resources towards hands-on teaching. In Australia, ABS figures indicate that approximately 10 million teaching hours are spent annually on preparing, authoring, delivering, marking and reporting on paper-based exams across K–12 schools, colleges and universities.

3 Tutoring support and universal accessibility
Among the first widespread use cases of AI was translation and transcription of text documents and audio files. This is now commonplace across many industries. Within an education context, the capability to translate lessons in real time, or offer academically-valid assessments in multiple languages is a game-changer, bridging language divides and connecting students, teachers and learning communities. With this we are seeing the rise of new tutoring, mentoring and study programs.

Looking to the future
We anticipate many more use cases for AI in the future. One example already under way is edtech that uses AI within systems that can accurately mark written answers, a nuanced and high-stakes task that traditionally requires a human and significant investment of time. Soon, this technology will be applied to double-scoring all responses, a previously time-consuming and subjective activity, as well as automating blind-quality monitoring. What remains an extraordinarily labour-intensive use of teachers’ time could soon be consigned to history lessons.

The benefits of AI will transform education within this decade and every decade following it. Using AI will not be a choice – it’s a reality of how our world is evolving. As educators it is our responsibility to maximise the opportunities and benefits AI will have for the generations that follow us.