AI in Education: Benefits, use cases, and Examples

Automation is present everywhere, be it in manufacturing, customer service, or automobile industry. But is it a replacement of human workers? No, it isn't. Similarly, in education industry, AI is eventually a solution to enhance learning experiences.

Not only is AI being used by students worldwide, in fact, studies show that 62% of US educators and 60% of their UK counterparts integrate AI in their work settings.

From automating administrative tasks such as recordkeeping processes to freeing up time for educators and making learning more immersive and interactive through AR/VR tools, artificial intelligence is a game-changer in the educational landscape.

Not only would teachers have saved an extra 4-5 hours every week, but students can also learn faster than ever.

Let's talk about the potential use cases that AI provides in the education industry, the benefits it provides to learners and instructors, along with a few examples of companies that have used AI as a supplementary tool.

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence or AI is an emerging technology that combines computer science and datasets, to facilitate problem-solving.

A concept that has formally been around since the 1950s, has grown by leaps and bounds in its capabilities. Traditionally defined as a machine’s ability to undertake a task that would’ve previously required human intelligence, the definition of AI broadened over the years.

Contemporary AI solutions are believed to perform tasks that are generally associated with human cognitive functions. These functions include, inter alia, interpreting speech, and spotting patterns. The more these solutions are exposed to data, the sharper they become in severing the purpose.

AI comes in multiple forms and devices. AI-powered conversational chatbots such as Bard and ChatGPT, Google Maps, smart assistants, wearables, etc., are some examples of AI.

Let’s now have a look at how the education sector is leveraging artificial intelligence in teaching and learning.

7 exciting use cases of AI in education industry

Education + AI = Gold. From becoming the first-class tutor to customizing learning plans for students, AI has a long way to go. Let's discuss a few applications of how Artificial intelligence transforms the education industry.

Let’s look at for what all tasks and aspects of the education sector that are enhanced with the use of AI:

1. Automation of Administrative Tasks

AI isn't just a game-changing technology for students, but a powerful weapon that, when used effectively, can make the job of educators easier.

It's not there to replace instructors, rather to help them by providing more time for mentoring students and guiding them towards a better future.

Today, the emergence of AI-driven grading tools has made it possible to assess students' assignments and manage feedback in real time, allowing educators to spend more time interacting with students at a deeper level.

And nearly 60% of the teachers have integrated AI in their classrooms, as reported by Forbes. 

For instance – AI-driven chatbots can be used in educational settings for providing instant support to students by answering questions about course content, deadlines, and other academic-related doubts. As AI-powered chatbots are available 24*7, they can still provide help to learners outside their office hours.

As this tool answers frequently asked questions of students, educators can refine their teaching material and adjust their teaching strategies. Isn’t that amazing? It frees up educators and let them focus on parts of teaching that actually matters.

2. Education Becomes More Accessible

With the use of artificial intelligence in the education sector, learning transcends boundaries. AI has made remote learning possible and more effective.

Additionally, it has opened new learning gates for students who want to learn a specific subject or course but couldn't do so earlier due to geographical or resource constraints.

Students with hearing or visual impairments or those who speak a different language can now learn through AI tools. With text-to-speech and speech-to-text features, AI is democratizing education, ensuring that students can study materials even if they are visually impaired.

AI-enabled tools scan textbooks and videos to generate summaries for students who can't read the text. Such tools will read the information on their behalf, ensuring that learning is unstoppable for anyone.

3. Personalized Learning Experiences

Initially, educational institutions used to come up with standard curricula that were more or less fixed for everyone, with no changes in schedule.

This creates challenges for students to adapt when they have diverse learning styles, and many come from different educational backgrounds with varying learning paces.

Most students find it hard to maintain their momentum by following the old-school schedule.

That's where the integration of AI in the education sector transforms everything by catering to the needs of each learner. It creates personalized learning modules so that each student can quickly adapt.

Duolingo, for instance, uses AI to personalize learning experiences based on a few parameters -

Speed, accuracy, hesitation, and even difficulty style.

Students can find a sweet spot as they’re not just learning through old-school methods, rather they get a gamified experience that retains them for longer.

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Mike Khorev, Managing Director of Nine Peaks Media says -  

You can create personalized learning experiences for students through adaptive learning platforms.  

AI-powered learning platforms analyze student performance in real time and then adjust the content and difficulty level based on how they perform. That’s how learners are engaged, and they can make progress. 

DreamBox, for instance, is an AI-powered tool that adapts the math lessons based on student’s pace and their understanding. If a student struggles with a concept, then the platform revisits the same concept to ensure that the student gets mastery of all concepts before moving on. 

4. Faster Course Creation

Another use case of Artificial Intelligence in education is its ability to create course material quickly.

By using generative AI technology in education, you simply need to input course-related keywords, and it will generate entire course materials within few seconds such as content summaries, flashcards, and interactive quizzes.

Mini Course Creator, for instance, is helping course creators/educators to quickly develop courses.

They can provide a prompt to this tool, and the free platform will generate courses using its AI features.

These AI course generators come with multilingual capabilities, meaning they can create courses in multiple languages, allowing them to reach international students as well.

Also Read: Generative AI in Education – Use Cases, and Benefits

5. In class learning experiences

AI can help teachers or professors to spot some of the weaknesses within a classroom more efficiently.

This includes pointing out when students miss a particular question. A teacher right away gets notified, and thus, can identify topics that need to be explained in a different and better way.

This helps to make the classroom teaching and the overall education system, a bit more accountable, ensuring the best teaching practices are being implemented inside a classroom.

6. AI Driven Proctoring Solutions

As the education landscape becomes more digitalized, there is an increasing need for online proctoring tools to help teachers and supervisors monitor student activities.

AI-based proctoring tools help educators detect unusual eye movements and noise level patterns, then send an alert to the instructor that a particular student might be cheating during an examination.

Imagine if a human invigilator were assigned to monitor hundreds or thousands of students simultaneously—it would be impossible to keep an eye on everyone.

Even before a student enters the examination, the AI proctoring tool verifies the student's identity using facial recognition technology and then monitors unusual activities such as unauthorized device usage or looking away from the screen.

7. Round-the-Clock Assistance

The traditional classroom environment was limited by restricted student-teacher interactions during working hours. Even if students had doubts after classes, these often remained unaddressed.

AI allows students to learn, make mistakes, and learn again, at any time, from anywhere. The integration of chatbots and virtual assistants in the education sector enhances the learning experience.

Students can receive personalized guidance, and learning becomes more enjoyable as AI chatbots help them in various ways:

• Helping them with academic-related material 
• Clarifying their doubts 
• Solving complex topics 
• Answering routine yet regular queries 

Top 4 Game-Changing Benefits of AI in Education

AI should be used in education because it offers several significant benefits:

1. Engages Students for Longer 

AI-powered tools in education help educators refine learning material based on each student's interests.  

For instance, integrating AI-based virtual assistants on learning portals or adding gamified experiences makes learning an exciting adventure (including intelligent tutoring systems). 

When learning becomes more enjoyable, students are more likely to spend more time on the subject, resulting in better academic outcomes.

This means that students are actively participating in the learning process because of a dynamic shift from a passive engagement model to responsive and more interactive learning experiences.

2. Provides Data-Driven Insights 

AI automates the feedback process by providing detailed insights into each student's performance, helping them understand where they stand and how they can improve. 

It can even highlight individual learning gaps, allowing educators to refine their training methodology accordingly. 

3. Helps in Predictive Analytics 

Another application of AI in education is predictive analytics. This simply means that AI tools can identify underperforming candidates and discover the root causes behind their performance.

This helps universities and educational institutions tailor their courses based on academic performance. 

Educators can plan to improve academic performance by designing custom learning modules or providing additional tutoring sessions. 

4. Makes Educators More Efficient 

AI improves educator efficiency by automating administrative tasks such as student enrolment, grading, attendance tracking, and assessment preparation.  

When such time-consuming tasks are automated, instructors can focus better on value-driven tasks like building relationships with students and identifying those who need personalized attention. 

5. Better communication and collaboration  

AI facilitates better collaboration between students and learners as it provides personalized, real-time feedback to students. 

Let’s say a student submits the coding assignment for review and AI analyses it and offers tailored suggestions to students that help them to improve. This ensures that students and teachers are on the same page. 

4. Makes education more cost-effective 

AI is helping educational institutions and schools in some fascinating ways. 

For instance – the use of AI-powered chatbots provides real-time support to students and teachers which reduces the expenses that would have been incurred for hiring a help desk agent. 

Moreover, these chatbots can free up human resources for performing more complex tasks. It's even useful for creating virtual labs and simulations.  

For schools that can’t afford to have physical lab equipment, using a virtual lab is a great alternative in that case.  

Through virtual labs, students can perform their simulations and conduct their experiments, it not only saves the cost of equipment but also reduces the need for physical space. 

Some Popular Examples of AI in Education 

1. Duolingo

Duolingo, a language learning app, uses AI to create personalized educational experiences for learners. By identifying each learner's strengths and weaknesses, it adjusts lessons based on individual progress and provides personalized feedback on pronunciation and grammar.

2. Coursera 

Coursera, an online learning platform for students, job seekers, and working professionals, has integrated AI to make learning accessible and affordable. The Coursera Coach feature works in three ways: 

• Supporting over 1 million learners in completing courses within 1 hour with higher quiz pass rates. 
• Acting as a career coach based on individual goals and interests. 
• Helping educators make classroom learning more interactive. 

3. Quizlet 

This learning platform uses AI capabilities to make studying easier. Quizlet provides a personalized tutor that goes beyond a traditional tutor.  

Unlike a regular tutor, the Quizlet AI-enhanced tutor is available anytime, anywhere, and pushes students to sharpen their critical thinking skills. 

In the US, two out of three high school students and one out of two college students use Quizlet every month. It has become a go-to platform for learning any subject and for educators to generate content quickly, such as practice tests and interactive flashcards. 

4. LearnSphere

This AI-based educational platform transforms the learning experience. LearnSphere is helping students by creating personalized learning paths depending on student needs.  

Besides that, educators can use AI-driven insights to customize their course content accordingly. 

Even if educators are not available outside working hours, learners can interact with the AI teacher and solve their doubts at any time. 

Challenges of Adopting AI in the Education Sector 

Although artificial intelligence presents various opportunities for educators and teachers, it comes with certain challenges: 

1. Requires Specialized Knowledge 

Some educational institutions feel they need technical expertise and may require training on how to use the software and blend it with existing teaching methodologies. This process takes considerable time and effort. 

2. Data Privacy and Security Concerns 

As AI tools are trained on large datasets, they might raise privacy concerns for students and educators.  

When integrating AI tools in education, companies should ensure transparency about the data used for training to avoid security and privacy issues. 

It is advisable to have a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when collaborating with technology vendors. 

3. Plagiarism Issues 

With the wide availability of AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard, students may take full advantage of them to complete their work. 

While it depends on how students engage with these tools, blind usage for content creation, problem-solving, or generating research papers can lead to increased plagiarism, false information, and fabricated facts. 

NOTE - AI tools should be adopted widely but used ethically. Students should learn how to use these tools to enhance their learning experiences responsibly. 

EdTech companies on the other hand should always prioritize user privacy first and should obtain their consent before using their data and clearly define their purpose behind using it. 

For instance – Khan academy is using AI as a tool, not as a replacement tool for educators. They even communicate the role of how they will use student’s data. They’re using learner’s data to enhance their learning experience. 

How BigOhTech Can Help Enhance Student Learning Experiences Through AI-Powered Solutions? 

The impact of AI in education can be both positive and negative, but when used ethically, it can yield significant benefits in the future.  

From creating courses more efficiently for students to helping educators become more productive, AI integration in education has the potential to reshape the future of learning. 

The educational landscape looks promising when universities and educational institutions strategically leverage these innovative technologies.  

As an app development company, we have a dedicated development team committed to building smart learning platforms for edtech businesses, universities, and educational institutions. 

Our expertise lies in offering wide range of AI development services-

• Creating AI chatbots that provide 24/7 student support 
• Developing comprehensive learning applications 
• Designing intelligent platforms that increase student engagement 
• Automating routine administrative tasks 

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