School curriculum can be effective for many students, sometimes for most students. However, when individual attention is needed, a personalized approach might be necessary to achieve the desired results. In a technologically advanced time, the use of AI can greatly improve individual learning for students.
Here we speak with Mariana Aguilar, VP of Education and Operations for GoGaurdian, about how individualized learning can take the next step with the inclusion of artificial intelligence.
MARIANA AGUILAR WILL BE SPEAKING AT EDTECH WEEK
How Has the Student/Teacher Dynamic Changed?
Over the years, the relationship between students and teachers has evolved along with how we view education overall. From the pandemic and remote learning to class size and neurodivergent learners, there have been many factors that influence how teachers interact with students.
“I think a lot of what we’re seeing, especially post-pandemic, is that the weight of responsibilities on teachers is greater than ever before,” says Aguilar. “As a former teacher, I know firsthand how challenging being a teacher is. There’s teaching a new concept, managing a classroom, supporting students’ emotional wellbeing, engaging with parents, making sure that all students have their different accommodations, especially for students with special needs. There is a whole group of things teachers have to do outside of actually teaching material.”
So where does AI fit into the dynamic?
“Teachers are burnt out. They’re overwhelmed,” Aguilar explains. “We’re seeing teachers leave the profession in large groups and this creates even more pressure on the system. So I think where we have an opportunity to create an impact through AI is that AI offers an opportunity to alleviate some of those challenges by addressing and accelerating the ability to work on some of those additional pieces. That could mean the ability to create instructional materials like a test, or create a lesson, or grade some papers. That could also mean leveraging AI to provide explanations to students who might be struggling with something. A teacher can only provide so many explanations.”
With teacher responsibilities being expanded regularly, having a way to alleviate some of that pressure could lighten the load for teachers and provide them with some insight into their students.
Can AI Help Remedy Student Struggles?
AI technology may have huge implications for teachers when it comes to helping them handle their administrative work loads, but what about when it comes to interacting with students? Teachers often have multiple duties that might not allow them adequate time to assess the individual needs of their students. AI can help teachers in this regard, says Aguilar, who offers an example of when could happen what standard a student is struggling with is identified.
“So in a previous world, a teacher would have to manually grade or assess this,” she says. “It would include an overall view of what the class was struggling with and make a teacher have to look at each student individually. That’s an incredibly time-intensive process. So in one of our products there’s actually the capacity for a teacher to say, ‘I want a standards intervention practice set,’ and automatically [AI] will generate a practice set based on the standards that the majority of the class is struggling with in seconds.”
In essence, a process that used to take hours out of a teacher’s day can now be accomplished in minutes by AI. This can help to give teachers back valuable time to focus on other tasks or connect better with students and cater to their individual needs.