Use of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education

Besides data science and machine learning, AI (Artificial Intelligence) has also been around quite for a while now. While it is significantly shaping productive industries and businesses, it has only started to grab its applications in the educational sector, both in campus management as well as the classroom. This article explains a few crucial trends of AI that will reform managing the resources of educational institutions.

Defining Artificial Intelligence

Association for Computing Machinery’s member Marie des Jardins tells University Business that “in general, artificial intelligence is the methodology of designing software, hardware, and computers that can perform activities that we believe only humans can do.”

“Machines examine broad data fields a lot faster than human beings and then demonstrate information for people to understand. Studying patterns can certainly help educators to ask more relevant questions about their students’ needs and requirements and ultimately tailoring more accurate learning plans.”

Stanford University prepared a report “One Hundred Study on AI (AI100)”, and predicted intelligent tutors and other artificial intelligence technologies will be increasingly and significantly used in the classroom and the home. However, they emphasize that computer and other software-based learning techniques will not completely replace human teachers.

Although, there’s a lot been written about AI’s role in the classroom, customizing education with complex technology, and uniting online learning with personalized applications. What about education management though? Will these be implemented in academic planning as well? Let’s find out:

Improved Student Experience

As stated by University Business, artificial intelligence can help not just classrooms but also the higher education management sector, supporting collaboration among its different facets. The software has extended its reach to educators and administrators, and AI is also expanding its roots into student services.

The report of Stanford University determines that there are initiatives that purse modeling common misconceptions of students, predicting the students that are at high risk of failure, and providing real-time feedback to students that is firmly incorporated with learning procedures.

Rose Luckin, Learner-Centered Design Professor at the UCL Institute of Education, offers examples of how AI can enhance the student experience. She acknowledges the instance of the University of Derby, where they incorporated a student monitoring process that used data for predicting the students that might be at risk of abandoning, enabling the university to intercede before that happen.

After that, the team reviewed the factors like how often students avail counseling and mentoring services and their engagement with student societies. By leveraging these engagement techniques, they can evaluate whether a certain student is struggling or not.

Analytics of Student Learning

Forbes contributor Barbara Kurshan says “that AI can play a significant role in the fast-growing industry of learning analytics, assessing the quality of various curriculum materials, and also in adaptive learning as well as recommendation engines.”

“Today’s world is actually running on AI. Facebook suggests friends, Siri manages calendars, computer software trade stocks, and whatnot. There are cars that can park on their own, and air traffic control’s nearly completely automated. Practically almost every industry has profited from progress in AI, from medicine to manufacturing to the military.”

One of the important areas that she stresses is uniting the enormous data regarding individual learning, learning contexts, social contexts, and personal interests.

Rose Luckin says “there’s been tremendous growth in education data regarding students who are available to different universities. She also states how these universities are gripping data patterns about activities of students (that are periodically recorded and reviewed by universities).”

“At present, these analytics are mostly used for predicting the students that are likely to drop out or fail, however, the true potential of artificial intelligence learning analytics in analyzing the learning procedures of individual students and providing real-time interventions for supporting them is enormous.”

Stanford University’s report states that data sets that were collected from vast online learning mechanisms have aided the exponential growth of the sector of learning analytics. Online courses aren’t just good for large-scale delivery, but they are also natural wagons for data collection as well as the experimental arrangement that will support many scientific discoveries and enhancing the standard of learning at scale.

Moreover, Chris Prass (Times Higher Education’s contributor) states that “universities dig institutional data looking for gold”, as the examination of data on students and staff can assist in improving retention and recruitment. He also explains that universities inevitably risk their competitive advantage if they don’t make the right use of the information they gather from lecturers and students.

Management and Organization

Accenture researchers Robert J, Richard Amico, and Vegard Kolbjørnsrud inform the Harvard Business Review about how artificial intelligence is going to redefine management, after investigating 1,770 managers responsible for digital transformation.

Simply put, AI will quickly be able to perform administrative activities that drain most of the managers’ energy, and that too much faster, better, and more economically.  Keeping track of resources and schedules will soon fall under the authority of machines, however, framing strategies remain undoubtedly a human activity. The world is adopting artificial intelligence for automating administration and making things easier for human beings.

How it is being done?

Delegating Administrative Control

This accounts for almost half of the managers’ time and AI will automate the majority of these activities.

Supporting Complex Decisions

Advanced machine learning technologies actually allow machines to understand and learn many things, therefore they’ll support instead of replacing humans.

Help in Designing New Solutions

The use of AI can both minimize the paperwork that deflects creative thinking and widen the scope of opportunities that officials have in creating educational programs or courses. This will invariably enhance the overall student experience and boost their interest in learning.

Task Assignment

The report of Stanford University goes further than the use of AI in the classroom. It also emphasizes using data science for creating informational course models and drafting task assignments for better engagement of students.

Conclusion

The use of artificial intelligence in higher education can’t be overstated as its application has definitely made things easier for both students as well as teachers. Besides, the constant amendments being made in technology only implies better things for the future. Similarly, EssaysUSA is a trusted source for students to enhance their learning and for help with their curriculum.