The school curriculum can be effective for many students, sometimes for most students. However, when individual attention is needed, a personalized approach may be necessary to achieve the desired results. In a technologically advanced age, the use of ai can greatly improve individual student learning.
Here we speak with Mariana Aguilar, Vice President of Education and Operations at GoGaurdian, about how individualized learning can take the next step with the inclusion of artificial intelligence.
MARIANA AGUILAR WILL SPEAK AT edtech WEEK
How has the student/teacher dynamic changed?
Over the years, the relationship between students and teachers has evolved along with the way we view education in general. From the pandemic and remote learning to class sizes and neurodivergent students, there have been many factors influencing how teachers interact with students.
“I think a lot of what we're seeing, especially after the pandemic, is that the weight of responsibilities on teachers is greater than ever,” Aguilar says. “As a former teacher, I know firsthand how difficult it is to be a teacher. You have to teach a new concept, manage a classroom, support the emotional well-being of students, interact with parents, and make sure that all students have their different accommodations, especially for students with special needs. “There is a whole group of things that teachers have to do in addition to the teaching materials.”
So where does ai fit into the dynamic?
“Teachers are exhausted. “They are overwhelmed,” explains Aguilar. “We are seeing teachers leaving the profession in large groups and this is putting even more pressure on the system. So I think what 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, 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 give so many explanations.”
As teachers' responsibilities expand periodically, having a way to relieve some of that pressure could lighten the load on teachers and give them insight into their students.
<h2 id="can-ai-help-remedy-student-struggles-3″>Can ai help remedy student struggles?
ai technology can have huge implications for teachers when it comes to helping them manage their administrative workloads, but what about when it comes to interacting with students? Teachers often have multiple duties that may 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 it might identify which standard a student is struggling with.
“So in a previous world, a teacher would have to grade or evaluate this manually,” he says. “It would include an overview of what the class was struggling with and force the teacher to look at each student individually. It is a process that requires a lot of time. So in one of our products there is the ability for a teacher to say, 'I want a set of standards intervention practices,' and it will automatically (ai) generate a set of practices based on the standards that the majority of the class has difficulties in second-class articles.”
In essence, a process that used to take hours of a teacher's day can now be done in minutes thanks to ai. This can help give teachers valuable time back to focus on other tasks or better connect with students and address their individual needs.
