We are constructing a 3-minute video deep-diving into three established AI tools that instructors are already leveraging in the classroom (across a variety of grade levels) to pitch the utility of AI-assisted education in the classroom. Those 3 tools are ALEKS (tailored lesson generation for individual students), Carnegie Learning (AI-powered math tutor), and Gradescope (an AI-assisted grading tool).
JEFF: Are you a college-level educator? Do you, like so many of your peers, find yourself tossing and turning at night wondering what new cousin of ChatGPT is going to radically transform the landscape of your career? We get it. At times it can seem like artificial intelligence was purely designed to just create a new breed of plagiarism issues that you're forced to deal with.
JEFF: Of course, AI isn't going away anytime soon. But we have good news on that front: it turns artificial intelligence can be harnessed to help make you a more impactful teacher in the classroom. Today we'll take a brief look at some AI-powered technologies that assist with nearly every aspect of an educator's workday, including lesson creation, hands-on tutoring and instruction, and even grading.
JEFF: We'll begin with lesson generation by ALEKS, an adaptive learning system by McGraw-Hill.
Yanqiao ALEKS is an Artificial Intelligence-based learning and assessment system. It aims to customize students' learning experiences and improve their academic performances. To do so, ALEKS walks through the following steps:
- determine the knowledge states of one specific course topic like Algebra
- ALEKS checks a student's current knowledge to decide which topic the student is ready to work on. To be ready to work on a new topic, the student has to learn topics that suit them provided by ALEKS
- While the size of topics growing, a network-like knowledge structure will be created in a student's mind (more detail)
- assess student's knowledge on those states by survey. ALEKS then intelligently choose questions based on student's responses to all previous questions to determine what topic the student has mastered, hasn't mastered and what topic the student is ready to learn next
PROPOSED EDIT: ALEKS is an Artificial Intelligence-based learning and assessment system. It aims to customize students' learning experiences and improve their academic performance. To do so, ALEKS tests students and maintains an interconnected tree of networked topics that a student has mastered within a discipline (like Algebra, for instance) to generate new topics or revisit particular topics based on that student's mastery levels. This helps guide an individualized curriculum by identifying areas where the student already excels and further pushes the bounds on related topics, while not advancing to new topics if the student still struggles with one of the related topics. This use of AI can help educators easily tailor lessons to the struggles and successes of particular students for one-on-one learning.
JEFF: Being able to tailor instruction for individual students is a powerful idea, but how can one instructor execute such customized coursework? Enter MATHia by Carnegi Learning.
JACOB: Carnegie Learning's MATHia with LiveLab is a math tutor powered by artificial intelligence. It creates a personalized learning experience for every student that uses it, ensuring that those who need help will receive it and those who are ready for more can be challenged. One of the biggest things this helps with is managing the overall learning in a classroom, which I'm sure every professor would appreciate assistance with. Through the use of LiveLab and MATHia, it gives the professor valuable data about different students' progress on assignments and current activity as well as advice on who might benefit the most from direct teacher assistance. A quote from a teacher that used LiveLab during its beta says, “Before LiveLab, I used to stand at the back of the room and try to look for when students were getting stuck. Now I know not only when they’re getting stuck, but why.”
JEFF: These tools can help educators guide students through the learning process. This final tool assists with the end result of that process: grading.
AIDAN: As many instructors know, grading can be a tedious and arduous process. Gradescope is a game-changing AI grading tool that aims to remedy these issues. With a streamlined and user-friendly interface for instructors, the platform allows easy organization and grading of assignments. Instructors can view student statistics as well as communicate smoothly with students entirely through the tool; it even integrates with platforms like Canvas and Blackboard, making its use even more seamless. Gradescope is trained to recognize a range of different types of handwriting, symbols, and diagrams, so instructors can simply upload any assignment and it will be automatically graded by the AI with ease! Not only does it grade assignments, but it also provides detailed feedback, helping students understand their mistakes. With Gradescope, instructors can focus on what really matters, supplying their students with quality education.
JEFF: Providing that quality education is what's at the heart of these AI-powered technologies, all designed to aid educators in their mission to impart their students with a fulfilling and meaningful educational experience. Whether it's in lesson creation, one-on-one instruction, or evaluating and grading assignments, these and similar technologies can be leveraged to further stretch the bounds of that mission's realization.
JEFF: Of course, none of these technologies alone can replace the impact made by a flesh-and-blood educator. However, these tools help outfit those real-world educators with possibilities for their teaching that had previously been unattainable; possibilities that we hope now seem all the more attainable to you!
JEFF: So the next time you're up late fretting about the myriad ways ChatGPT seems to be undermining your career, try counting the ways in which AI could help you become the best educator you can be. We promise you'll fall asleep long before you reach the end of that list.