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GroundBreakers Magazine Logo Issue 9: Oct 2024

From the Blackboard to the Circuit Board

AI is rewriting how teachers teach and students learn.

Education is labor intensive and can be inefficient because no two students are alike.

Now, groundbreaking machine learning is showing the potential to improve human learning—aiding teachers and students from grade school through college with everything from real-time grading to robot study buddies. 

To learn more about how artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing education, we spoke to Richard Baraniuk, C. Sidney Burrus professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University and the founder and director of OpenStax, which creates free online textbooks and study aids as part of the open education movement. The initiative has helped more than 23.3 million students in over 140 countries save about $1.8 billion in classroom materials since 2012, impacting 6.5 million students this past school year. Their mission is to improve educational access and learning for everyone. 

Baraniuk is now developing machine-learning algorithms to drive the personalized learning functions offered by OpenStax. He noted several key areas in which AI can help humans learn better, faster. 

Student Studying
Personalize Study

Every student has different interests, goals and needs, which standard curriculum cannot address. AI tools enable students to easily dig deeper into a topic of particular interest, allowing for a richer exploration than might be available in a book or through a lecture. 

Personalization can also involve identifying the most appropriate study problems. For example, sometimes students can’t solve algebra problems because of reading challenges—they literally don’t understand the wording of the question. An AI application being developed at OpenStax will identify when the problem might be something other than math skills. “This is all about putting the learning experience in your personal context,” says Baraniuk.

Integrate Knowledge

Colleges are reducing or eliminating many liberal arts programs as more students seek computer science and business degrees. But some educators lament this laser focus on job training, pointing out that subjects like literature and history build well-rounded citizens (and workers). Baraniuk says AI can help students connect with relevant subjects they might otherwise not experience. 

“There could be materials that seem esoteric or disconnected from your interests or your career goals,” he says, “but that actually bring together diverse and relevant ideas that enrich your learning experience.”

AI has the ability to grade a student’s solution and offer feedback while they’re literally working it out. Basically, it turns a classroom teacher into a private tutor.
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Streamline Repetitive Tasks

Teachers spend a lot of time grading homework, which is time not spent face to face with students. AI holds the promise of helping teachers streamline tasks while delivering test results faster. 

Baraniuk says this capability is more powerful than it seems because it converts a weak feedback loop (student hands in a paper, waits days for the grade) into one that’s more powerful: “AI has the ability to grade a student’s solution and offer feedback while they’re literally working it out. Basically, it turns a classroom teacher into a private tutor.” 

Moreover, says Baraniuk, “If you have a system that’s interacting continuously with students, you might even be able to dispense with big high-stakes tests because you already understand what they know.”

Students gathered in a group
Increase Dialogue

Besides class time and reading, students learn by sharing and discussing—whether in formal study groups or just bouncing ideas around with other students. AI offers the chance to move valuable peer dialogue into hyper drive, especially for online studies. 

“Students don’t get enough chances to discuss,” says Baraniuk. “Too much of education is passive, but people learn better when they’re actively participating. And that’s a place where AI could be very effective. Imagine an AI study buddy that can actively engage in dialogue with you to help identify misconceptions as you study.”

Support the Teacher

“When people think about AI in schools, they picture students chatting with some bot,” Baraniuk says. “But just as opportune are teacher-facing tools.” Many high schools, especially in disadvantaged communities, struggle to offer advanced placement (AP) courses because they don’t have qualified teachers. 

“This is a deal breaker for a lot of schools,” says Baraniuk. He’s working on AI systems that can support teachers’ professional development—so a math instructor could gain the knowledge they need to teach an AP economics course, for example.

And What AI is not Good for (so far)

For all the enthusiasm around AI in the classroom, Baraniuk stresses one area where you won’t find it anytime soon: “We do not use AI to write our OpenStax textbooks or supplemental materials. Humans are our sole authors,” he says, citing an analogy to medicine: “Ask yourself whether you want to be diagnosed by an AI system or by a human doctor.” 

Beyond that concern, he adds, the benefits of AI must always be weighed against the risk of compromising academic integrity. “You can create a really powerful AI system for solving problems, but in the end, you want students to still be using their minds and not just asking ChatGPT for the answer.”