As the capability, tools, and reach of artificial intelligence expands, the four walls of the classroom are slowly disappearing. Constant advances in AI mean we can break down more barriers every month: extend your child's curiosity in their favoured subjects, offer lessons in their first or second language, summarise complex topics or devise a bespoke study schedule for upcoming exams.
There are some misconceptions and even fears around AI however – that it is replacing human teachers or somehow weakening the process of learning or the quality of education. In fact, the opposite is true from what we have observed to date. So what does AI enable, and how is it shaping the classroom of tomorrow?
1. AI can empower teachers.
Many educators today are shackled by a heavy burden of non-teaching admin, taking them away from their real vocation. Time-consuming activities outside the classroom can now be outsourced to AI, letting teachers teach more and thereby improving the quality and depth of the interactions with students.
On the admin side, there is also a lot of value for schools, especially globally facing ones like ours, in using AI to ensure 24-hour accessibility and coverage for students and families, which for us are based in 60 countries, with main languages including: English, Russian, Japanese, and Mandarin. We have used AI to develop a chatbot that operates within our customer support team and responds directly to student and parent questions – things like timetables, curriculum, and so on. The response time is about two minutes. This has been operating for around nine months now, very effectively.
2. Students can use AI to personalise their learning and move at their own pace.
AI complements what goes on in lessons to help students retain, review, and revise information. AI supports and responds to different learning styles because it enables true personalisation – an infinitely patient guide who can explain concepts in different ways and present information in different languages. If English is a second language, the student can hear the concept first in their first language (say, Japanese), then in English. They can see it in a visual form. They can request 10 questions from last year's exam, ordered by increasing degree of difficulty.
3. Specific functionalities are constantly being added.
For example, in CGA we are incorporating AI to summarise the key takeaways from every lesson for both students and parents. In the coming months it will be straightforward for AI to remind you that X exam is coming up and based on what you've done so far, you're behind schedule and you need to cover Y concept again, and provide you with more personalised revision tools. We have identified that students' access to our recordings and revision tools goes up 50% around exam time and we expect with more personalisation that will only increase.
Just recently with the release of Sora, students will soon be able to create cinematic masterpieces based on prompts and will become less constrained by resources or technical skills.
4. Wearable tech is emerging as the next strand of AI.
In the education context, 'wearable tech' could mean having a wearable AI-enabled pin that a student can simply ask a question of and have an instant response relevant to their context. It is the ultimate in personalised learning. Based on how other forms of technology have been adopted in education, this one is likely to have some strong take up - regardless of if we allow it within the classroom.
5. AI uses data sets to show what students need to achieve to get into the university of their choice.
Tertiary education is a major focus for many ambitious students, and helping to pave pathways for students beyond high school is a priority for every secondary school. At CGA we use student data (past and current) to build a strong predictive model, starting with the database of student applications and acceptances into different universities and colleges around the world.
This is a large and expanding data set built over 10+ years in partnership with Crimson Education, that can be analysed in a variety of ways. With minimal student prompts the AI model can tell the student that by achieving a x academic score and pairing this with specific extracurricular activities, they are likely to be accepted to schools A, B, and C, including some of the most competitive institutions globally.
Even before that point, AI can completely reframe the conversation within a family and help set a student's career path. If you are a student and you know what you have a passion for but you don't know how best to pursue it or where to go, you can engage with AI as a coach to explore and create a clear roadmap, which you can then pair with a human coach to ensure a holistic approach and have that accountability for your vision.
It's extraordinary to consider how far we've come, and how fast. Not only does AI ease the non-teaching workload for educators, it provides the platform to optimise learning, revision, exam preparation and tailored road maps for students towards their chosen careers.
AI interwoven into the fabric of our children's education today isn't about plugging teaching gaps or taking on the role of an experienced Educator – it's supporting our children to transform into learners equipped for a world where adaptability and personalisation are at the forefront. Isn't that a future worth embracing?