By Cary Grant Featured Article
STEM problem formulation is now a highly laborious process that is challenging to scale. The rationale for implementing AI in education is more crucial than ever now. It can address developmental issues in STEM education as artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being adopted in professional settings.
The restricted amount of tasks, activities, homework projects and assignment help which pupils can get online before mastering a skill is a significant challenge in STEM. In addition, education providers are compelled to hire professionals on the outside due to the necessary manual labor. Adopting AI in STEM, therefore, comes with its set of benefits and challenges as well.
Artificial Intelligence In STEM Education
Artificial Intelligence based STEM education can enhance the curricula and overall experience of both pupils and teachers.
Here are a few benefits of AI in STEM education.
STEM Problem Generation Automation
With the use of deep neural networks and various machine learning techniques for natural language processing or NLP, STEM problem development can be done automatically. By using the original STEM challenge as a template, NLP models can teach an AI-based system to find, examine, and automatically create a comparable problem.
Compared to a human expert-based approach, this enables the creation of new, high-quality educational content (like STEM problem sets for exams) more quickly, at scale, and at a lower cost.
Automated textbook tagging can be used to find problems in books or other sources and link them to a learning target identified by Bloom’s Taxonomy, which divides higher learning into six stages:
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Evaluation
For example, the learning target for the math problem “Find 50 percent of 140,” was determined after analysis by the tagging engine to be “Compute Basic Percentages.” This tagged issue serves as a template for producing similar math problems.
Adaptive Learning
Adaptive learning often referred to as adaptive teaching, is a teaching strategy in which a machine learning algorithm adapts the learning material to each student’s goals, pace of learning, as well as aptitude.
The adaptive learning machine requires a selection of STEM challenges from which to choose by connecting those with students’ needs in order to tailor STEM material to a student. As was already established, automated development can be used to solve a wide enough range of STEM problems.
Educators can use customized and scalable content to meet students’ individual needs by utilizing adaptive learning and development automation. AI reduces the time spent manually doing the task, cost, and energy traditionally rested on educators by including automated content.
Eliminates Repetitive Tasks
There is concern about AI because it exhibits abilities that are similar to those of humans, such as memory, logical analysis, and problem-solving. The prevailing belief is that AI will someday replace teachers. That’s not accurate. The monotonous activities that instructors and schools must perform on a regular basis are handled by AI.
It assists in freeing up a lot of time, so educators can concentrate on instructing kids and doing other crucial tasks.
For example, the teacher should not constantly correct the children’s grammar when utilizing a grammar tool. With AI-powered tools, students can learn vocabulary, pronunciation, connotation, and appropriate usage. International students can also benefit from AI education when they are learning a new language.
Efficient Communication
For both teachers and students, engagement is more convenient and comfortable thanks to AI in STEM education. However, some students may lack the confidence to speak up during class. This can be due to apprehension about getting constructive criticism. Therefore, they may feel at ease asking inquiries without the crowd using AI communication technologies.
While the instructor can provide the student with thorough feedback, there isn’t always enough time for thorough responses to queries in class. They can also offer personal encouragement to any student who needs it.
Taking Care Of Administrative Tasks
Every academic establishment must deal with several daily school administration chores. Automating these tasks using AI can improve their systems. It implies that administrators will have much more time to administer and set up the institution efficiently. Schools might also use services for proofreading and editing. These services ensure that official documents are properly drafted and error-free.
Now, let’s look at a few challenges of AI in science education.
The Challenges
Lack Of Government Policies
Although AI has enormous potential to enhance educational systems, a strong policy foundation is required for its full integration into education. School administrators should receive financial and moral support, so they may concentrate on developing students who have the abilities to flourish in the AI culture.
Although government policy for AI in academics is still in its infancy, it is anticipated to advance during the next ten years. Therefore, state policies must address concerns to produce guidelines and solutions, foster creative ecosystems, and take advantage of AI’s potential in the education field.
Many countries have committed major budgetary resources to establishing AI research facilities as well as to hiring and training AI specialists. Additionally, governments are funding AI research and advanced education by developing institutions, giving scholarships, and having strong networks in the education system.
Teacher Training For AI In STEM
It is crucial to deal with the issues that teachers are currently experiencing. Teachers continue to be at the forefront of education because it is impossible to ignore the innovative and social-emotional components of teaching.
In this area, AI-powered educational software must construct a strong framework in cognition, classes, and significant exam results. Several nations are developing legislation to aid in the national EdTech sector’s initiatives to foster innovation and step up efforts alongside empowering educators and educational institutions.
It is important to consider how AI-enabled technologies can simplify the process of teaching people and making value judgments.
Training should provide particular emphasis on:
- Ability to do research and analyze data to evaluate the information offered by systems with AI
- New managerial skills to handle their available AI resources
- A critical viewpoint on how AI advancements impact people’s life
- Benefit from AI replacing tedious chores.
- Assist students in acquiring new capabilities and skills (that machines can’t replace).
Transparency & Ethics
When implementing AI, some sociological and ethical issues need to be considered. However, what is inconceivable today may become attainable tomorrow thanks to the rapid advancement of technology.
Any debate on data ethics immediately raises the issue of data protection and privacy. The difficulty is in using personal information while guaranteeing each individual’s privacy preferences and individually identifiable information are protected.
Data collection and then users must be based on explicit, informed permission, openness, and equity.
In most regions, including the United States, the corporate sector and tech behemoths are currently in the lead. The proliferation of tech startups is indeed significantly increasing the deployment of AI. Numerous nations have national AI policies that include education as a default component. However, adoptions and discussions are scarce in emerging nations.
There are various benefits of AI in STEM education. Time management, efficiency in communication and engagement, automatic problem generation, and adaptive learning are a few of the benefits.
However, lack of government policies, lack of proper teacher training and funding, along with ethics and transparency, remain challenges in the sector.