Research involving artificial intelligence (AI) and education has been a subject of study for some time. Although the field of research in Brazil is still in its infancy, related studies emerged in other countries around 20 years ago. Whether in formal education or informal learning environments, AI aids teaching and learning relationships, becoming a powerful tool for teaching and data collection. It is possible to observe and understand the micro-stages that students go through when learning content. Students' mistakes and questions provide valuable clues about how learning takes place and help to supply data, making it possible to review the teaching methods used by teachers in the classroom, or even in distance learning.
It is essential that AI-powered educational software interacts with the world in the same way that human intelligence would. To this end, models are created that follow three patterns: the pedagogical model, the learning model, and the content model, transforming AI into true tutors for students.
The intelligent tutoring system consists of tools designed to address identified learning difficulties. These systems are programmed to simulate individual tutoring, personalizing the teaching process in such a way as to become a private tutor, working specifically on the student's mistakes and using data collected during their interaction.
Adaptive tutors include a series of tools that identify students' cognitive and affective states and use this data to benefit learning, i.e., the student's good mood interfering with their ability to develop. AI uses dialogue to engage students in reflective learning from experiences in questions and discussions, or includes situations to promote reflection and self-sufficiency. It increases student motivation and engagement, as it is common knowledge that motivated students learn more easily.
This system, in addition to providing personalized assistance, generates valuable data for research on the learning process, highlighting, for example, the passages where the greatest number of questions are found, and providing tips on how learning mechanisms work in specific ways.
AI as a tool for expanding education to the most remote areas
If AI has proven to be an important tool for progress in face-to-face education, imagine expanding these same benefits to more remote areas and reaching, on a large scale, groups that are isolated for geographical, political, or cultural reasons. Distance learning (DL) platforms are already a reality in corporate and traditional education. Their benefits are absorbed into modern society. Adaptive distance learning platforms that use artificial intelligence are more sophisticated and already exist in countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States. As a result, they have transformed the ability to teach, bringing more playful and participatory methodologies, combining the benefits of AI with the massification of DL to different regions. Within the combined AI and distance learning platforms, classes and activities are offered, and students are monitored throughout the process. The systematization and analysis of collected data are passed on to the teacher to monitor the student's progress, who, with this data, has the ability to make more informed decisions. Therefore, for the school, these combined platforms function as educational support with the data obtained. For the student, they are used as an aid in certain subjects.
An ally against student dropout, absenteeism, and tardiness
There are also other ways to use AI and ED in the field of education. Applications that identify behavior indicative of possible course dropout, through the collection and analysis of data such as attendance, tardiness, and engagement in subjects. Data that studies language, gestures, and physiological signs presented by the human body. This data identifies signs of mood and depression in students and creates ways to combat this self-sabotage of learning that students end up doing unconsciously. They can also analyze the characteristics of a student who is likely to drop out of the course, alerting the tutor to this propensity and activating the platform's own incentive tools to try to re-engage this student.
AI and distance learning also help in forming groups of teachers to consider which training is most appropriate for each individual's productivity, something that is often not accurately identified in the classroom.
The use of a broader network of analysis and data provides benefits in the management of large groups and aids in the learning process as a whole, even in environments where it would not be possible to be present, such as historical environments or those that are geographically inaccessible. They enable students to interact with simulated environments, providing a degree of abstraction and reflection that a lecture would not be able to achieve.
All of this already exists and can be achieved in countries with greater deficiencies in basic education. Thus, the use of artificial intelligence combined with the reach of distance learning platforms forms an exponential technological partnership capable of reducing educational inequalities around the world.
The social role of schools further expanded
We know that in underdeveloped countries, schools play a role that goes beyond mere education. They are providers of basic food, hygiene, and even a safe haven for children who would otherwise be left out in the cold. ED, AI, and face-to-face education are not conflicting. On the contrary. They are complementary and synergistic. The social role of schools would be multiplied with the help of technology to reach more people in need of education. This requires strong incentives from public and private initiatives, NGOs, and foundations linked to education. If Silicon Valley was born out of high public investment, combined with opportunities captured by private initiative, a parallel of this virtuous combination can be replicated in Brazil for basic education. Educational entrepreneurs such as Bing Chen, CEO of the American distance learning platform 2 Be Live, inspire us with hope when he shows us the real impact on underprivileged children in the remote village of Krong Battambang, Cambodia, with English classes taught through the educational platform.
According to Bing, the cost per hour/class on the distance learning platform is infinitely lower than that of face-to-face education, and the reach and impact on communities are incomparable. Furthermore, it is increasingly difficult to find teachers who are able or willing to travel long distances to remote locations for extended periods of time to teach. In Brazil, regions such as southern Bahia, Amazonas, or the interior of the North and Northeast are examples I know of great educational deprivation, where distance learning could help with basic education. These platforms are revolutionizing teaching and, at the same time, bringing a sense of joy and humanitarian fulfillment to professionals who see their work germinate in the fertile soil of educational deprivation, bringing "remote" teachers within reach of students in rural areas.
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