2 Ways Artificial Intelligence in Online Learning Can Save Teachers Time

It’s no secret that teachers are strapped for time. According to a report by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, teachers work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes each day, or over 53 hours per week. One of the reasons educators implement online learning is to save time, but with the continued growth and evolution of available tools, teachers often face an information and feature overload that can outweigh potential time savings and even limit the success of the implementation.

Enter artificial intelligence (AI). AI can provide amazing benefits through automation, efficiency, and predictive recommendations that decrease the time teachers have to spend learning how to use a program, making decisions about next steps, and delivering optimal content to their students. The fantastic thing about AI is that when developed rigorously, the interactions are truly personalized. It learns what is necessary and important to a particular user given past behavior and can accurately predict the user’s future needs and the needs of similar users. The best part of all? AI is constantly learning from what worked and didn’t work to improve its effectiveness. With using AI, robust, feature-rich programs can instantly become simpler, making it much easier for teachers and students to realize the benefits of their online learning programs.

Simplifying setup

Setup is a time period when automation through AI can really shine. Whether a teacher is brand new to a particular edtech product or a seasoned professional, by utilizing a conversational AI (known as a chatbot), onboarding and/or setup time can be reduced by 80 to 90 percent over a click-heavy, manual process.

Imagine if when you first log in to a new edtech program, all you have to do to get started is answer a few questions about your class and what you want to teach your students. AI, with its machine-learning algorithms, can ask teachers which class, grade, and topic they are going to teach and predict which instructional features and content would be most effective given the statistical similarities to other teachers who have successfully used the product.

If teachers return for another school year using the same edtech product, and they are going to teach the same class to the same grade level, AI can quickly confirm with teachers whether they want to use the same instructional features and content. If a teacher agrees, the AI can automatically set up everything, giving precious time back to the teacher.

Regardless of a teacher’s experience level, AI can ask, predict, prescribe, and then automate so that the teacher can move on.

Personalized instruction, content, and analytic resource recommendations

AI isn’t just useful in setting up an edtech program; it can also be used throughout the school year to anticipate the needs of every teacher on a personalized level. Throughout the ask, predict, prescribe, and automate processes, AI can be used to recommend specific content or instructional activities given the historical and current performance of students and what has been used successfully with similar students. Then, AI can assign the content, and once students have completed assignments, results can be served up to teachers through reports and data dashboards.

AI can remove many of the administrative tasks and guesswork that come with effectively implementing an online learning program and give teachers more relevant data and insights to guide instruction and one-on-one conversations.   

Edmentum, artificial intelligence, and the future of education technology

Ready to bring AI into your classroom? Be on the lookout for what Edmentum has in store for summer 2020 to give the teachers who use our programs more time to spend on what matters most: helping students realize their full potential through personalized data-driven instruction.

For more information on AI and its impact on education check out Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom: What Educators Need to Know.