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Something is taking the world by storm—emerging AI trends. A $13.24 billion market is set to reach $112.47 billion by 2032. Every industry—data science, finance, healthcare, cybersecurity, art—is evolving at pace.
The education sector is no exception to this. Generative AI can automate menial tasks, giving educators more time to teach. It can offer individualized support to students who need it most. It can create a fluid, personalized education system wherein every student gets the same opportunities regardless of personal circumstances and academic performance.
The future of education has never looked more exciting. With the opportunity to make schools more inclusive, accessible, and academically successful, it is little surprise that AI integration is underlined and in bold at the top of every higher education leader’s to-do list.
But we wanted to look deeper and answer the question: What is the concrete impact that generative AI will have on the education space over the next decades?
We at QuantHub did some research to find out. Here are the ten most critical AI trends that will shape education over the coming years:
1. Personalized Learning at Scale
Personalized learning has always been a desirable goal for schools. But, until recently, educators simply haven’t had the resources or time to achieve this at scale.
That now changes. Artificial Intelligence employs sophisticated algorithms. These algorithms can analyze a student’s learning patterns, including their strengths, weaknesses, and levels of engagement. It can then use this data to build a custom pathway for every student that engages them and motivates them to reach their goals.
How is this achieved? Adaptive learning algorithms can adjust the pace and difficulty of material based on how well each individual is performing. This means that all students will receive the right challenge at the right time. Doing so will help to prevent students from losing motivation while reducing stress and making learning new skills more enjoyable.
This isn’t a distant pipe dream, either. Take a platform like Carnegie Learning, for example. The software uses AI to provide tailored, step-by-step literacy and math guidance based on student performance.
Duolingo is another popular example of this adaptive algorithm focused on the field of languages. QuantHub handles the data science side of things, offering AI-driven micro lessons to help students learn key data skills.
What results from platforms like these is a personalized experience for every student that not only drives better academic performance but also combats disengagement.
And with 27.85% of US students chronically absent throughout the 2023 school year, combatting disengagement should be an essential priority in the current educational landscape.
2. Automated Content Generation
It goes without saying that generative AI can also be a massive benefit for teachers. Take these statistics as a starting point:
- 44% of teachers in K-12 education report that they often or always feel burnt out.
- 84% of teachers say there’s not enough time during their working hours to plan lessons and grade assignments.
This problem is concerning. So concerning in fact that K-12 teachers are, statistically, the most burnt-out profession in the United States. It makes sense that America is facing a national teacher shortage with an estimated 40,000 vacancies that must be filled immediately.
How can AI trends reduce teacher workloads?
Within AI trends, namely generative AI, this technology can solve the problem by automating many of a teacher’s core tasks, such as creating learning resources for lessons.
The sky’s the limit here. Generative AI can:
- Provide lesson structures and key talking points.
- Create infographics to highlight important statistics.
- Design slideshows based on information.
- Convert text into video and images.
- Define key terms and concepts in easy-to-understand ways.
Picture a STEM teacher who can use a large language model (LLM) to generate a lesson plan on the structure of a human cell.
They can then ask the LLM to provide a glossary of key terms before putting the information they receive into a text-to-presentation tool like SlidesAI to receive engaging slides ready for the lesson ahead. What usually takes hours of prep now takes minutes.
This will free up educators, allowing them to prioritize the actual art of teaching—how novel! After all, this is the part that most teachers enjoy about their roles. An opportunity to streamline the process of planning lessons and grading papers is a valuable opportunity to take.
The benefits also extend to students. If teachers spend less of their workday designing slides and writing content, they can spend more time tailoring the learning experience to fit individual needs.
3. Real-Time Feedback
One of the most exciting parts about generative AI (both for students and educators) is that it can provide immediate feedback.
The traditional feedback loop usually goes a little something like this:
- Students complete their work
- The teacher takes the workbooks home and grades the assessments.
- The teacher leaves comments for the student.
- In the next class, the student receives their marked workbooks.
The problem? There’s a delay between completing the assessment and receiving the feedback.
Even though the student may recall some details of the test, let us remember they’re attending a bunch of other classes in different subjects. The chance of them retaining all the information from the week prior? Almost zero.
How are AI trends helping with student feedback?
Generative AI can provide instant feedback to students to tell them how they performed in an assessment. This goes beyond telling a student whether they got a right or wrong answer, too—it also provides insights to help students improve, showcasing the impact of AI trends.
For example, if a student gets a multi-faceted math problem incorrect, the right generative AI solution would identify what went wrong with the student’s process and offer educational content to improve on specific areas.
This means that students can improve their knowledge as soon as they make the mistake rather than waiting for feedback to arrive a week later.
And of course, this also helps teachers save time, which, as we’ve established, is always a good thing.
4. AI in Educational Gamification
A recent study evaluated two groups of students. One incorporated gaming into their lessons. The others were instructed with traditional teaching methods. Can you guess which group performed better?
That’s right. The group which included games in their studies achieved 7% higher on average in their exams.
The reason for this result is a combination of factors. Educational games can boost retention, but they also help make learning more fun and engaging—a fact any teenager will be more than happy to tell you. In fact, gamification has the highest impact on student motivation and academic achievement while having the lowest impact on cognitive load.
So, how can AI improve on that which is already beneficial?
How are AI trends making gamification more rewarding?
The only caveat with traditional educational games is that they are one-dimensional. Some students find the content too hard, others too easy.
This creates a gap where, while all students may find games motivating, some will see the academic benefits more than others.
AI can solve this issue by combining gamification with personalized learning. Games like Kahoot! and Zoombinis can analyze a user’s progress through a game to adapt on the fly and tailor elements to suit a student’s abilities.
This bridges the gap between motivation and education by ensuring every student faces engaging challenges suited to their skill levels.
5. Enhanced Language Learning Tools
9 out of 10 believe learning a second language is important, and yet only 20% of Americans can speak another language fluently.
Why the disparity? Because learning a language is hard! That goes without saying.
The notion that learning an entire language during a school career is impossible means many students shy away from getting involved. Classes filled with grammar books and dictionaries deter all but the most determined from learning how to speak Spanish or Mandarin during their time in education.
How are AI trends helping with language learning?
Generative AI makes learning languages infinitely easier (and a lot more engaging).
Platforms like Babbel and Memrise can provide personalized support based on a student’s skill level. They can offer real-time feedback and motivate students with interactive lessons. They can even utilize speech recognition to assess a user’s pronunciation.
The benefits of AI trends extend beyond just learning a second language. For students who struggle with spelling, grammar, or punctuation, generative AI can not only help students correct mistakes but also provide tailored educational content based on recurring errors.
For instance, if the adaptive algorithm detected a student frequently misusing ‘their, there, and they’re,’ it could create a custom lesson to teach the student how the words differ.
Lastly, there’s reading comprehension. Tools like Amira Learning offer an AI reading tutor that can provide personalized support to young readers. A student can read a book out loud and the platform will listen, providing tips to improve pronunciation and fluency.
6. Predictive Analytics in Student Performance
One of the biggest concerns in education is keeping students on track to ensure they all perform to the best of their ability.
Understanding which students require additional support has previously been the responsibility of the teacher. But, again, this is an imperfect system. A lack of time to individually compare results means knowing which students require the most or least support was often based on best guesses and, in worst cases, bias.
Furthermore, once an educator realizes a student needs support, it’s often a difficult battle to get them back on track because they haven’t been able to see the small indicators that have led to a more significant problem.
How can AI help predict future performance?
AI and, in particular, predictive modeling can analyze results and forecast student performance to identify individuals who require additional help.
The primary benefit of this approach is that AI can detect at-risk students proactively rather than retroactively once the need for support becomes abundantly clear.
With this approach, generative AI can close the academic achievement gap between pupils who perform well and those who don’t by up to 20%, creating a fairer environment for every student.
7. Growing Concerns Over AI Ethics
As AI trends shape our education system, how do we ensure we shape it to serve our purposes as we’d like? How can we make sure AI can advance learning without impeding our own critical thinking skills?
This is the crux of AI ethics—a trend that will be in constant debate as AI evolves.
The reason many educators are reluctant to introduce AI into education is the belief that it will become a crutch rather than a tool. Concerns like this are all too common:
- “If my students can use AI chatbots like ChatGPT to do their homework, how can I be sure their thoughts are their own? This overreliance won’t translate into exam success.”
- “How can I ensure my students understand that AI is a virtual assistant, rather than a tool to be relied on?”
These are valid concerns and questions that have no easy answer. The harsh truth is that AI is increasingly intertwined with our daily lives and there is no quick fix or foolproof method to ensure students don’t overuse it to their advantage.
Instead, the only true solution to this problem lies in effective education from teachers and parents.
The responsibility of teachers and parents in AI ethics
Teachers must emphasize to their students from a young age that AI is a complementary tool—a virtual assistant as opposed to an essay-writing maestro.
To help with this, educators must explore the limitations of AI in a balanced way. Incorporating modules on AI bias, its lack of context, its inability to convey human emotion, and the potential for manipulation all prove to students that AI cannot be relied on for success.
Even simply explaining how AI models work can help children understand its pros and cons. It’s all too common for students without comprehension of the inner workings of AI to see it as an ‘all-seeing eye’ with no limitations. Dispelling that notion can lead pupils to have a more nuanced understanding of how it can be useful, and the ways in which it isn’t.
This responsibility also extends to parents. By introducing these key concepts to their children from a young age and taking the time to explore AI in the home, parents can help their kids understand that AI is a tool, not a friend.
8. Accessibility Improvements Through AI
We already know that generative AI has the power to make learning environments fairer through personalization. But another important area is the potential to support those with physical and learning disabilities.
Consider a text-to-speech platform that can convert a block of text into sound for a dyslexic student. Or speech-to-text software capable of transcribing a teacher’s lesson in real time for deaf students.
In terms of courses and slides, it’s now easier than ever to generate subtitles and visual aids to support existing material. Previously, an educator would need to painstakingly do this by hand. Now, it’s all possible in a few moments.
Generative AI can also provide opportunities for students to learn in their native languages. Take a student who speaks Spanish as their first language but lives in the US, for example. Normally, this student would need to ‘sink or swim’ to keep up. Now, generative AI can help translate educational content into different languages in an instant.
Education is a right every student deserves regardless of disability or difficulty. AI can help to bridge that gap.
9. AI-Driven Revision and Tutoring
One-to-one support has always been a luxury for students. The benefits of a personal tutor are no secret. More opportunities to understand important concepts, more individualized feedback and more space to ask essential questions cover just a few of the benefits.
High-dosage tutoring—defined as 30-minute or longer sessions three times a week—increases students’ learning by an additional three to 15 months across grade levels. It also moves the average student from the 50th percentile to the 66th percentile.
Yet according to recent estimates, only 1 in every 10 students receive this type of tutoring. This creates a noticeable academic rift between families who can afford it and those that cannot.
How can Generative AI help with tutoring?
Generative AI can solve this issue by acting as a virtual tutor. Students can interact with tools like Tutor AI and receive real-time feedback when working on problems.
Even free chatbots like ChatGPT-4o provide outstanding support when answering questions. It can solve problems and support learning across a range of disciplines from math and science to literature and coding, showcasing the impact of emerging AI trends.
This is especially important for students who cannot access an in-person tutor. AI has the potential to create a fair system wherein all students can get the individual support they need regardless of their circumstances.
10. Better High-Level Decision Making
Lastly, it’s important we talk about the potential for data-driven decision-making with AI.
Generative AI can extract patterns from enormous datasets. It can identify trends, analyze historical results, and make predictions for the future. All of this is very handy for the educational organization that wants to continually improve the way they operate.
This is about more than creating personalized learning paths for each student. Leveraging AI trends, educators can visualize graphs that detail performance for an entire school. They can even use global trends to predict how different factors will impact enrollment, engagement, and academic performance.
Achieving this in the past required weeks of work dedicated to manual data entry and analysis. Now, artificial intelligence can do this work in minutes to provide insights as and when required.
These capabilities offer a way for educators to adjust their courses, curriculums, assessment processes and teaching strategies based on real-time data. What results is an educational institute that is agile and can adapt to different variables to provide better experiences for staff and students.
The Future of Generative AI in Education
AI is poised to play an enormous role in the future of education. While risks are present and educators have concerns about an overreliance on technology undermining critical thinking, the right education can make AI a beneficial tool that supports growth.
Generative AI trends show great potential to provide equal opportunities to every student, breaking down traditional barriers like lack of individualized support and accessibility. AI can be the great equalizer in education, ensuring every student gets the support they need to succeed.
At QuantHub, we’re at the forefront of these AI trends. Our platform makes learning core data skills easy, using machine learning to provide tailored micro-training sessions that teach essential AI and data skills in just 10 minutes a day.
If you’d like to learn how our platform can support your student’s educational experience and prepare them for their futures, you can find out more about QuantHub For Educators here.
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