{"id":13697,"date":"2023-08-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/?p=13697"},"modified":"2023-08-29T11:04:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T09:04:50","slug":"how-to-judge-effective-use-of-ai-in-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/how-to-judge-effective-use-of-ai-in-education\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Judge Effective Use of AI in Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I am the Product Designer for BigBlueButton, an open-source virtual classroom<\/a> used by millions of users world-wide in billions of minutes of online classes. I\u2019ve had this role for fourteen years and, during that time, I\u2019ve thought a lot about the following question: How can we help teachers teach and learners learn?<\/em><\/strong>

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Here I\u2019ve used the term \u201cteachers\u201d to collectively refer to professors in higher-education, instructors in the work-force, and traditional classroom teachers.

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Over the years, as technology advances, the complexity to this question has increased, and no more so than in the last twelve months with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Enter ChatGPT, a large pre-trained language model that gives everyone with a web browser a familiar chat-based interface to generate answers (right or wrong) to any question based on its training data, which, as of ChatGPT 4.0, was trillions of words (basically, nearly the entire internet as of September 2021). 

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Let\u2019s deal with the AI elephant in the room first: cheating. It\u2019s clear that students are heavily using ChatGPT to circumvent the effort of doing an assignment.  Like Napster, which made it trivial to download music, ChatGPT makes it trivial to type in a question and get an answer (right or wrong) to an assignment question.  Not too surprisingly, ChatGPT usage actually dropped in June as students presumably stopped using it for plagiarism.  I believe we won\u2019t stop plagiarism; rather, we need to create a framework to answer the question \u201cWhat is an effective use of AI in education?\u201d.

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In the BigBlueButton project, we created a framework for determining whether a given feature will help the teacher teach or the learner learn.  Applied to the virtual classroom, this framework asks three fundamental questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Can the feature save the instructor time?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Can the feature enable students to apply themselves during the virtual class?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Can the feature increase the amount of feedback students get when struggling?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    If the answer is \u2018no\u2019 to all, then the feature is not effective and will not help the teacher teach and the learner learn.

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    This framework is general enough to judge the efficacy of any educational technology.  With AI, the framework applies as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    1. Can the AI-based feature save the instructor time?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Can the AI-based feature assist students when applying themselves to solve a problem?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Can the AI-based feature increase the amount of feedback students get when struggling?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      We boiled this framework down into the following mantra: maximize time for applied learning and feedback<\/em>.  As you\u2019ll see below, the key word is \u201clearning\u201d.  Let\u2019s break down how this framework cuts through some of the AI hype.


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      Saving Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      The most valuable resource a teacher has is time.  If an AI can automate existing manual tasks and save just 10% of a teacher\u2019s time, for example, it\u2019s a HUGE benefit.  Here are some good examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n