Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, but the technology has evolved dramatically to disrupt industries – including the education sector – as AI tools like ChatGPT are globally adopted.
The use of AI in higher education is now a reality, and even a necessity, as it will transform the ways institutions teach and how students learn. In fact, an IDC report found that 99 percent of U.S. higher education institutions believe AI will be key to driving competitiveness in the next few years.
While there are huge opportunities to use AI to improve efficiencies and drive student success, there’s a flip side to the technology. It also poses new academic, ethical, and legal challenges that need to be considered.
So, how are third-level institutions using AI to rise above the competition and leverage it to drive student success?
In this blog, we’ll look at 5 great ways (plus real-life examples) to help you understand the potential of the technology to:
- Assess and Predict Student Success
- Drive Personalized Learning
- Boost Student Engagement
- Answer Student Inquiries
- Improve Student Retention
Assess & Predict Student Success
The ultimate goal of universities and colleges is to see students graduate with relevant skills that make them employable. That’s why being able to assess and predict the success of a student is so important.
If a student is struggling or falling behind, technology that can help to intervene at an early stage can change the outcome for that person and also reduce the number of non-graduates at an institution.
1) Ivy Tech Community College: Project Student Success
In Indiana, Ivy Tech Community College conducted a pilot study using AI to get data from 10,000-course sections. By identifying 16,000 students at risk of failing in the first two weeks of the semester, the college assigned outreach workers to call each student and offer support.
By the end of the semester, 3,000 students were saved from failing – 98% of the contacted students obtained a C grade or better. Through Project Student Success, the college has already assisted 34,712 students.
“We had the largest percentage drop in bad grades (Ds and Fs) that the college had recorded in fifty years,” said Lige Hensley, Chief Technology Officer, Ivy Tech. “That one phone call wasn’t everything but it certainly made a bigger dent than we had ever seen.”
2) University of Michigan: M-Write program
One time-consuming area of teaching is assessing student work and providing feedback. A range of tools are in development in this area for institutions, including M-Write, incubated by the University of Michigan.
M-Write is a technology designed to help faculty tackle writing activities at scale. It uses an algorithm to identify areas of a writing piece in which students are struggling and the issues that could contribute to weaker writing.
As part of the M-Write program, senior lecturer Brenda Gunderson introduced a series of writing prompts. These are targeted to elicit specific responses that indicate how well students grasp the concepts covered in class.
Students who participated in the program completed the writing assignments, submitted them, and received three of their peers’ assignments for review. This automated system then used this data to create course-specific algorithms that could identify struggling students.
Drive Personalized Learning
One of the things educators are most excited about when it comes to AI is the potential to help personalize learning.
This not only offers ways for students to get one-to-one tutoring but also allows faculty to use AI to create lesson plans and identify students who may need additional help based on their performance and interactions.
