With remote and online learning on the rise, today’s educational institutions are actively searching for new ways to accelerate learning outcomes and enable the ideal environment for their students and staff. Adopting Machine Learning & AI-powered technologies is crucial in helping educational institutions achieve growth, innovation, and improved student outcomes. Embracing the use of AI in education can help institutions fill gaps in learning and teaching and allow them to dramatically reduce cost, accelerate learning outcomes, and deliver a superior learning experience like never before. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic provided the final push academic boards required to embrace the application of AI in the education sector.
“86% of educators state that technology, including AI, needs to be a vital component of education.”
Application of AI in higher education
The overview that AI-powered Digital Transformation can only work for large institutions is now a thing of the past. AI has the potential to drive significant change in colleges and higher-level institutions of all sizes. With student dropout rates at an all-time high, Many universities across the globe are under increasing pressure to retain students and improve student education outcomes.
The use of AI in higher education institutions provides university staff and management the ability to anticipate enrollment trends, analyse student behaviour, optimise teaching efforts, enhance student engagement and elevate student success. Below we look at some of the leading benefits and ways AI can be used to support education.
1. Task Automation
Automating routine tasks is the most immediate benefit of using AI in the education sector. Educators spend a tremendous amount of time doing administrative tasks such as grading papers, evaluating learning patterns, making progress reports, responding to basic queries, etc., which can be quite challenging. AI-powered solutions are crucial in helping educational institutions to automate routine monotonous tasks, thus giving their staff more time to focus on teaching and helping students reach their goals.
AI-based student engagement platforms like Galvia uses Machine Learning & Advanced analytics to enhance student engagement at scale. Our AI’s ability to automate repetitive tasks and provide easy access to actionable insights and vital information frees internal resources to focus more on student success.
2. 24/7 Personalised Student Support
Another key application of ai in education sector is in student support. Today’s students expect instant communication from their teachers and institutions, and a good chunk of staff time is spent answering student questions. AI powered virtual assistant tools such as Galvia can easily integrate with an institution’s vast knowledge base to provide round-the-clock support and answers to student queries anywhere, anytime, from any device.
Built using Machine Learning and NLP technologies to answer and understand user queries, AI powered virtual assistants can help students get answers to their questions instantly, which enables institutions to reduce wait times and improve student experience significantly. AI based virtual assistants not only benefit students but also reduce the staff’s manual effort of repeatedly answering the same questions, freeing their time and resources to focus on more critical tasks.
3. Supporting Students Mental Health
In addition to providing 24/7/365 personalised student support and instant answers to student queries, AI based virtual assistants are also game changers in supporting students mental health & well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant increase in student mental health issues in higher-level institutions across the globe, resulting in high dropout rates and a severe decline in student engagement.
Students can be encouraged to reach out to their AI powered virtual assistant when feeling overwhelmed, lonely or depressed. In such scenarios, the virtual assistant will connect them to the appropriate mental health support services on campus and get them the help they need. With AI, Student Services teams can also set up alerts for highly sensitive queries such as “Suicide” to trigger faster support, thus safeguarding and supporting students mental health at all times.
4. Data-Driven Insights
Another crucial application of AI in the education sector involves using customisable dashboards that summarise hundreds and thousands of data points across the institution into simple visualisations and meaningful insights. Powered by Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning, the insights from the dashboards enable staff to make informed, data-driven decisions around academic curriculums, the student journey, enrollment, and admissions.
Staff can control, collect and organise knowledge and resources from one single source, thus simplifying the knowledge-sharing process between various departments. The data collected by the virtual assistant on student queries can provide deep insights to staff on what students expect and what areas require more support, for example, “exam materials” or “mental health.”
5. Identify Patterns In Student Behaviour
Using AI in the education sector can boost the overall efficiency and reputation of educational institutions. Student engagement platforms like Galvia continuously collect and compare vital data on student performance and the student journey. This data can be measured against various student success benchmarks to identify patterns and trends in student behaviour, highlighting any red flags, and issues and identifying students most likely to struggle academically.
This helps student success personnel to develop targeted retention strategies and trigger faster, more effective student support well in advance. Applying AI in education allows institutions to operate efficiently by saving time, and costs and delivering higher quality engagement experience across the student lifecycle.
Conclusion
The above list is only the tip of the iceberg. The opportunities and potential for using AI in the education sector are endless. AI is not here to replace the role of teachers or other staff. It supports and complements their work to deliver better student outcomes. While the education sector is gradually embracing AI as a solution to improve education outcomes, the reality is that AI has the potential to reinvent and enhance just about every aspect of education, and we are only at the beginning of a revolution in this space.
Here at Galvia, we are committed to helping educational institutions of all sizes provide faster, more meaningful student services at scale using conversational AI, decision intelligence, and machine learning.
If you’d like to know more about how our AI platform can benefit your institution, Get in touch with a member of our team today.