The rise of artificial intelligence in education and tuition
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm, so our latest tutor survey looks to understand its impact on tutoring and the benefits it's bringing to students and education.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that deals with intelligent language systems that can reason, learn, and act autonomously. While the accuracy of answers depends on a number of factors, including the quality of the data and the complexity of the questions that are being asked, AI has the potential to revolutionise education and help students to learn more effectively.
A report by Market.us found that the global AI in Education market size was valued at USD 2.48 billion in 2022 and is forecast to reach USD 53.68 billion by 2032 simply because the effects of AI are so far-reaching.
Not only can AI in education be used to create a personalised learning experience for each student by using data to track student progress and identify areas where they need additional support. It can also be used to create adaptive learning experiences for students by looking at the difficulty of the material and tailoring the instruction to each student's needs.
Alongside this, it can provide instant feedback, endless research potential, encouragement and help tutors and teachers come up with bespoke lesson plans and questions.
"We live in a dynamic world where technology constantly evolves and shapes various aspects of our lives. This rapid pace of technological change brings both opportunities and challenges, especially in the field of education. While educators will always play a crucial role in facilitating learning, AI-powered tools and technologies can be valuable assets in supporting students' educational journeys and aiding tutors in providing the best quality services to their learners.
We believe AI in education will continue to evolve and develop in the coming years. The potential for AI to transform various aspects of education is vast, and ongoing advancements in technology will shape its future growth."
Sarah Adams CC Manager First Tutors
How tutors are using AI right now
Results from our tutor survey show that nearly a quarter of tutors (24.9%) are already using AI for research, citing rapid lesson planning, research and creativity for both students and teachers. Many feel that the ability of AI to provide instant feedback is beneficial to students as they can rectify and correct mistakes immediately.
Additionally, 15.2% of tutors use AI for lesson planning and preparation, with 10.3% incorporating it as a learning aid.
Our insights into families' tuition habits - gathered from a range of tutors across the UK have already shown us that online tuition is now the preferred form for expert help in various subjects. AI combined with online human tuition is proving to give students a more enhanced teaching experience.
The World Economic Forum sees huge opportunities for teachers to use AI technologies to enhance their own teaching practice and professional experience. They hope that the advent of AI will encourage educators, parents and students to consider what skills students need to navigate uncertainty, solve complex challenges and shape meaningful futures in a changing economy.
WEF believe this means embracing the challenge to provide learning that fosters agency, awareness, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and well-being and already sees that AI tools deployed by teachers can be invaluable for accelerating progress towards this vision.
The AI products used by tutors
With time not being on most students' and tutors' side, AI offers the advantage of helping with tasks such as transcribing lectures and highlighting important points, researching topics by finding relevant websites, articles, and books, summarising the information found, and creating presentations.
While there has been concern that AIlanguage models like ChatGPT could lead to students cheating on their work, it's important to know that while AI can provide fast answers and write essays, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. So while AI can be a great way to supplement a student's learning, it needs to be wisely.
Currently, 81.9% of our tutors use AI, with 73.8% believing that AI has the potential to improve student learning. And 47.9% of our tutors use ChatGPT. This is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. Launched on November 30, 2022, it gives detailed responses and can be used to provide educational support by answering questions, providing explanations, and helping students learn new concepts.
12% of tutors are using Microsoft Bing, which will summarise the latest information from across the web and cite answers to questions in a way that meets your needs — whether that is using bullet points or as a presentation or essay.
The new kid on the block, Google Bard, is currently used by 6.4% of tutors. Bard is still under development but has been evolving since its release in 2023. It's able to access and process information from the real world through Google Search to provide more accurate and up-to-date information. It can help students and tutors by providing research, summaries of factual topics, generating practice problems and providing feedback. Like other forms of AI, it can help teachers create personalised learning experiences tailoring content and difficulty level to each student's individual needs and providing ideas for activities, assessments, and resources.
The Future of Tuition with AI
As a developing technology, students can't afford to rely on AI to do all the work simply because it's still learning, which means the results are not always perfect. Plus, there is a bias in the information given. So although some predictions for the future see it replacing teachers and tutors, teaching remains a complex personal experience that AI cannot achieve.
What looks like a more realistic way to use AI in education can be judged by Grammarly's success. This online writing assistant uses AI to help students compose clear,
mistake-free writing by checking grammar, spelling, style, tone, and more. It has been popular since 2016 and has 30 million daily active users, and is widely used without much comment. Educational-tech companies like Duolingo and Quizlet, which makes digital flashcards, have already integrated OpenAI's chatbot into their apps too.
Game-based learning experiences created by AI also look to be another way to help students to learn more effectively. Minecraft: Education Edition is a version of the popular video game Minecraft designed for school use. The game allows students to learn about a variety of subjects, such as science, history, and math, in an interactive and engaging way.
Like the rise of social media, search engines, Wikipedia and apps, AI looks likely to be a tool to be used in education rather than one that will take over education.
As our tutors say:
Teachers and tutors are effective because of the human relationship consisting of expectation, identification, encouragement and the push for students to work etc. All the information needed to learn GCSE maths is available online and has been for a very long time, whilst the tutoring industry has only grown. This is similar, it's there for students to use, but they won't use it without some form of human relationship encouraging them to do so.
"AI reduces opportunities to learn and motivate together and to check to understand. AI should be used as an adjunct to learning, just like books are. We don't give a student a book and say now go away and understand it! In the same way, we should not be giving a student a laptop and a few AI programmes and told to understand it. We are humans, and we need to learn from each other."
The exams haven't changed in a long time, so they still require the same skills that were required in the 1950s. AI is no advantage. It's a bonus for studying and should be treated as such. Same with YouTube and all those websites that promise you an A.
"Teachers and tutors are effective because of the human relationship consisting of expectation, identification, encouragement and the push for students to work etc. All the information needed to learn GCSE maths is available online and has been for a very long time, whilst the tutoring industry has only grown. This is similar, it's there for students to use, but they won't use it without some form of human relationship encouraging them to do so."
"I think that AI is more likely to 'replace' search engines, albeit they shall serve as a bank of indexed information of useful URLs for the AI to learn from or point to. Students use search engines every day. I encourage them to search effectively and instruct them to do what ensures well-defined results. The tie-up between Bing and AI might tend towards a personalised AI avatar relationship, but that will not prove to be as effective as face-to-face teaching online or in person."
First Tutors is a private tuition service providing access to the widest range of home tutors and private tutors across the UK.