AI tools for schools – where can they have the most impact?

How Explore Learning has harnessed technology to have a meaningful learning impact.

As the government announces more trustworthy AI tech for teachers, we reflect on how cutting-edge technology has supported Explore Learning to deliver meaningful educational impact to over 400,000 children since 2001. Are there lessons to be learned from this approach?

Using technology to enhance the learning process is not a new thing. In 2001, Explore Learning launched an innovative tuition centre designed to be the perfect complement to a child’s school education. Here children worked with tutors using smart learning tools giving them a personalised learning experience.

Photo of an Explore Learning tutor teaching students using cutting edge technology in 2001

What are AI tools?

With all the chat around Artificial Intelligence (AI), it’s not always clear what it actually is. An AI tool is a software program that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. For example:

Performing repetitive tasks such as marking
Analysing data and recognising patterns such as producing reports
Making decisions and predictions such as planning the next course of action

3 key areas AI tools can support schools

CEO and Founder Bill Mills, believes that AI tools can support schools to gain similar benefits to those that Explore Learning have demonstrated over the last 23 years. This approach has resulted in children experiencing an additional 7 months of progress in their learning in one year.

“At Explore Learning, we have demonstrated that technology can be a powerful companion to education. There are three areas where I believe schools can use the latest AI tools to achieve similar learning efficiencies. One is a digital curriculum; this removes the need for planning. The second is automatic marking, removing marking time and providing immediate feedback. Thirdly, using technology to adapt content to suit a child’s individual needs. This is essentially creating a personalised learning pathway through the material.”

Digital curriculum

Teachers spend many hours planning engaging ways to teach the next topic detailed on the National Curriculum. Throughout the country thousands of teachers are doing the same thing. A digital curriculum means all the content has been created and is available for teachers to select and work through. There’s a lot of amazing materials out there. If it can be compiled, aligned, and delivered systematically through one programme then planning time can be massively reduced.

The power of immediate marking

Immediate feedback is a game-changer when it comes to learning efficiency. You can probably recall that heart-sinking feeling as a student; the time where you thought you understood the technique. You answered all the questions your teacher set, only to find out, at the end of the lesson, that all your answers were wrong.

It’s a knock to your confidence and figuring out where you went wrong is not always timely and straight forward. Are you able to go over it with the teacher after the lesson? Do you wait until your next lesson to recap it? Do you take it home and find someone to explain it to you?

Whatever the next step is, the student feels confused, frustrated and there is a delay in helping them move forward in their learning.

With immediate feedback the student knows straight away that they’ve misunderstood something, and they can rectify their mistakes before confusion and frustration creep in. It also means that teachers don’t need to spend hours outside of lessons marking work.

Using a digital curriculum provides scope for immediate marking and, as Explore Learning has demonstrated, technology can help us go even further than that.

Personalised learning

Imagine opening your textbook at school and it was different to all your classmates sitting at the same table. Yours had questions that were continuing with the learning you were doing last lesson. They were at a level and pace that was right for you. As you answered a question you would be given something more challenging if you got it right. If you didn’t understand, you would have scaffolded activities. They would remind you of the steps needed to successfully answer the question. Sounds too good to be true?

This is the technology that Explore Learning has used and evolved during the last 23 years. Children attending Explore Learning, work on a computer that delivers their own personalised curriculum. The content follows the National Curriculum, but the questions presented change in response to whether the child understands the question or not. Feedback is immediate and questions are scaffolded where needed. Every child is presented with what they need to know when they need to know it.

A child using Explore Learning's online tuition from their home

What AI can’t do

It can be easy to think AI has all the answers to our problems, but it doesn't. It is a tool and as such requires someone to use it as any other tool - with skill and knowledge to get the most out of it.

It is only as good as the information it is given, so the quality of the materials used to build a digital curriculum is of paramount importance. AI doesn’t replace the human interaction essential in all teaching; it’s the magic combination of the two that is going to transform the world of learning.

Teachers have understandable concerns about AI tools. It’s becoming easier for children to plagiarise information, many copy and paste comments and ideas without thought or analysis.

Only teachers are able to guide and support children to develop the critical thinking skills needed to identify real and fake news. They are essential in supporting children to question the ‘facts’ that they are exposed to through social media and discover credible news sources.

How does this contribute to redefining the role of a teacher?

Adopting technology frees teachers to give all of themselves to the aspect that probably attracted them to the job - human interactions, building relationships and making a difference. They have more time to coach, to motivate and to inspire. They can focus on teaching skills such as communication, collaboration, and teamwork whilst core aspects of knowledge are covered by technology.

Teachers are the essential motivators in the learning process. Children find it difficult to stay engaged for long on any educational tool without someone keeping them going. Teachers bring learning to life. AI tools simply remove some of the unnecessary admin and allow teachers talents to shine.

At Explore Learning, we are proud to call our tutors the ultimate cheerleaders. They recognise effort, comment on how a child is building resilience, coach growth mindsets. They are who children build a rapport with, the people they want to come and see each week and who parents write glowing reviews about.

It’s exciting to think that, with AI tools, education in UK schools can move in an increasingly personalised way and that teacher admin might become a thing of the past. We hope it comes soon, but in the meantime, we invite you to try the future of learning today. Visit one of our centres, chat with us online and unlock the joy of learning for your family.

By Carey Ann Dodah.