Machine Learning In Education

What if a computer program could analyse your habits, your interests and the patterns you exhibit and suggest a perfect career for you? What if there existed a machine that could foresee the habits that could possibly decide the success or failure of your business? To put it prettily: You could then control your destiny better (All control freaks cheer, for machine learning, is here!)

Machine Learning is the development of computer programs which have the ability to learn by analyzing large amounts of data. It is being looked upon as the next big thing because of the maturity of the method involved in the same and because of the humongous amount of data available to an average person today.

Its implications in the education field are bound to be revolutionary. Although a school of thought strongly argues that teachers should and can never be replaced by robots, the fact remains that if the precise technology is developed to benefit students, it might strongly turn the future of learning and thinking as a whole. 

Schools and teachers have long struggled to provide personalized learning experiences to each student, for each person is different because of variations in life experiences. Machine Learning will provide the ability to analyse a student’s data. Based on various patterns present in a student’s behavior or studying routines, it will be able to suggest the perfect content for a student to learn each day. The algorithm might also be able to do predictive analysis and devise a method to improve the learning and the thinking ability of a student.

This shall be especially helpful in the case of students with learning disabilities like dyslexia. The adaptive content available to a child shall help in the development of the child in a holistic manner.

Similarly, adaptive tests, like the ones that already exist in examinations like the GRE and GMAT, if adopted in schools, by combining a student’s data, miraculous results could be witnessed. A student, who might otherwise feel worthless after a generic test, even after putting in long hours of study, will be able to witness the growth that he has had in his skills and knowledge with the help of machine learning.

Some algorithms might also be developed which can analyse the student’s interests, strengths and weaknesses and might be successful in bridging the gap between a student’s dreams and the ground reality, i.e., his current assets and weaknesses with the help of personalized, statistically analysed career counselling.

Machine learning might also be able to predict topics and subjects that might interest a student and change their course of study completely to fit their personality the best. In case a student is struggling with a decision, it might also be able to match cases with students from across the globe, who have had similar dilemmas in the past.

There lies a huge potential in applying machine learning to education. That said, machines can never completely replace the human touch and the relations built between a teacher and a student. A teacher’s guidance should not be undermined, but at the same time, we need to hail and tap into the advantages that could be offered by this branch of Artificial intelligence, for it will truly get rid of the “One shoe size fits all” mentality prevalent in education today.