Khanmigo, an AI tutor, takes a unique approach to answering student questions by starting with questions of its own. Instead of giving direct answers, it guides students to find solutions step by step, providing hints and encouragement along the way. While Khan Academy envisions “amazing” personal tutors for every student, DiCerbo emphasizes Khanmigo’s role in helping students get unstuck when they encounter difficulties while working independently on a skill or concept.
Over 100,000 students and teachers participated in piloting Khanmigo, generating valuable data for DiCerbo and her team to analyze. They focus on aspects such as summarizing, hinting, and encouraging in student-bot interactions. While Khan Academy plans to release some summary data on these interactions, assessing the tutor’s impact on learning will require more time and research. Other organizations, like Saga Education, are also exploring the use of AI feedback to enhance student engagement and motivation with positive results.
Experts anticipate that AI will play an increasingly significant role in education, with interactions becoming more human-like. Recent developments in emotionally intelligent AI, capable of analyzing tone and facial expressions to infer user moods and respond with empathy, suggest a promising future. However, despite advancements in AI capabilities, Brown University professor Michael Littman believes that AI will always fall short in fostering genuine student engagement. Students recognize that AI lacks the capacity to truly care about them, their work, or their academic success.
Although AI can offer valuable feedback on student essays, there remains a concern about students’ willingness to invest care and effort in their work. The fear is that students may rely too heavily on AI as their primary audience, potentially undermining the intrinsic motivation to excel and learn. A study published in the journal Learning and Instruction highlights this issue, questioning whether AI feedback will lead to students’ genuine investment in their academic tasks.
While AI holds great promise for revolutionizing education through personalized learning and feedback, its limitations in fostering authentic student engagement and motivation remain a significant challenge. As the field of AI in education continues to evolve, it is essential to strike a balance between leveraging AI’s capabilities and preserving the human touch in education to ensure optimal learning outcomes for students.