Human society is in an era of rapid technological development, and the new round of technological revolution represented by a new generation of information technology, biotechnology, new energy technology, new materials technology and intelligent manufacturing technology has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges for mankind.Artificial intelligence is an important driving force leading the new round of technological revolution and industrial change, and is reshaping the world’s industrial and economic ecology. Artificial intelligence has disrupted many traditional industries, and human labor is being replaced by automation, while new technologies have also created many new industries and jobs. These changes improve efficiency and productivity, promote product and service innovation, and drive economic growth, but they may also create new inequalities and further deepen the digital divide due to the AI divide. Artificial intelligence has become a strategic focus for development around the world, and international organizations are highly concerned about the opportunities and challenges it will bring to education.
Human-computer collaborative teaching and learning promotes the growth of students’ personality.
The era of intelligence is an era of human-computer coexistence and human-computer collaboration. Human-computer synergy will change the way of teaching and learning, and both teaching and learning will become more personalized. The teaching and learning that we have been pursuing, focusing on the growth of each student, will become a reality thanks to the support of technology. Teachers are the key element in education, and their professional ethics, attitude toward students, and professional competence are important factors in determining the quality of education, and the different quality of teachers is one of the factors that lead to uneven education.
Under the current classroom system, it is difficult for even excellent teachers to have the energy to take care of every student and to precisely understand each student’s learning obstacles. Artificial intelligence virtual teachers will become teachers’ right-hand men and women, and will help them with many tasks, such as answering questions, correcting homework, learning diagnosis and analysis, psychological counseling, daily management, and cooperative teaching and research. With the help of AI, teachers can spend more time communicating with students to promote their better growth. Human-computer collaboration can also share high-quality educational resources, realize dual-teacher teaching, and promote educational equity. Human-computer collaboration can change students’ learning styles. Big data-based precision education can provide students with accurate learning diagnosis and analysis, establish personal learning growth profiles, meet students’ needs for personalized development, and provide the most appropriate learning. Human-computer collaboration can also realize ubiquitous learning and reconstruct learning communities. Intelligent learning platforms and terminals allow students to learn anytime and anywhere. Students’ learning communities are built by their chosen learning content, learning time, and learning level, breaking the original concept of classes and grades, which will form different learning communities and also enable remote collaborative learning.
Cross-border integration and co-creation and sharing promote education ecological restructuring and education supply-side reform.
The characteristics of cross-border integration and co-creation and sharing in the smart era will reconstruct the education ecology and trigger education supply-side reform. With the gradual establishment of intelligent learning environment, ubiquitous learning becomes possible. Whether from the perspective of knowledge and skills acquisition or human development, schools are no longer isolated, and the time and space for learning break the boundaries of schools and expand to a broader society, with universities, enterprises, off-campus institutions, museums, etc. becoming providers of learning content and bearers of learning scenarios. Students can even choose courses offered by different schools, educational resources will become more open, and both teachers and students may be providers and users of learning resources, forming an educational ecology of co-creation and sharing. Education supply will also become more diversified, with free and open education resources co-existing with specialized education supply, increasing the selectivity of schools, teachers and students, and posing new challenges on how to ensure the quality of education supply. Artificial intelligence and education are a two-way empowerment relationship, and the empowerment of artificial intelligence to education is reflected in the following aspects:
First, artificial intelligence empowers management. Artificial intelligence technology will help schools and institutions achieve intelligent management, from enrollment to daily management, from attendance to campus security, from course selection to the collection and analysis of student process data, and support students’ career and vocational planning. Intelligent management not only improves efficiency, but also enables education management to achieve scientific decisions based on data analysis. Intelligent management is still in its infancy and not yet widely used.
Second, artificial intelligence empowers students. The era of intelligence has put forward new requirements for the cultivation goals of people who adapt to the future, thus bringing about adjustments in education content and education structure. But the most direct impact of AI on education is the transformation of learning styles, making personalized and customized learning possible.
Third, artificial intelligence empowers teachers. Artificial intelligence will free teachers from tedious daily work, releasing their time and energy, enabling them to focus on more students and solving the contradiction between students’ personalized learning and teachers’ limited time and energy. AI can also enable high-quality teacher resources to radiate to more schools in a more relevant and personalized way, solving the problem of mismatch between resources and learning conditions and difficulties in functioning, thus better promoting balanced high-quality educational resources and advancing educational equity.
Establishing a lifelong education system and cultivating high-end talents in artificial intelligence.
The disruptive changes brought by artificial intelligence to national society, economy and other fields have made all countries attach great importance to the strategic position of artificial intelligence in national development and make cultivating high-end talents of artificial intelligence a key task to improve national core competitiveness.
Cultivating high-end talents in AI is a systematic project, which not only requires higher education institutions to set up corresponding disciplines, create a complex talent training model and change teaching methods, but also requires the cooperation of basic education, which emphasizes mathematics and science subjects in basic education, changes learning styles and cultivates critical thinking and creativity. It also needs the cooperation of industry, university and research, breaking the boundary of school and enterprise, and jointly creating a practical platform for cultivating talents. This will also bring about changes in the form, curriculum and structure of colleges and universities. Ultimately, a fair, appropriate, open and flexible lifelong education system should be established, so as to cultivate high-end talents of artificial intelligence that meet national development needs and have international competitiveness.
