Building a strong country in education, artificial intelligence empowers "how to cultivate people"

Authors: Xiong Zhang, Liang Wei, Zhang Xulu (School of Information, University of International Business and Economics)

On the afternoon of May 29, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held the fifth collective study on building a strong country through education. When presiding over the study, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that what people to cultivate, how to train people, and for whom to train people is the fundamental issue of education, and it is also the core topic of building a strong country through education.

We must realize that the answer to "for whom to train people" is clear: educate people for the party and the country; The answer to "who to cultivate" is also clear: cultivate generations of socialist builders and successors with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physique, aesthetics, and labor, cultivate generations of talents who can be used and shoulder heavy responsibilities in socialist modernization, and ensure that there are successors to the party's cause and the construction of a modern and powerful socialist country. These are our clear goals for building an educational powerhouse.

"How to cultivate people" is a question that educators must face, and must answer the questions of "for whom to cultivate" and "what to cultivate" through careful thinking, careful research, comprehensive design and accurate implementation.

"How to cultivate people" must keep pace with the times

While we are very clear about the answers to "for whom to train people" and "who to cultivate", we must also answer the question of "how to cultivate people".

The "Overall Layout Plan for the Construction of Digital China" issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council this year pointed out that the construction of digital China is an important engine for promoting Chinese-style modernization in the digital era and a strong support for building new advantages in national competition. Accelerating the construction of digital China is of great significance and far-reaching impact on comprehensively building a modern socialist country and comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The global digital development path, the overall layout planning of digital China's construction, and the construction of an educational power are all important links in the "two overall situations" that are in the same vein, and are China's theoretical and practical innovations.

Building a strong country in education, science and technology, and talent has inherent consistency and mutual support, which is a necessary condition for the "two overall situations". "How to cultivate people" is not only a question of educational science and technology, but also a question of educational values. "How to cultivate people" is not static, cannot be limited and constrained by Western education theories decades ago, and must avoid using the Western education ruler of decades ago to measure contemporary Chinese education. When educators think, research, design and implement "how to cultivate people", the mind and body should enter a new era at the same time, make full use of the latest science and technology, and continue to explore and innovate. When answering the question of "how to cultivate people", contributing Chinese solutions, showing Chinese wisdom, and leading the development of global education, especially the digitalization of education, is not only an important indicator of building an educational power, but also a part of the construction of digital China and a part of the road to promote global digital development.

Artificial intelligence empowers "how to cultivate people"

Artificial intelligence is the science and technology that develops the fastest society and has the greatest impact on all aspects of society. Generative artificial intelligence is surging like a tidal wave, and the first impact is undoubtedly in the field of education. In the face of the impact of artificial intelligence, how to let artificial intelligence help the construction of an educational power, and make full use of artificial intelligence to empower "how to cultivate people" is an important task at present.

We must not only see changes in the amount of generative artificial intelligence, such as super large training data, super large training models; We also need to see qualitative changes, such as generative artificial intelligence better simulating the human knowledge construction process. We must not only see that generative artificial intelligence can answer questions, write copy, compose, and draw on the surface; We must also see its underlying ability to understand, abstract, structured knowledge construction and derivation, and generative artificial intelligence has stronger learning ability. We should have the judgment that in the process of "how to educate people", many simple, transactional, repetitive tasks will be replaced by artificial intelligence. This is a substitution, not an enablement.

Artificial intelligence empowers personalized education. In the classroom and in the teaching process, teachers can use artificial intelligence to pay attention to the learning status of each student in real time, and evaluate the whole process of student learning through the homework submitted by students, through the discussion of student participation, and through the emotional learning of students, which is not only the basis of personalized training, but also the data basis for teachers to continuously optimize their teaching methods and means, which is a typical application of artificial intelligence empowerment "how to cultivate people".

AI empowers innovation in education. Educational innovation is not the digitalization of traditional education methods and traditional classrooms. Artificial intelligence empowerment "how to cultivate people" should formulate a comprehensive training plan according to the country's talent needs, according to the training goals of disciplines, and according to the development plan of students, and provide supporting curriculum design, teaching arrangements, social practice, utilization of teaching materials, laboratory utilization, platform utilization, resource utilization, etc. The whole process of artificial intelligence empowerment and cultivation. The effect evaluation data of the training process is fed back to the curriculum design, teaching arrangement, and social practice, and the construction of teaching materials, laboratories, platforms and resources is more optimized. The rapid iteration and optimization of teaching activities using artificial intelligence is a typical application of artificial intelligence to empower "how to cultivate people" and empower educational innovation.

Artificial intelligence empowers high-quality education development. Use artificial intelligence to continuously locate the development trend of each school, constantly discover the gap between itself and serving the strategic needs of the country, the gap between striving for world-class and the gap between cultivating first-class talents, timely adjust the layout of disciplines, adjust professional settings, adjust resource allocation, and use artificial intelligence science to take the pulse and accurately implement policies to effectively solve the problems of constraints and bottlenecks. Facing the world's scientific and technological frontier, facing the main economic battlefield, facing the major needs of the country, and facing the life and health of the people is the mission of education and the mission of the school. How is interdisciplinarity established? How to cultivate compound talents? It should not be a question of quantity, it should be a matter of quality. The use of artificial intelligence to scientifically discover problems, formulate solutions, break disciplinary boundaries, build emerging disciplines and interdisciplinary disciplines, and cultivate high-quality compound talents with strong competence is also a typical application of artificial intelligence to empower "how to cultivate people" and empower the development of high-quality education.

The digitalization of education is an important breakthrough in opening up a new track of education development and shaping new advantages in education development in the mainland, an important indicator for building an educational power, a part of the construction of digital China, and a part of promoting the global digital development path. AI-enabled education is an important part of the digitalization of education, providing effective support for further promoting digital education, personalized learning, lifelong learning, expanding the coverage of high-quality educational resources and educational modernization.

Source: Guangming Network - Theory Channel