Text: Zhao Shuying, Tian Xiangzhang, Zhang Yi, Meng Huaning, Sun Hao
Abstract:
In recent years, with the rapid development of AI technology and its application in various fields, experts and scholars at home and abroad have carried out a lot of research and practical exploration in the direction of AI-enabled education, and many education-oriented AI technologies and AI-enabled education practice cases have emerged. In the AI-enabled education work, the author's team has independently developed a teaching software development environment for Chinese programming and a remote practice teaching system that supports online and offline interaction, and has made unremitting exploration and practice for deepening the reform of education and teaching, and has achieved positive results.
Keyword:
AI empowers education, teaching reform, teaching system, and Chinese programming
1 Background and path of AI-enabled education
1.1 Background
With the widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it has become an inevitable trend for AI to empower education and help education reform. In July 2017, the State Council issued the "New Generation of Artificial Intelligence Development Plan", which pointed out that it is necessary to develop convenient and efficient intelligent services, including intelligent education, to build a new education system of intelligent learning and interactive learning, to build a smart campus, to develop an online education platform based on big data intelligence, to develop intelligent education assistants, and to establish an intelligent teaching environment. In February 2019, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Modernization of Education in China 2035", which proposes to accelerate the reform of education in the information age, including the construction of intelligent campuses, the promotion of the reform of talent training models, the creation of education service formats, and the promotion of education governance reform. Intelligent technology can help accelerate the reform of talent training mode, realize the organic combination of large-scale education and personalized education, and AI-empowered education has become an important trend in education reform.
1.2 Research status at home and abroad
In recent years, with the rapid development of AI technology and its application in various fields, experts and scholars at home and abroad have conducted a lot of research and demonstration in the direction of AI-enabled education, and many education-oriented AI technologies have emerged.
The existing intelligent technology can be summarized into two categories: intelligent teaching system and personalized intelligent teaching assistant in the form of empowering education. The "AI Teacher" international cooperation project developed by Beijing Normal University has established an educational big data platform to achieve intelligent tutoring similar to that of human teachers, and the teaching robot "Smart Companion" can teach and answer difficult problems when students encounter them in learning. There are also a lot of research on AI-enabled education in the United States, and Tabtor Math, developed by Raj E. Valli's team, can provide personalized math tutoring for primary and secondary school students, and the system will provide students with an analysis report on their learning situation, and recommend learning content suitable for the student to provide users with a customized learning schedule. Our team (hereinafter referred to as the "team") has long adhered to the perspective of AI-empowered education to explore ways and means to improve the comprehensive quality of students, implement teaching reforms, and achieve positive results.
1.3 Path Exploration
Teachers and students are direct participants in teaching activities, and AI technology support for teachers and students can be applied to the teaching process more quickly and effectively.
1.3.1 AI empowerment for teachers
With the deepening of education reform in mainland China, the change of teachers' roles has also put forward new requirements for their abilities. The AI empowerment on the teacher side is mainly reflected in the participation of AI technology in teaching as a "teaching assistant".
The first is to realize the automatic generation of teaching courseware based on natural language understanding technology and improve the efficiency of curriculum construction; the second is to introduce intelligent terminals to collect learning practice data to assist teachers in collecting and analyzing students' learning results information and improve the efficiency of teaching evaluation; the third is to generate virtual teacher images through intelligent technology to realize teachers' "skills" and improve the teaching effect in a multi-dimensional interactive way.
In addition, with the help of machine vision, hearing and other technologies, there are some practices to assist teachers in grasping the learning status of students and assisting in maintaining teaching order.
1.3.2 AI empowerment for students
In traditional group teaching activities, it is difficult to achieve personalized teaching for each student's individual differences, and intelligent technology can solve this problem well.
The first is to create a digital twin model of students' learning situation based on multi-modal perception technology. The digital twin model can not only combine knowledge graph technology to create a personal learning path for students, but also combine intelligent generation technology and recommendation technology to push the optimal learning content and exercises according to students' learning situation. The second is to meet the learning needs of students around the clock in the form of intelligent learning partners. Through natural language processing and speech processing, students and intelligent learning partners can answer questions and communicate with each other, and realize the complementarity of in-class learning and in-class independent learning.
In addition, AI empowerment can also provide effective support for students to share learning content. Through the Internet of Things technology, students are promoted to learn in teams, so that students are more likely to get a sense of accomplishment in the practical learning of teamwork, and their learning enthusiasm and initiative are more likely to be stimulated.
2 Technical approaches to AI-enabled education
AI-enabled education can be realized through the construction of smart classrooms, intelligent learning terminal applications, or the construction of smart education platforms, providing new ways for teaching reform and innovation. The technologies applied in teaching mainly include perception, cognition, machine learning, swarm intelligence, human-computer interaction and knowledge graph technology.
2.1 Machine perception technology empowers teaching
It is one of the typical methods of machine perception technology to empower education by providing students with a way to participate in interactive learning through intelligent learning terminals. It has changed the original one-way knowledge transmission mode in which teachers mainly teach courses, and constructed a two-way information transmission mode in which teaching and learning interact. For example, the use of various sensors to collect data on students' learning process is a concrete embodiment of perceptual technology empowering teaching. The collected data can also be uploaded to the smart education platform to support further in-depth mining and provide a basis for building personalized learning solutions for students.
The use of on-site reading technology to achieve paper-based learning is a common learning mode for young children, and interactive on-site reading can provide children with opportunities for inquiry-based learning, so that young children can stay away from the screen in gamified learning, and provide a good technical solution for protecting children's eyesight.
Sensory technology empowers teaching and learning, and can also use a variety of sensors and structural accessories to support students to design their own smart devices. Through the data collection of these devices, the monitoring and evaluation of students' practice results can be realized.
2.2 Machine cognitive technology empowers teaching
Through visual recognition or speech recognition technology, teaching can be empowered. For example, visual recognition technology realizes automatic correction of homework, voice recognition technology realizes intelligent knowledge question answering, and face recognition and expression recognition technology are used to monitor students' learning status. These techniques can be widely used in a variety of teaching and learning innovation practices.
2.3 Machine learning technology empowers teaching
Machine learning technology empowers teaching by building machine learning algorithms to intelligently simulate some learning tasks, so as to provide students with some path references to realize the tasks, so as to inspire students' thinking. In the process of inquiry-based learning, students will have a lot of random exploration, and it is difficult to make various targeted responses in advance. Therefore, machine learning algorithms can be used to assist in guiding the inquiry-based learning process. For example, in the teaching of chess, the use of machine learning to implement game algorithms can provide students with tentative optional operations as a reference.
2.4 Swarm intelligence technology empowers teaching
It is one of the typical applications of swarm intelligence technology in teaching to realize the empowerment of teaching through the construction of the Internet of Things teaching system. The built IoT system can be used to capture students' learning data, and the intelligent twins built by students can also be used as the terminal node device to obtain learning data to be connected to the IoT teaching system, providing students with a practical teaching environment and supporting students to "learn by doing", "learning by use" and "learning by creation". For example, as shown in Figure 1, students can connect to the teaching system by designing an IoT smart fan device, and upload the data obtained from their own works to the smart education platform in real time. This swarm intelligence technology can support a variety of team-based hands-on teaching.
2.5 Human-computer interaction technology empowers teaching
As shown in Figure 2, human-computer interaction technology-enabled teaching can support students' inquiry-based learning through interactive teaching software design. The use of visual, voice, wearable devices and other interactive methods to present a more interesting form of practical teaching, is conducive to improving students' interest in learning and enhancing their self-learning ability.
2.6 Knowledge graph technology empowers teaching
As shown in Figure 3, knowledge graph technology includes knowledge representation and modeling, knowledge acquisition, knowledge fusion, knowledge storage, knowledge computing, and knowledge operation and maintenance. Constructing a teaching-related knowledge graph can allow the computer to obtain knowledge, vividly display the knowledge through the computer, and organize and express the knowledge in the teaching materials and minds. The computer can give students test questions through the stored knowledge, and can also give targeted help according to the students' answers. Knowledge graph technology can enhance the systematization of teaching content and the interactivity of teaching process.
3 AI-empowered education teaching software and system development
In the practice of AI-empowered education, the team independently developed the Chinese language, a teaching software design environment through Chinese programming, and an intelligent teaching system based on cloud-edge-end collaboration, a remote practice teaching platform that supports online and offline interaction, providing strong support for deepening the reform of education and teaching.
3.1 Development of interactive teaching software
Chinese Language is a series of software development environments, including the S version for system integration, the H version for open source hardware, the T version for smart terminals, and the L version for learners. The S version is an easy-to-use graphical programming software that supports the rapid design of interactive content such as animations, videos, audio, and games. Students with zero programming knowledge can start designing the integrated control interface of the integrated system through 4~6 hours of learning. The Chinese language has a network interface, which can realize WiFi, Bluetooth and other communication functions, and is convenient for information interaction with single-chip microcomputer, Arduino controller, and Raspberry Pi-based intelligent hardware system.
Teachers can use the Chinese language programming environment to design and produce their own interactive teaching software quickly and easily. The interactive teaching software includes functional modules such as knowledge explanation, question interaction and grade uploading, with the help of which students can complete the learning of teaching content and the testing and sharing of learning results.
3.2 Remote practice teaching platform: development of intelligent teaching system based on cloud-edge-end collaboration
The distance practice teaching system mainly includes three parts: teaching agent, interactive teaching software and cloud server (see Figure 4). Among them, the teaching agent is a variety of intelligent systems designed and developed based on STEAM intelligent hardware, such as robotic arms, intelligent vehicles, production lines, interactive teaching toolboxes, and "listening to Xiaofang" knowledge competition system. The teaching agent has a network communication module, which can communicate with the computer to achieve remote control and information collection. The interactive teaching software is a teaching software developed based on the S version of Chinese language, which includes two parts: electronic teaching plan and electronic assessment. Students can use the software to learn and master the content of the lectures and test the learning results. The cloud server realizes the collection and storage of student learning data.
As shown in Figure 5, the teaching session is taught in the form of "expert teacher + class tutor", with expert tutors conducting unified teaching online, and class tutors being responsible for maintaining order and answering questions offline. Students have their own identity IDs, and the data generated during the learning process is uploaded to the cloud platform for storage and analysis.
3.3 Teaching organization and learning evaluation based on learning data
The teaching session is set up in groups and mutual answering and mutual evaluation. First of all, the teacher designed the framework structure of the teaching content, grouped the students according to different topics, completed different learning tasks respectively, and used software and hardware learning resources to form the learning results of the group. Then, the intelligent teaching system is used to collect and manage all the results in a unified manner, forming a learning management system that can be shared and interacted with online, which is open to all students. As shown in Figure 6, students can watch, learn, test and comment on the learning results of other groups on the platform, and the platform automatically collects and sorts out students' grades, accuracy and comments, realizing the closed-loop management of the learning process.
4. Abundant AI-empowered education practices
The team actively used the self-developed teaching software and system of AI-empowered education to carry out a variety of practical explorations, and realized the full coverage of the whole school period from kindergarten to university, as well as the AI-empowered adult education through various forms such as gamified learning, competitive learning, and organizational learning (see Figure 7).
In the practice and exploration, the team actively advocates the concept of the integration of science and art, with the goal of cultivating students' "three literacies" (scientific literacy, technical literacy and artistic literacy) and "three present abilities" (discovery ability, realization ability and presentation ability), through the construction of the "4T" (tutors, teachers, trainees and teams) teaching model, the implementation of the "teaching, learning, practice, exhibition, evaluation" five-step teaching method, to achieve teacher-led, Student-centered interactive teaching.
4.1 AI empowerment at all levels and types of education
4.1.1 Early childhood education stage: children's comprehensive ability training early childhood education practice resources, including "Listen to Xiaofang Robot" and its supporting comprehensive ability training courses suitable for children, through the teaching assistant robot to tell stories for children, and the use of teaching game software and other forms of teaching, and through the intelligent system to count, upload and analyze the learning situation of students.
"Listening to Xiaofang Robot" is a self-developed cube structure deformation humanoid robot, which supports assembly and deformation, and is suitable for exercising hands-on ability and imagination. The course is interactive in the form of point reading, and the interactive activities are carried out on paper, which effectively avoids the damage of electronic screens to the eyes and achieves the effect of protecting children's eyesight.
4.1.2 Primary Stage: Joy and Learning Courses
Educational practice activities in primary school combine real-life scenarios to cultivate students' information awareness and computational thinking in a project-driven way, and improve students' hands-on ability and problem-solving ability. The education topics include Lexue Robotics, Lexue Programming and Lexue Internet of Things. The course starts from robot assembly, construction, and thinking ability training, and carries out programming thinking and ability training in the form of a combination of software and hardware, and uses self-developed modular and graphical programming software as programming tools. In the learning process, students continue to accept challenges, solve practical problems, increase their sense of achievement, build self-confidence, enjoy learning, and improve their interest in learning.
4.1.3 Secondary level: Creative Robotics Series
The educational practice activities at the secondary school level adopt an exploratory learning mode that combines teaching and practice, guide students to participate in exploratory learning, improve students' comprehensive quality and practical ability, and enable them to combine what they have learned with practical application. The educational topics include intelligent vehicles, robotic arms and deforming robots, including a wealth of sensors, controllers, actuator principles and application technologies. Through design, programming, assembly, and debugging, students will master the application of AI technology and creative development capabilities, develop the habit of using computational thinking to solve practical problems in learning and life, cultivate students' awareness of intelligent system design and management, and equip them with the basic practical ability of AI.
4.1.4 University level: pedagogical practice for creativity development
At the university level, we carry out practical exploration of teaching reform around the cultivation of creativity, use the general education teaching of AI, robotics and other courses, and promote the improvement of students' creativity and comprehensive quality through PBL and OBE teaching modes. The teaching activities are fully open-ended and support students to carry out self-directed learning through practical exploration. Through the design of data search, problem design, knowledge sharing and team testing, students have the opportunity to complete many projects in teaching, such as the principle and implementation of intelligent gimbal, the classification and handling system of tandem robotic arms, the Internet of Things fan system, the music magic box, the smart car and its control method, etc. Students experience the harvest of learning in the process of creativity, design, production and sharing, which increases their interest in learning and stimulates their desire for research.
4.1.5 Adult education: Take the topic of smart transportation as an example
AI empowerment for adult education sets up a variety of themes according to actual needs, taking the life-oriented smart transportation project as an example, through the form of "questioning-exploring-planning-implementing-displaying", to cultivate the scientific literacy, technical literacy and artistic literacy of social students.
The project adopts the form of training for the trainees, from lighting a lamp through programming to realizing wireless control of sensors, from the design and production of a single agent to the comprehensive debugging of system integration, the trainees analyze the data information required for centralized control of equipment, design the control scheme of wireless centralized control, debug the centralized control management program, and finally realize the comprehensive display of the entire intelligent transportation system.
4.2 AI-empowered diverse learning organizations
4.2.1 Game-based learning: quality education for young children
The Early Childhood Program provides children with a learning experience in the form of gamification, and the project uses "The Adventures of Fang Fang" as the background of the story, bringing the children into this wonderful and fantastic story in an immersive way, and the children are the protagonists of the story. Each lesson is an adventure, and the children go through the "test" with Fang Fang, think about the "solution", and finally use their ingenuity to pass the test.
The project adopts three links of "learning, playing, and competing" for teaching, which are self-exploration, self-study and self-testing, and collective game competition. Students use the robot to read and explore on the textbook to obtain story details and knowledge, and then the robot will ask students questions, and students need to find the correct answer according to the questions to verify what they have learned, and finally the teacher organizes all students to interact with the group game, collect students' learning data, and grasp the learning situation.
4.2.2 Competitive Learning: Innovation in Ideological and Political Teaching
In order to promote the work of grassroots party building and deepen the learning and understanding of the knowledge of party history by the majority of party members, relying on intelligent technology, the "celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China" party knowledge interactive learning competition system has been developed. The system consists of a point-and-click robot, a paper-based coding system and interactive learning software, which are connected into a whole through a network. Support team learning, interactive learning, collective competition, through the "learning and testing" to test the learning effect, through group learning and competition, greatly promote the students' enthusiasm for learning, enhance the effectiveness of grassroots party building activities.
4.2.3 Organizational Learning: Teaching Innovation of Professional Courses
In view of the practical problem of disconnection between theory and practice in the course of college students, a set of curriculum reform ideas was proposed, and in the process of the construction of the course "Fundamentals of Robotics", through the development and application of interactive teaching software, it was verified that the remote PBL mode teaching based on the Internet was realized. The curriculum breaks the convention, boldly reforms, and realizes the innovation of practical courses.
Through AI-empowered education, the link of "students speaking and teachers commenting" has been added to the previous model of "teachers speak and students listen". Under the guidance of teachers, students can complete the creativity, design and implementation of intelligent systems in a short period of time, and realize the innovation of courses in teaching organization. On the one hand, it embodies the teaching concept of teacher-led and student-oriented, fully mobilizes students' learning initiative and stimulates students' creativity, and on the other hand, it also reduces teachers' repetitive work and provides more time for teachers to improve their comprehensive ability. In general, teachers and students can gain more sense of accomplishment in the teaching process, so that the teaching process is no longer boring and boring.
5 Concluding remarks
AI-empowered education has become the trend of the times, and this kind of exploration and practice starts from the campus and not stops at the campus. With the continuous advancement of AI technology, it will play a greater role in effectively promoting the practice of education and teaching reform and innovation, so as to make teaching and learning a happy experience that accompanies each other for a lifetime.
(References omitted)
Excerpt from "Newsletter of Chinese Society of Artificial Intelligence"
Vol. 12, No. 6, 2022
Special topics on intelligent system design and application empowered by artificial intelligence technology