Case study of an ETE

 

Chosen ETE to conduct case study on - AI in education.

Introduction

Emerging technologies for Education introduced to us the diverse technologies that are a part of education in the 21^st century and successfully changing the face of education. I, as a part of the course, have had the opportunity to explore them in a more personalized environment than ever before. This has helped me get over an inherent fear of technology I always carried earlier. The discussions in class and the readings have definitely helped me widen my horizon of knowledge of applications of technology in education. The vantage points technology offers to a learner, instructor, institution and all other participants in education are amusing and so are the limitations and hazards of the same.

One such technology that offered a immense support to the learner and teacher was generative AI. I have chosen one such generative AI as a case study.

 The motive is to understand whether the sample chosen can use the AI as a lifelong learning tool, and as a positive reinforcement on the process of learning.

I would introduce the AI tool, first, and then proceed to introduce the sample chosen. The observations made and the reflections on the observations will follow later.

 

AI tool chosen - Grammarly

Grammarly helps people communicate with confidence across devices and platforms. Their AI-powered suggestions appear wherever one writes, coaching over 30 million people and 50,000 teams every day to improve the correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery of their writing. Grammarly Premium elevates communication for individual students and professionals, and Grammarly Business drives organizations of all sizes to accelerate business results.

Grammarly team members use advanced machine learning to break new ground in natural language processing that analyzes written sentences to understand context and tone. Grammarly’s algorithms flag potential issues in the text and make context-specific suggestions to help with grammar, spelling and usage, wordiness, style, punctuation, tone, and even plagiarism.

Grammarly’s product makes sure everything one types not only upholds accurate spelling, punctuation, and grammar, but is also clear, compelling, and easy to read. The suggestions help identify and replace complicated sentences with more efficient ones, refresh repetitive language, and strengthen one’s writing to say what they really mean. The app is intelligent enough to know if someone’s writing indicates suicidal ideation and provide them with supportive resources.

 

Sample chosen – CAF (CA foundation) batch from Masterminds Junior college.

The sample consists of 73 students who come from various backgrounds. All the students come from an MEC background and have completed their first year in intermediate. The sample includes students from different economic strata. They come from central and state syllabi in school.

The cohort is being trained for CA foundation exam, of which is BCR subject a part. BCR or ‘Business Correspondence and Reporting’ has English language assessment as its agenda. The syllabus of this subject includes grammar and subjective writing of different types. The assessment is subjective in nature and is a paper-pen based test. The ward is expected to answer the questions in their own writing and some questions might be MCQs where the ward is asked to answer the question with the right option. The test carries 40 marks. But the Business Law is another subject which is entirely subjective in nature and demands descriptive answers. This test carries 60 marks.

The students suit the bill for the case study because the students are tested on their English comprehension, articulation and formal communication skills along with grammar. Though, most students hail from Telugu or Urdu medium of instruction all through their school education. It was only a year for them to cope up with the English medium of instruction. The challenge is for them to present their defense for their point in the Business Law test as well.

The observation is to understand if this tool can help the student to develop skills in English.

 

The Case Study

The case study conducted on them was for 3 days. On 7^th, 8^th and 9^th of August, I had the opportunity to visit their campus in Dilsukh nagar, Hyderabad. I was given one and a half hours time given to me on each day. I had to request the management to provide the students with the computer access, so that it could be easy for the students to efficiently use their time with me. All the students were divided into groups of five and given computer access.

First day, I had planned an introductory session as to what I was expecting them to do. AI was briefly discussed about, following which the students’ interest was surfacing. The explanation I had to offer to them was that their idea is more valuable than their language. So, if they wanted to understand how good their ideas sounded, they could take the help of good language, which was possible with this AI tool. The students were intrigued by the application and were excited for more, the next day.

Second day, I had given them tasks to write down an article and a report. The explanation as to how report has to be written and how an article has to be written was given. The pointers to help the student develop an comprehensive report were given. This lasted for 20-25 minutes. The next task was to either use their mobile phone or the computer given to the group and start correcting their essay by taking help of Grammarly. The students with the mobile cpuld only use the keyboard by the   was to write something and apply the extension on the writing. Whereas, the ones using the computer had better access compared to the mobile phone.

Third day was exciting for the students as they knew that they could play around with the tool more and could come up with more such tools if they came across any. The students did search for more such tools and applications and came up with few new ones, which only proves that they have started to realize technology as an inseparable part of their learning.

 

The Observations made

The students’ response was pleasantly surprising. Some students didn’t know about this tool at all, before the session. Some of them only thought AI was only an entertainment tool and something that did not hold any educational value. The opinion they carry is out of lack of exposure and lack access. The students who thought of AI as an entertainment had access to computer and internet at home but never included that in their education or learning process. Their exposure to traditional learning practices in education made them believe that computer and internet can only be distractions. But, with this activity they were a part of, they could question their belief system and open their mind to better avenues. 

The students need to be given a direction of thought when they are introduced to anything new. Technology is only one new thing in their life but very impactful. The moment the teacher is able to induce the idea of utilizing this resource, into a student, the course of learning starts to be more profound.

Interesting to understand how this technology can percolate to the lowest of the classes as a utility with the least effort. This is because the internet has been accessible in most cases either through a mobile phone or through a computer.

The way to use a resource has to be carefully imparted in the initial stages. The moral code, surrounding the usage, and the ethics, that should be inculcated in the users, should be discussed in the initial stages. The environment in which the technology is introduced and where it is accessed brings about a lot of difference in the perception of the learner. In this particular case, the students were given time to discuss how they perceived internet and whether they are encouraged to use it. If they were encouraged, whether it was monitored or not?

These questions, and many more that followed, intended to understand the learner’s psychology and state of mind in adapting to a new technology.

The students might have different interests that they want to nurture which pushes them in their directions of thought. Internet is a place where a lot of information is available and accessible. It is imperative that the student understands the consequences of straying away from the purpose of their usage. This and many other tools which are based on the learner’s access to internet should have the instructor discuss the importance of ethical usage.

At the same time, the organization offering the product or service as a tool of learning should also follow ethical norms. The data security and the privacy of the student are of paramount importance. This has to be assured by the service provider. Grammarly adheres to industry-leading information security best practices. In addition, Grammarly is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and other privacy regulations.

There were certain conclusions I could arrive at after the case study. They are as follows:

Usage of AI is not as common as it is perceived in the urban spaces. There is lack of awareness as to what an AI is and where it can be used.

Usage of computers is not the same with everyone. Digital divide being one reason, lack of interest is another. Though some use it, the usage does not result in any positive impact.

Imbibing an AI tool into education is tough to achieve even today, as computer is still an entertainment device and AI is only extension to it in the minds of most people. This is not limited to only the lower economic strata where the parents aren’t literate but also prevalent in the families where the parents are educated and aware.  

Instructor help might be necessary only for the initial stages, after that it is usually dependent on the student’s inquisitivity and zeal.

 

An overall understanding of the AI tool- Grammarly

The corrections made by the assistant are greatly useful and functional. All official submissions and presentations can be made better with precision in terms of structuring the idea. But how far the tool can help a student in their learning in the long run still remains a doubt.

Learning happens through corrections as when the idea is penned down. This makes the learner vigilant of all the mistakes he/she does. The learning involves the learner in a more active way. The mistake is highlighted and presented for the learner to correct it. The learner is given options as to how it can be corrected and can choose how they would want to express it. This offers an immediate correction to the mistake committed and an improvement in presenting their idea. But, whether this correction and improvement becomes learning is still a question.

The tool helps save time for the learner by presenting all the mistakes in no time. Otherwise, manual correction of mistakes for a beginner would be a herculean task. At this very point, we could make a point about the instructor and evaluator presence. This AI tool can show us a way into the future where the instructor becomes a facilitator and the system or technology becomes the evaluator.

The tool can be used with a plethora of other applications. As mentioned earlier, it can be used as an extension to browser and can be helpful in other document editing as well. The mobile access is limited to the keyboard. This applicability of the tool with other tools makes it more functional for a student to use it.

The learning process is more cognitive and behaviorist than a constructive process. The experience with the tool does not result in a definitive result or consequence. The chances of the betterment of the learner with respect to writing are bleak. If the student has a note of all the corrections written down manually or has a digital copy of the corrections, it might lead into a long lasting learning.

The tool does not provide for any free educational resources. Providing resources like basic grammar as material or vocabulary can help the learner make connections in a strong way. A step forward would be to personalize the learning process by taking the learners’ mistakes into account.

The tool does not provide for a functional learning process rather it provides for a lifelong dependent process. Having the learner assessed in a periodic way could help understand the learning offered and grasped. The dependence on the app is by having corrected by it every time rather than carrying a functional knowledge of language.