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Writer's pictureBrian Woods

Artificial Intelligence Excels at Simple Tasks but Falls Short on Deep Insights

Updated: 5 hours ago


While AI is quite adaptable, it doesn't solve every educational challenge. Its effectiveness in providing feedback largely depends on the availability, quality, and quantity of student data related to learning outcomes. AI excels in assessing assignments focused on lower-order thinking skills, such as true/false, multiple-choice, and short-answer questions, because these tasks have clear, rule-based answers and recognizable patterns. This allows AI to quickly analyze data and efficiently grade tasks that involve straightforward, factual responses. However, when it comes to more complex tasks that require critical thinking, creativity, or nuanced understanding, AI's capabilities are far more limited, making human insight crucial for a more holistic evaluation of student learning.

 

When teachers assign essays or research papers, the amount of time needed to deliver personalized feedback is extremely time consuming. AI is better suited for improving writing mechanics than for offering feedback on detailed subject matter, particularly in advanced courses. Realize that AI must be trained by feeding it large amounts of data related to the topic. This data helps AI recognize patterns and learn how to respond to different inputs. For example, to train AI to provide feedback on works related to the American Revolution, programmers would need to give it hundreds, if not thousands of works, relating specifically to this topic.  Over time, AI learns related facts and claims. This training process uses special algorithms and improves as the AI sees more examples, allowing it to make better decisions or predictions. This means that when a teacher provides a class set of essays for AI to provide critical analysis of students’ work, the results are sub-par. 

 

As students advance to higher grade levels, where critical thinking and subject mastery become essential, AI may struggle to assess the depth of understanding and originality of their ideas. While it can provide helpful suggestions on grammar, sentence structure, coherence, and style, AI often fails to grasp deeper nuances, especially in unique works like personal essays or complex subjects. For instance, it may not recognize the cultural or historical significance of a theme or appreciate creative interpretations that diverge from expected norms. Additionally, AI might overlook the subtlety in well-crafted arguments and not fully engage with intricate philosophical or theoretical concepts. All in all, while it would be highly favorable for AI to be able to assess a student’s ability to succinctly explain and reason through various rhetorical processes, it simply cannot ascertain this level of deep thought.

 


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