ChatGPT: Educational Tool or Threat?
One of the first places ChatGPT made its impact was in the field of education, specifically students using ChatGPT to complete assignment assignments.
Schools and teachers did not embrace this idea, to say the least.
The Purpose of Education
This cuts to the central purpose of education: for students to learn, not for students to be able to answer questions.
In a world where everyone can access some form of free AI assistance, what is the impact on learning? The central question is whether students using AI to answer questions are actually learning the material. The obvious answer is that they are not.
How Schools Respond
So the response of schools has been one of two polar opposites: either the schools banned the use of AI, or they began teaching the use of AI. While using AI is certainly an important part of professional careers, and is something worth learning, it doesn’t address the fundamental issue that the goal of schools is for students to learn subject matter.
The Goal
It is only with deep knowledge of fundamental subjects that students can bring separate ideas together and combine them to form something new, a key to success in life and in business.
Traditional Approach to Tutoring
Traditionally, students have been assisted by human tutors, whether parents, friends, or professionals. A human tutor can address a particular subject and a particular textbook, assess the student’s knowledge of the material, and focus on areas where knowledge is lacking. That’s great, but there are some shortcomings:
- Parents may not know the material, and personal tutors are expensive.
- The parent paying for the tutoring is probably not receiving detailed feedback on the student’s progress.
- The teacher and school are almost certainly not receiving feedback on the student’s use or knowledge of the textbook.
Using AI as a Tutor
The first issue is addressed by using AI as a free tutor. But there are lots of problems with that approach.
- AI is unlikely to restrict its tutoring to specific class material since it has a broad knowledge of every topic.
- With no accountability, there’s no incentive for the process to be used for true learning as opposed to simply finding answers.
- There’s no metric of whether the student is actually using the course material.
- There’s no feedback to parents or teachers as a student progresses through the course materials.
How BrainStream Solves These Problems
- BrainStream teaches from specific course materials.
- BrainStream constantly monitors student progress through the text, allows them to check their understanding of whatever topics they wish, and identifies areas they should explore further, all within the course materials.
- BrainStream provides a student with metrics showing them where they should focus their learning.
- BrainStream provides accountability to parents and teachers.
Seeing the Big Picture
BrainStream is about both Learning and Metrics.
In short, BrainStream is not just AI tutoring. It’s a transaction processing system that provides textbook authors with a revenue stream, students with a learning path customized to their needs, parents with feedback on their student’s progress, and teachers with the assurance that students are learning from their course materials.
BrainStream’s Market
Unlike tutoring programs, BrainStream’s market is the school system itself, or—at the college level—professors who teach courses from their own textbooks.
For more information about how BrainStream can be integrated into your textbook or your school’s curriculum, contact us today.