Whether higher education institutions are prepared or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. It’s also evolving rapidly, requiring institutions to move quickly. Although it has its challenges, AI presents new opportunities for growth and improvement. As a key decision-maker, you have the power to implement it responsibly and ethically so your college can better serve the community.
Read on to begin the journey toward AI adoption. You’ll discover why AI is so beneficial for community colleges like yours and how and where you can implement it.
Your community college can use AI to make the lives of faculty, staff, and students better. AI tools and software have the potential to improve:
How can you use AI throughout your college? There are numerous opportunities for AI implementation in the following areas.
AI is a valuable tool for faculty who teach students. While planning lessons, faculty can use AI to generate lesson plans and ensure content aligns with learning outcomes. AI can also help faculty create engaging learning materials from lesson content, such as slideshows, quizzes, and videos. Additionally, AI can help faculty ideate activities and content to keep students engaged.
In an online environment, AI software can personalize and adapt the learning experience. This strategy alone can increase student engagement and help them succeed in their studies. For example, AI-based online learning platforms can collect data about a student’s abilities and preferences. The AI uses this information to adapt the pace, difficulty, and delivery of content in real time.
Your institution can also implement AI-powered tutors in online learning platforms. The AI tutor can break down complex concepts, help students problem solve, provide personalized feedback, and offer valuable tips that support their learning. You can also offer AI education that teaches students how to navigate and use AI tools.
AI has various use cases within the assessment process. For starters, AI tools can help faculty create more effective assessments by adjusting the difficulty to suit each student’s abilities. Faculty can then use AI to automatically grade and provide feedback on more objective assessments, like ones containing multiple-choice questions.
Human critical thinking is still necessary for grading subjective assignments like essays, but AI can help speed up other tasks like grammar and spelling checks. It can also effectively check for plagiarism and AI-generated content.
While nothing can replace in-person support from faculty, AI can enhance your student support efforts. For example, AI chatbots are a useful resource for students with quick questions. They can receive an immediate response from the chatbot anytime, even outside business hours.
AI software can also record student performance data to look for patterns and trends. When they show early signs of struggle, the software can alert faculty to the issue so they can provide support. The collected data and findings may also highlight what the student needs help with the most.
Implementing AI in community college courses can make education more accessible to students with disabilities. These students may need assistance accessing and creating content required to complete their education, and AI can provide this.
For example, AI software can quickly translate or caption videos so that people with hearing impairments can still understand the content. AI-powered text-to-speech can also read out written documents to students. Additionally, students can use speech-to-text AI tools to type without using their hands.
While it can help your students and staff accomplish more, AI also has limitations and risks. Ethical concerns exist around AI use, such as data privacy, environmental impact, bias, and job displacement. AI also lacks the creativity, critical thinking, experience, and emotion humans possess, making human input necessary.
Community college administrators and decision-makers have the responsibility to keep the institution’s goals at the forefront and prioritize the quality of education. Take AI implementation slowly and experiment with what works for your campus. Involve all stakeholders — including students — in the implementation of AI to get a diverse set of opinions. You should also monitor the progress of AI adoption and make adjustments as you go.
By analyzing the risks and creating policies for AI adoption, your community college can use AI to create a more innovative and effective learning environment.
AI implementation can lead to a campus-wide shift that affects students, faculty, and campus culture. During this time, tracking and analyzing institutional data can help you make more informed decisions in the best interest of all stakeholders. At Watermark, we supply interconnected tools to simplify data collection, allowing you to uncover insights that drive decision-making.
Watermark’s Educational Impact Suite (EIS) is tailored for higher education. It includes tools that empower continuous improvement in areas like assessment, course evaluation, faculty reviews, student support, and curriculum development. EIS then collects data from each point so you can see the bigger picture. With our solutions in place, you can focus on institutional growth while supporting students and faculty through AI implementation.
See how our software can support your community college by booking a meeting with us today.
