When you think artificial intelligence, it’s likely that scenes from a science fiction thriller come to mind. Robots fighting humans, men falling in love with a computer that learns to feel, iPhones outsmarting their user.

But what about a classroom?

For years, educators have struggled to help each and every student with their individualized educational needs. That gets incredibly tough in a classroom of twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty students all required to pass the same standardized test, regardless of personal growth.

The use of artificial intelligence has the potential to disrupt the traditional and potentially damaging one-size-fits all model of modern teaching. Machine Learning algorithms have already begun helping teachers fill the gaps while indicating which subjects students are struggling with the most.

If you think AI and chalkboards don’t go hand-in-hand, we’ll prove you wrong with five examples of classroom-based Artificial Intelligence.

1. Thinkster Math: Deemed, “the math app that offers an unusual human touch,” by The New York Times, Thinkster Math is a tutoring app that blends real math curriculum with a personalized teaching style. The app assigns each student a behind-the-scenes tutor who watches their mental process unfold step-by-step on an iPad screen. First, Thinkster Math presents the user with different problems appropriate to their skill set. As students write out how they’ve reached an answer, the app analyzes their written work to determine where they’ve gone wrong or misunderstood an important problem-solving step. Thinkster Math improves each students’ logic process by providing video assistance for stuck students and immediate, personalized feedback.

2. Brainly: Brainly is the social media site for classroom questions. Using Machine Learning algorithms to filter out spam, Brainly allows users to ask homework questions and receive automatic, verified answers from fellow students. The site even helps students collaborate to come up with correct answers on their own. If you’ve got a student who commands the classroom, he or she can provide answers on answers and work towards becoming a Brainly community moderator. Brainly has experts on a variety of school subjects and works to create a classroom-like community for that personalized chalkboard touch.

3. Content Technologies, Inc.: Universal textbooks are only helpful for cardboard cut-out versions of students who look, think, problem-solve, and process information the same. Content Technologies, Inc. (CTI) is an AI company using Deep Learning to create customized textbooks that fit the needs of specific courses and students. Teachers import syllabi into a CTI engine. CTI machinery then masters the content and uses algorithms to create personalized textbooks and coursework based on core concepts. When was the last time your classroom read a textbook cover-to-cover, utilized every page of practice questions or actually saw correlations between in-class work and assigned reading? CTI hopes to fill that gap and help publishers create effective textbooks right for each individual learner.

4. Mika: Similar to Thinkster Math, Carnegie Learning’s Mika offers AI-based tutoring tools for students too busy for after-school tutors and too lost in a sea of other students for personalized attention. And if you think one-to-one attention is just for elementary schoolers struggling with long division, Mika specializes in higher ed tutoring to fill gaps in collegiate classrooms notorious for lecturer-sized classrooms. The app is guided by each student’s unique learning process, keeping users aware of their daily progress and adapting lessons to each student’s specific struggle.

5. Netex Learning: Netex Learning lets teachers design curriculum across a variety of digital platforms and devices. The site helps even the most technologically illiterate educators incorporate interactive elements like audio, video, and self-assessments to their digital lesson plans, all within a personalized learning cloud platform. With Netex, teachers can create customized student materials to be published on any digital platform while providing tools for video conferences, digital discussions, personalized assignments, and learning analytics that show visual representations of each student’s personal growth.

Whatever you think of artificial intelligence, there’s no denying its place in modern teaching. And while there’s no replacing the human aspect of our beloved teachers, we believe edtech and AI will only help the overworked and underfunded classrooms of tomorrow.

Have an opinion on classroom AI? Comment below!