Scholar Education: The Crucial Role of AI in Empowering Educators and Personalizing Students’ Learning Experience
As artificial intelligence continues to transform industries, a Florida education startup is leveraging AI to revolutionize the classroom experience. Scholar Education, co-founded by veteran educator Marlee Strawn, has developed an AI platform that provides personalized learning and enhanced support for students and teachers. Here, Marlee explains how Scholar Education is utilizing AI tools like BaxterBot and Professor Bruce to make education more inclusive, efficient, and tailored to each child’s needs. By automating administrative tasks and providing real-time accommodations, Scholar Education’s AI enables teachers to focus on student engagement and critical thinking.
At Dayspring Academy in Pasco County, Florida, sixth grade humanities teacher Tracey Curtis helped a group of students with their reading assignment. Across the room, another student, Riley, quietly worked on a laptop and asked her own questions about the assignment.
But Riley was not getting answers to her questions from another teacher. She was being helped by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bot with a kid-friendlyBernedoodle profile picture. Riley is shy, and she says she is getting better grades because she can ask the bot her specific questions and get immediate answers.
In an era defined by rapid tech advancements, teachers are increasingly turning to AI as an invaluable ally to provide high-quality, personalized education to a diverse student body. The integration of AI in education is not merely a trend; it is a necessity, as AI plays a critical role in supporting students and teachers to enrich the learning experience.
Personalized Learning Paths
One of the most significant contributions of AI in education is its ability to tailor learning experiences for each student. Traditional classroom teaching often struggles to meet the diverse needs and learning paces of individual students. AI steps in as a personalized tutor, adjusting content, pace, and support to each student’s unique requirements.
At Dayspring Academy, a public charter school, Curtis employed AI to enhance her students’ understanding of the Wrath of Achilles. Using AI, her students talked about the story’s characters and created a text-based adventure game based on the Trojan War and The Iliad. This collaborative learning experience empowered students to use their critical thinking skills to cue AI on how to create the game.
A number of educational tools in the industry offer support on a wide range of subjects through a variety of programs, including virtual learning assistants. With Scholar Education’s platform, “BaxterBot,” a cute avatar dog, can be programmed to understand what the class is learning and respond to a child’s individual questions with age-appropriate answers, leading to improved academic performance, while also keeping a detailed transcript for the teacher.
Enhanced Administrative Efficiency in Classrooms
The program is more than a teaching assistant for students. It can save teachers valuable time on planning and administrative work that can be devoted to students instead. AI classroom enhancement tools can make recommendations for teachers’ lesson planning, aligned with state standards, based on students’ performance and their frequently asked questions to the avatar. For example, “Professor Bruce,” the teacher’s pet, provides Curtis with real-time feedback about what her students are asking the bot, and the program also gives her recommendations to help her tailor her instruction to the personal needs of her students.
Inclusivity and Accessibility
BaxterBot, a pivotal component of Scholar Education’s platform, is specifically designed to support students who are English Language Learners (ELL) by providing instant translations and academic support in their native languages. This functionality is especially beneficial in diverse classrooms where students, such as sixth-grader Sophia at Dayspring Academy, come from multilingual backgrounds. For ELL students, understanding complex subjects is made easier when they can interact with educational content in their preferred language. This not only enhances their learning experience but also builds confidence in their language abilities. For teachers, BaxterBot represents a significant relief by automating language support, allowing them to focus on teaching rather than language barriers. By integrating BaxterBot, Scholar Education ensures that every student has access to personalized learning, making education more inclusive and accessible.
Scholar Education is leveraging AI technology to revolutionize how specialized plans for Exceptional Student Education (ESE) learners are implemented and tracked, ensuring every child receives the support they need to thrive. By integrating AI-powered tools like BaxterBot and Professor Bruce, Scholar Education provides seamless, real-time academic assistance and accommodations tailored to each student’s unique learning needs. This technology enables teachers to generate and improve lesson plans, assessments, and learning content that adhere to plan requirements, also making education more inclusive and accessible.
Moreover, Scholar’s platform offers insightful analytics on student pace and performance, which are crucial for monitoring the effectiveness of accommodations and making necessary adjustments. This not only ensures compliance with specialized plans but also supports a data-driven approach to education, where decisions are based on real-time insights into students’ learning progress. For teachers, this means less time spent on administrative tasks and more time focused on teaching, while students benefit from an education that recognizes and adapts to their individual needs. In essence, Scholar Education’s use of AI is a significant step forward in creating smarter classrooms that cater to the diverse needs of all students, making education more equitable and effective.
Redefining the Role of Educators
While embracing AI in the classroom, educators like Ms. Curtis, the Dayspring Academy teacher, initially approached the technology with a little hesitation. But after using it and experiencing its benefits, she now sees AI as a valuable tool that enables self-directed learning by students and that provides immediate answers and feedback. Educators can become curators of content and mentors who guide students in critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. With AI handling administrative and repetitive tasks, teachers can nurture the unique qualities that make them irreplaceable – their empathy, inspiration, and adaptability.
Revolutionizing Industries like the Advent of the Internet
Much like the internet transformed how we access information and communicate, AI is transforming industries by making processes smarter, more efficient, and personalized. In education, AI platforms like Scholar Education, are doing for teaching and learning what the internet did for information sharing—breaking down barriers, customizing experiences, and opening new possibilities for engagement and understanding. It is a leap forward that mirrors the early days of the internet, promising a future where technology is seamlessly integrated into every aspect of our lives, making it richer, more accessible, and tailored to our individual needs.
AI is the Future of Education
The integration of AI in education, as exemplified by Scholar Education’s initiatives, underscores the technology’s role as an enhancement rather than a replacement for human educators. AI technologies like BaxterBot and Professor Bruce are designed to complement the skills and expertise of teachers by automating administrative tasks, providing real-time accommodations, and offering insights into student performance. This allows teachers to devote more attention to student engagement and individualized instruction, enriching the educational experience.
AI facilitates a level of personalization and adaptability in education that was previously unattainable. It can analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends, predict learning outcomes, and recommend interventions, enabling educators to address the needs of each student more effectively. This capability is particularly important in classrooms that include students with diverse learning needs, such ESE and ELL students and gifted learners. By providing tailored support, AI ensures that no student is left behind, fostering an inclusive environment that values and nurtures diversity.
The collaboration between human educators and AI also extends to the development of critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. AI can offer students interactive and engaging learning experiences that challenge them to apply what they have learned in new and complex contexts. Teachers, equipped with AI-generated insights, can guide these experiences more effectively, facilitating deeper understanding and encouraging innovation.
In the future, the synergy between human wisdom and artificial intelligence in education will likely continue to grow, leading to more dynamic, responsive, and effective teaching and learning practices. The aim is not to diminish the role of teachers but to amplify their impact, enabling them to inspire and guide students with greater efficiency and empathy. As education continues to evolve, the value of human interaction, mentorship, and guidance in learning remains irreplaceable, with AI serving as a powerful tool to enhance these fundamental elements of education.
Marlee Strawn is Co-Founder and Head of Education for Scholar Education, a pioneering provider of innovative educational solutions, dedicated to transforming and personalizing learning through the integration of technology in classrooms. Strawn has more than 15 years’ experience as an educator and administrator in charter and traditional public schools.
Scholar Education is a pioneering provider of innovative educational solutions, dedicated to transforming and personalizing learning through the integration of technology. Backed by Chairman of the Board and lead investor Ed Buckley – the founder of Peerfit, the TIECON Tampa Bay 2022 Startup of the Year – Scholar Education is committed to empowering students, parents, and educators, reshaping the landscape of education by delivering engaging content and groundbreaking programs.
