The High Touch High Tech Summit 2021 (HTHT 2021) , Education Commission Asia’s inaugural global conference on artificial intelligence in education, was held online globally and in person in Seoul, Korea from June 29-July 2, 2021. Education Commission Asia, in partnership with TV Chosun and Riiid, hosted this four-day international conference on “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) to narrow the achievement gap in education.” This marks the first step in advancing the HTHT for All Global Consortium by convening diverse actors across the ecosystem. More than 150 speakers representing governments, international organizations, MDBs, academia, foundations, EdTech innovators, industry providers, and educators gathered together to explore how technology can be more effectively harnessed to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all students. To date, the sessions have been viewed nearly 90,000 times (and counting) on YouTube.
HTHT 2021 featured keynote speeches from leaders in global education including: former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Education Commission Chair Gordon Brown, Indonesia’s Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim, UNESCO’s Fengchun Miao, Riiid’s Jim Larimore, and Young-Jun Jang, Education International’s Susan Hopgood, Teach for All’s Wendy Kopp, Arizona State University’s Michael Crow, Ajou University’s Hyungju Park, and Tecnológico de Monterrey’s David Garza. These varied voices echoed the common aspiration that education transformation is an essential step towards achieving our shared goal of a more equitable world. Now, how we get there is a complex challenge, and the Summit proved to be a launchpad for a wide range of possibilities and opportunities to reach that common goal.
An inevitable wave
Transformation in education is inevitable. With the advent of emerging technologies, AI is the fastest growing advanced technology category for education with a majority of EdTech products claiming to feature AI as part of its solution in the next five years. Its market is predicted to grow from $0.8B in 2018 to $6.1B by 2025, according to HolonIQ. UNESCO recently published a policy guide on AI in Education, with governments around the world starting to view AI as “essential to future economic stability and social sustainability.” The conference addressed a wide range of potential gains from one use of AI – adaptive learning – from improving literacy and numeracy and leveraging data to improve pedagogy, to understanding cognitive and non-cognitive states for the well-being of the whole child, and even its potential to advance climate education. Adaptive technologies featured in approaches such as High Touch High Tech (HTHT), hold promise to improve learning outcomes and reach the most vulnerable while recognizing the challenges that need to be addressed moving forward.
Country sessions on Korea, UAE, and Brazil shared the cutting-edge work and research being done by their countries’ leading EdTech companies while Pakistan’s session highlighted the proactive efforts targeting marginalized communities, including out-of-school children and deaf students, as well as how HTHT could help to address these equity challenges. While COVID-19 has brought on innumerable challenges, it has also revealed the desperate need for countries to build back better—and perhaps differently this time.
The differentiating factor for technology? Humans
One common theme that was echoed throughout HTHT 2021 was the undeniable importance of humans in the equation. While there are indeed areas in which AI serves as the game-changer, humans cannot be replaced in such critical domains as teaching, leadership and policy, building relationships across ecosystems, and ethics and equity.
The importance of visionary leadership and effective policy cannot be overstated. Keynote speakers across the four days continuously reinforced that leadership across all levels must act in concert, prioritizing the goals of education. HTHT as one viable area of opportunity must become an institution-wide priority, asserted Tecnológico de Monterrey’s David Garza. Teach for All’s Wendy Kopp reinforced the need for collective leadership across all the diverse actors of the ecosystem for system change in education to occur.
This was echoed by former United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Education Commission Chair Gordon Brown. Mr. Brown said this conference was an “important first milestone to advance the HTHT for All Global Consortium,” which seeks to convene diverse stakeholders across the ecosystem to collaborate on HTHT, share knowledge and evidence, and forge synergistic partnerships.” Partnerships, as discussed in the session on “Equity and Ethics in AIEd,” rely on the importance of “translators”—people who sit at intersections of various fields, such as those that communicate in the multiple languages of technologists, educators, funders, policymakers, and other stakeholders. Building partnerships is essential, but these partnerships must be engaging, intentional, inclusive, and diverse.
Humans are at the core of the design, development, and delivery of technology. This is a key sentiment that recurred throughout the conference. As technology merely reflects the realities of society, a wide range of speakers, from educators and policymakers to technologists and business leaders, emphasized that human interests must be at the heart of technology. Riiid’s Jim Larimore and Young-Jun Jang reinforced that teachers are a critical aspect of digitalization as “teaching is the catalyst for innovations and insights that have the power to move humanity forward.” Jennifer Turner, a math teacher from the United States, shared her thoughts from the Teachers Global Roundtable: “It’s going to take us educators really weighing in…being willing to interact with people creating AI applications, giving them authentic feedback and helping them make great applications.”
Ethics and equity need to be embedded in the design and development as well as the research and evaluation of AIEd. Several sessions during the Summit reinforced the need for careful understanding of various cultures, communities, and contexts and how they are reflected in technology. Enuma’s Sooinn Lee shared how voice recognition software must take into account that in some real-world contexts the voices of girls are not supported and encouraged; thus, voice recognition technology becomes challenging when the technology cannot adequately capture their voices. Meanwhile, a session on “Frontiers of AIED Research” explored issues surrounding data privacy and algorithms of machine learning. An important question was posed by Korbit’s Julian Serban when modeling adaptive learning systems: “Are we maximizing student learning outcomes or maximizing the (machine’s) accuracy of assessing students’ levels?” Questions like this—as well as possible answers—will continue to be explored in the years to come.
Challenges and the road ahead
High Touch High Tech shows potential as a personalized, adaptive learning approach with the capacity to provide quality learning experiences at scale. This promising sentiment was unanimously reinforced by all the speakers and panelists present at HTHT 2021—regardless of where they are situated in the ecosystem. As highlighted by President Hyungju Park of Ajou University, the HTHT approach serves as a solution for education leaders seeking a learning approach that effectively and efficiently meets the needs of today’s diverse learners. However, the HTHT approach is not without its challenges. Some of these challenges are more obvious – the reluctance of teachers to adopt technology-driven learning approaches in the classroom, for instance, is not new or surprising. So too are the challenges of the infrastructure investments needed to accommodate new technology, and to prevent further exacerbating the digital divide.
In addition to these more obvious challenges, the sessions shed light on lesser-known ones that surfaced in the rollout of HTHT in classrooms. In highlighting the experience of a graduate-level statistics course at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Professor Dongseok Kim shared that professors at times felt restricted in their freedom—at least initially—in the teaching of the course content once the adaptive learning software was incorporated. Teach for All’s Wendy Kopp also underscored how the technology aspect of HTHT is, without doubt, the easier part of the approach to conceive and implement. The challenge lies much more so in the development of teachers who are able to maximize the impact of technology in the classroom and appropriately focus on the High Touch aspect of teaching—of effectively instructing, engaging, and guiding students in fostering their higher-order thinking skills. The roundtable discussion on reducing learning gaps through HTHT underscored precisely this challenge—and urgency—of the efforts needed to ensure that teachers are equipped with the capacity to be more active in their High Touch interactions with students.
The HTHT Summit made evident that while diverse actors share the ultimate goal of improving quality learning opportunities for students, there are still some nuanced differences in perspective depending on where one is situated in the ecosystem. For those in education, the foundational mission of incorporating new and innovative approaches is focused solely on enhancing learning opportunities and outcomes. As a pioneer in implementing HTHT in higher education, Arizona State University President Michael Crow emphasized the motivation for incorporating the approach as a means to enhance students and faculty: for students to realize more positive learning experiences and outcomes, and for faculty to enjoy more flexibility and creativity in their teaching. President of Education International Susan Hopgood also emphasized the importance of asking the right questions as one of the key factors in successfully incorporating technology into the classroom—questions regarding the goals of this approach of how it can enhance teachers’ and students’ experiences with teaching and learning.
On the other hand, Edtech actors focused more on the current education system’s inability to meet the demands of students and employers—and a subsequent need for a transformation of the education system. CEO of MindCET EdTech Innovation Center Avi Warshavsky underscored the need for a new narrative for education infused with entrepreneurial thinking. EdTech startups have a clear role to play in creating this new narrative—and new learning paradigm—that disrupts traditional, outdated, and often ineffective modes of schooling.
Over the course of four days, HTHT 2021 served not only as a springboard for new ideas, reflective questions, and areas for exploration but also as a promising glimpse into the future that lies ahead. As questions are as important as the answers themselves, we can be sure that this conversation will continue. What remains certain, however, is that education must transform for the benefit of all. To a warm response from the audience, Indonesian Minister Nadiem Makarim reminded us all that “the biggest risk in education is staying the same.” So, change, we must.
The full set of recordings from the HTHT 2021 Summit are here, and below is a recap of the sessions:
Day 1
Ban Ki-Moon, the former UN Secretary-General, underscored the transformative power of education, stressing that innovation is critical in education transformation through a combination of technology, human potential, and multi-sectoral collaboration.
UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Education Commission Chair Gordon Brown remarked that the conference is an “important first milestone to advance the HTHT for All Global Consortium” as it seeks to convene diverse stakeholders across the ecosystem to collaborate, share knowledge, and forge partnerships.
Minister of Education of Indonesia Nadiem Makarim has bold plans for transforming education in the largest archipelagic country in three ways: transforming national exams, unbundling higher education by bringing industry and academia closer together, and training a new generation of education leaders.
An impressive gathering of municipal, provincial, and institutional leaders in Korea shared their vision of how AI in education has the potential to propel society forward, from revitalizing cities to become “smart cities of the future” to harnessing HTHT to serve the most marginalized learners.
Implementing HTHT: Lessons and Beyond
Education Commission Asia Chair and Commissioner Ju-Ho Lee moderated the panel discussion on how HTHT might be implemented in various contexts, including the prototype conducted in Vietnam and how it might be contextualized in low-resource communities in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Building a Global EdTech Ecosystem
Organized by MindCET, GESAwards is the world’s largest EdTech startup competition. Regional partners from Brazil, Mexico, and Germany all stressed the importance of leveraging strengths from various stakeholders and the exponential power of well-connected communities and ecosystems.
EdTech companies in Korea are at the frontier of new innovations: i-Scream (“hyper-personalized learning” platform); hunet (corporate training and lifelong learning); Woongjin Thinkbig (smart/AI learning products); and Visang Education (multi-interaction, individualized learning classroom “Future Class”).
Country Session 2: United Arab Emirates
GEMS Education is an advisory and education services for K-12 schools worldwide. In the United Arab Emirates, the EdTech ecosystem is thriving with 174 startups present and with robust government support, allocating 17% of its national budget to education, among the region’s highest percentages. GEMS continues to build on their education portfolio through IP, JV’s and partnerships, and seed funding for the most innovative ideas
Climate Education through HTHT
This session, moderated by the Ban Ki-moon Foundation, explored the potential of a gamified, adaptive learning application that would teach climate education at the right level and engage learners through collaborative learning. Climate leaders discussed the importance of collaboration to mobilize a powerful force for change: infusing philanthropy with financing instruments from development banks, building carbon-neutral institutions, and encouraging “citizen scientists” to hold institutions accountable.
Understanding the Global Learning Crisis
Moderated by the Education Commission Director Liesbet Steer, the multi-sectoral panel illustrated the systemic changes necessary to build back better, including a whole-of-system approach and a nuanced understanding of adaptations necessary at the local and community levels.
The Promise of HTHT
The panel explored the various ways HTHT shows potential, from improving foundational literacy and numeracy to leveraging actionable data and using AI for both cognitive and non-cognitive states to understand the wellbeing of the whole child.
Research and Impact Evaluation on HTHT
This session zoomed in on the promising research and evidence available on adaptive learning, where it is found that adaptive learning technologies have had a statistically significant positive effect on learning outcomes for mathematics and literacy. It is also discovered that there may be an optimal amount of technology for learning, and that more is not necessarily better.
Day 2
A dialogue between Chair of Education Commission Asia Ju-Ho Lee, Chief of Technology and AI in Education at UNESCO Fengchun Miao, and CEO of RiiidYoung-Jun Jang onhow innovations such as HTHT need to be steered with intentionality. Fengchun shared that AI should be within “human control and in service of humanity” while Young-Jun added that “AI is not going to change education without involvement of teachers.”
Jim Larimore, Chief Officer of Equity in Learning at Riiid, reinforced the challenge of equity in learning: systemic inequities in society reflect the inequities in education. He added the central role of teachers: “Teaching is the catalyst for innovations and insights that have the power to move humanity forward.”
AI in Education – A Global Overview
Organized by HolonIQ, this session examines AI through a macro lens, underpinning that AI is the fastest growing advanced tech category for education and is expected to grow from $0.8B in 2018 to $6.1B by 2025. Up until recently, AI applications have been mainly seen as supplementary but recent advancements are now supporting learning primarily through language education, assessment feedback, gesture recognition in online learning, among other essential features of learning.
Frontiers of AIEd Research
This panel of AI technologists discussed a range of topics relating to research and design, such as the need to expand ability for experimental data as well as issues of data privacy and learners’ trust. Thought-provoking questions were posed, such as: Are we making sure adaptive learning systems are maximizing student learning outcomes or are they maximizing the predictive accuracy of students’ levels? The answer to that question has important implications moving forward.
Building Impactful AIEd Products
This panel explored the ways in which AIEd products optimize impact, beginning with the premise that personalized learning is timely at an age of information saturation. Key considerations of product design include the interplay between technical infrastructure and human infrastructure as well as further work on appropriate measurement and assessment, including measurement of meta-cognitive states.
Future of AI-based Assessments
There have been significant advances in assessments because of technology, including adaptive assessments, experimentation in simulated settings, and assessments in new domains like collaborative problem-solving. The panel shared consensus that this AI-driven paradigm shift in assessment is happening without a doubt, influencing every facet from design and development to delivery and scoring.
How to Evaluate AIEd Solutions
This session underscored careful understanding of what AI can and cannot do as well as what we choose to measure. For instance, there is not much distinguishing or much research on two groups of students that may score the same but vary widely in creativity, adaptability, motivation, and other factors that may be impacted by variations in teachers. As we develop measures on “soft” or higher-order components in AI, we may see applications and implications that are invariably beyond AI itself.
AI in Education – Policy & Funding
While AI is starting to be seen as “essential to future economic stability and social sustainability” by an increasing number of governments, key challenges of inequity, discrimination, and predictive inaccuracy remain so long as it relies on existing data that is fraught with human challenges and constraints. The document UNESCO Ai and Education- Guidance for Policymakers covers policy recommendations to mitigate and address such issues.
Equity & Ethics in AIEd
While AI “as powerful opportunity to be a great equalizer”, the biggest risk of AI, the panel argued, is that it may become another factor in widening the digital divide. There needs to be more engagement across various sectors and stakeholders, more diversity and representation, and more intention baked into power structures and the design of AIEd.
Teachers’ Roundtable – Global
Teachers from Korea, United States, Russia, Spain, and Brazil share their aspirations for the future of learning and challenges to innovation across various classroom settings. The role of the teacher is indeed changing: from the outdated notion as the sole bearer of knowledge to facilitator, mentor, and coach. While the role and expectations may be changing, there are persistent challenges that need to be addressed, including full onboarding support to technology, structural constraints such as standardized exams that inhibit teachers’ autonomy, and securing buy-in from students, parents, and school leaders.
Workshop 1: Frontiers of AIEd Research
This roundtable discussion highlighted the voices of teachers in Korea and their perspectives on incorporating AI into the classroom. While the discussion clearly evidenced the potential of AI in improving the reliability of student assessments and feedback, it also shed light on the inevitable challenges of implementation, the mismatch between the national curriculum and EdTech programs, and discrepancies in the interest and competency of teachers. Ultimately, the discussion reiterated the importance of teachers and the human touch component especially when learning is viewed with a long-term and holistic lens. Teachers must, therefore, proactively strive to understand how AI can complement their teaching and improve student learning; more cooperation is also needed across the diverse actors of the ecosystem.
Day 3
Susan Hopgood, President of Education International, emphasized that the success of incorporating technology into the classroom hinges on two main factors: 1) the involvement of the teaching profession and their unions right from the start of the discussion; and 2) asking the right questions regarding the motivation of this approach of how it can enhance teachers’ and students’ experiences with teaching and learning.
Wendy Kopp, CEO and co-founder of Teach for All, shed light on how educational innovation can and should be inspired by teachers. There is a need to proactively recruit and cultivate teachers who are both leaders and innovators; more efforts must also be made to develop teachers’ capacity to maximize the impact of technology and effectively instruct, engage, and guide students in fostering their higher-order thinking skills (High Touch).
Entrepreneurial Thinking Principles and their Potential to Influence Education
The opening session for the third day underscored the need for a new narrative for education infused with entrepreneurial thinking. EdTech startups have a clear role to play in creating this new narrative—and new learning paradigm—that challenges the traditional, outdated, and often ineffective modes of schooling.
The Business Ecosystem of Startups in the Field of Education (Landscape, Trends and Investments)
This session presented a global overview of the trends in EdTech investments across time, regionally, and by sector. The session revealed the impact of COVID-19 on the drastic increase in EdTech funding, as well as heightened government support for stronger digital infrastructure for schools, the interoperability of data to build the evidence base, and the importance of socio-emotional and soft skills (high touch).
Unboxing School Movement: The Post Covid-19 Educational Transformation
This session explored MindCET’s “Unboxing School Movement,” which began in October of 2020, with the mission of harnessing the opportunity created by COVID-19 to transform the educational system. To this end, it provides support to schools and the underlying infrastructure, sheds awareness through events, and promotes collaboration across the relevant actors of the ecosystem.
Entrepreneurship of Teachers and Its Impact on Education
This session introduced the concept of the “teacherpreneur” or teachers as entrepreneurs. Through MindCET’s programs that place teachers at the forefront of innovative and relevant EdTech solutions, a community of innovation is created; change is incited from within—with ripple effects evidenced across schools, communities, and the education system as a whole.
Roundtable: Reducing the Educational Gap Through HTHT
Roundtable participants with ample field experiences in primary and secondary education expressed positive feedback regarding AI-assisted tailored learning in reducing the learning gaps in education. However, they view the changing roles of teachers as the most critical challenge—pointing out the class size reductions, the bureaucratic burden on teachers, and the efforts needed for teachers to be more active in high-touch interactions with students as major priorities.
The country session on Pakistan highlighted the country’s various initiatives implemented in response to COVID-19, illuminating the importance of a strong government response as well as collaborations between diverse actors. Particularly noteworthy are the proactive efforts targeting marginalized communities to address the equity crisis, including those for out-of-school children and deaf students.
The country session on Brazil, organized by the Lemann Foundation, spotlighted three pioneering efforts in EdTech: Letrus, Khan Academy, and Scratch—and the partnerships pursued to ensure scalability and impact. The session concluded by extending an invitation to EdTech innovators to join the recently launched impulsiONar, an initiative jointly led by the Lemann Foundation, IDB Lab, and Imaginable Futures with the mission to find innovative EdTech solutions that can diminish the inequities and learning gaps in Brazil.
A Journey from High Tech Only to High Touch High Tech
This session highlighted the exemplary case of Maths Pathways, a teacher-founded, personalized, technology-infused learning model where teachers’ roles shift from one of being a content expert to a coach for students. Starting as a tech company in 2013—solely emphasizing the High Tech, to becoming the holistic model it is now in 2015—featuring both aspects of High Tech and High Touch, Maths Pathways has been shown to improve learning outcomes as well as behavioral changes in teachers and students.
Developing the Classroom of the Future: SNHU’s Approach to High Touch High Tech
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Labs is the R&D arm of the university which aims to test and develop new learning solutions to be implemented at scale. Prominently evidenced in this session is the motivation of technological enhancements in learning (high tech): to enable more meaningful human interactions between students and instructors (high touch); the approach: to leverage both the learning sciences and user-centered design; for their ultimate mission: to create a future learner-centric ecosystem.
Developing High-Quality Online Programs with Embedded Skills and Industry Credentials
In the session the audience was introduced to Purdue University Global, a personalized, online learning system for working adults. Noteworthy features include the centralized and collaborative process of curriculum development; comprehensive assessments that include professional competencies; and the embedding of industry credentials into their degree programs.
Day 4
A pioneer in implementing HTHT at the higher education level—or the active and adaptive learning approach as it is known at Arizona State University (ASU)—President Michael Crow shared that ASU’s success with HTHT is attributable to their philosophy of “student success” and the data-driven nature of the changes pursued. President Crow also emphasized that higher education institutions must learn to harness the power of technology in new ways to satisfy the two equally important missions of: 1) bringing scale to higher education; and 2) bringing higher or universal education across a person’s entire lifetime.
HTHT in action can be evidenced through Tecnológico de Monterrey’s educational model, Tec21, which features collaborative, project-based learning modalities called “challenges” where students are tasked with solving faculty-designed real-world problems. President David Garza highlighted the following key factors for the successful rollout of the Tec21 model: cultivating a culture of innovation and change; prioritizing the transformation on an institutional level with buy-in from all the leaders of the university; and generating momentum through visible progress and an incremental, organic implementation process.
For President Hyungjoo Park of Ajou University, HTHT serves as the answer to meeting students’ diverse backgrounds and needs. Favorable pilot results have enabled a smooth expansion of the HTHT approach in several of the university’s courses. President Park’s advice for universities hoping to follow in Ajou University’s footsteps is, therefore, to start small and scale smart. Going forth, the HTHT approach will become even more important as the three pillars of higher education: research, education, and industry-academia collaboration become more integrated.
CTLs and Learning Innovation
Edward Maloney and Joshua Kim underscored the key themes from their publications, Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education and The Low-Density University. The session explored the concept of learning innovation as a complex set of dynamics between the classroom experience and the organizational infrastructure where the teaching and learning takes place—and the importance of integrated Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) in facilitating these efforts. Given the impact of COVID-19, learning innovation must necessarily be considered in lower-density contexts, taking into account the pedagogical and structural challenges facing universities and colleges.
Using VR in Biology Courses: A Partnership between Arizona State University and Dreamscape Immersive
Dreamscape Learn is a biology curriculum incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) technology at Arizona State University, created in collaboration with Dreamscape Immersive. Reinforcing the potential of personalized, AI-enhanced adaptive learning, Dreamscape Learn has been shown to improve student learning experiences and outcomes especially in the realm of higher order skills.
Implementing Mass Personalization in College Algebra: An HTHT Success Story
The session demonstrated the positive impact of the HTHT approach in the teaching of algebra at ASU as well as statistics at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. The session also illuminated the challenges including the initial increase in the burden on professors, the necessary revisions to student assessment, and the need for additional infrastructural investments—and the importance of collectively overcoming them to fully leverage the potential of the HTHT approach.
Bridging the Gap between Talent and Opportunity: New Flexible Models of Higher Education Designed to Meet the Demands of the Future
The session highlighted Western Governors University (WGU) as a prime example of a student-centric, competency-based education model that boasts flexibility, personalization, and accessibility. The WGU approach features data-driven quality; relevance of course content, assessments, and credentials aligned to labor market needs; and a disaggregated faculty model, where faculty serve distinct roles to support students.
Roundtable: the Future of Korean Higher Education in an Era of Rapid Change
This roundtable explored the future of education for Korean universities by highlighting the innovations pursued by leading global institutions introduced at the conference. These include the vision of the future classroom featuring low cost, tailor-made and personalized education, as well as flexible degree and non-degree programs in close linkage and collaboration with industries.
Workshop 1: Achieving Higher Education Innovation
In this workshop, the experiences of the HTHT learning approach were shared among several representative participating institutions of the HTHT University Consortium, which currently consists of 27 Korean universities and colleges. As elements of success, the workshop noted the importance of establishing clear and measurable objectives, collaboration among stakeholder groups, as well as the roles of school leadership and faculty.
Workshop 2: Online-Offline Flex Program: A Case Study. Johns Hopkins University–NIH Project Class (Biomedical Technology Transfer and Commercialization)
This session featured a case study of a joint Johns Hopkins University-National Institute of Health (NIH) project class. The session revealed that, for hybrid online-offline blended classes, learning outcomes and student satisfaction depend critically, (among other things), on the professor’s pedagogic skills, class design and sequence, and effective utilization of resources outside the university.
Workshop 3: The Future of Korean Higher Education
The biggest challenge currently facing Korean universities is the decline in the college-age population. As a solution, many universities are expanding their lifelong, cyber or online education programs. Through the sharing of relevant experiences, the session shed light on the importance of data analyses for an enhanced understanding of student needs and better monitoring of student performance.
How to deliver quality education at scale: leveraging technology to maximize student experience and outcome
This session highlighted the innovative ways that IU International University of Applied Sciences emphasize learning that is personalized, flexible, and holistic. In order to ensure quality in the individualized experiences—with diverse learning and assessment formats—the university developed an AI-enhanced service that strives to understand the exact “location” of the students in their academic journey for more personalized and relevant guidance. Another noteworthy perspective is the role of professors not only as facilitators of learning but as creators of content.