Educational equity is the measure of fairness and inclusion in academic systems. Today, advancing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) complicate how higher education institutions provide equal learning opportunities for all students.
We are breaking down education equity and AI to help your college or university understand the key challenges and how to ensure these digital tools do not derail your improvement efforts.
Ensuring equity in education is integral to providing every student — no matter their race, socioeconomic standing, or background — has the resources and opportunities to succeed. Equity can help break the cycle of disadvantage for individuals in marginalized and underserved communities.
The rise of artificial intelligence has increased the importance of educational equity. These tools have the potential and power to revolutionize academia by providing more personalized learning experiences, harnessing the power of automation, and complementing advanced learning techniques. However, colleges and universities may exacerbate existing inequalities by using these tools without a strong emphasis on educational equity.
Before establishing policies to support educational equality and AI utilization, your institution must understand how these tools can impact your students.
The following are key ways AI can potentially compromise equity:
Addressing these issues is integral to leveraging the power of AI for student success rather than further deepening existing educational disparities at your institution.
Colleges and universities must take action to support equal and fair opportunities for all students, regardless of their background. Explore different ways your higher education institution can prioritize educational equity in the age of artificial intelligence:
Your higher education institution can effectively support equity by taking steps to address the digital divide. This divide refers to the disparities regarding the technologies and internet connectivity available to each student.
Colleges and universities should invest in solutions to provide each learner with the high-quality devices and solutions they need for success. You may develop computer labs, establish a borrowing system for loaner devices, or extend free Wi-Fi across campus. All of these efforts allow your institutions to provide greater access to AI tools, helping to close the gap.
Another way to ensure your institution is supporting educational equity is by routinely auditing your artificial intelligence solutions. These evaluations will help you identify and counteract bias in the AI algorithm to avoid negatively impacting your students.
Your institution should establish artificial intelligence policies with fairness, ethics, and equality in mind. Creating strict guidelines for AI development and deployment is a great way to mitigate biases before they influence the solution’s outputs. With the right policies and auditing practices, your college or university can improve your AI tools and provide students with technology that truly serves them.
Higher education institutions can boost equity in education by integrating artificial intelligence topics into curriculum development.
AI tools are becoming increasingly popular, so providing additional instruction where possible in different courses can be highly advantageous. You can expose more students to the powers of AI, important ethical implications, and how they can apply these tools to their workload and real life. Taking every opportunity to teach more of your students about the impacts and capabilities of AI will benefit your institution.
In addition to providing students with education on AI tools, your institution can ensure equity by extending these learning opportunities to your faculty. If your staff has a deep understanding of the implications of artificial intelligence and how to capitalize on its capabilities to boost learning outcomes, they will be a greater resource to your students.
Consider hosting mandatory workshops, training sessions, or seminars for your staff. These options will help them become more familiar with how to use AI tools and teach students about them.
Your higher education institution can promote equity by participating in AI research and advocacy. By conducting research, your college or university can:
Encourage discussion and exploration into artificial intelligence tools. Students should understand the potential negative implications of using AI in education. In supporting an open dialogue about AI and education equity, your institution can inspire more students to engage with this technology and find ways to use it fairly and ethically for all.
Watermark helps colleges and universities like yours harness the powers of continuous improvement. We’ve designed each of our solutions to help your institution evolve and deliver the best student experiences possible through strategic and data-backed decision-making.
With Watermark, you get valuable insights into your campus processes, helping you easily identify and address opportunities to boost educational equity. We are here to help you better support each of your students, no matter their background.
Request a demo of Watermark’s higher education software solutions to start improving your institution today.
