THE TIMES OF INDIA, RANCHI
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2024
Students, it's time
to say Al AI,sir
Albots are here to make learning easier. These virtual tutors are
interactive- instead of giving one-size-fits-all answers, they toss
concepts back and forth till the user grasps atopic. And they do it
in afriendly, conversational way with dollops of encouragement
Kritla Sharma @timesgroup.com
uilding rapport was easy The
tutor appeared friendly and
non-judgmental. When I was
15, this would have immedi
ately reassured me, for Igrew
up afraid to ask 'silly' ques
tions and give 'stupid' answers.
Now, confronted with a tutor after 20
years, those memories came flooding
back. So, when I was asked to pick a sub
ject as a conversation starter, I fell into
my safe node "English grammar"Isaid.
We dived right into junior school and
picked clause and sub clause as our ice
breaker. In the lessonthat followed-en
couraged by the tutor's willingness to
humour me -lvolunteered answers a
few tirmes. We completed a primer quick
ly with ice cream examples, just as Ihad
demanded.
Learn Bot You Want
The tutor- three throbbing dots on my
laptop screen -was an AI bot that I was
testing. Called Khan1migo, it's been
launched by Khan Academy in the US
and will nake its way to India soon. I
spenta week interacting with Khanmigo
on maths, physics, chemistry English.
geography and history at junior- and
senior-school levels. Meanwhile, Indian
companies like ZuAl and ByteLearn
have alreadylaunched Al-powered learn
ing tools. So, the tutoring landscape
seems on the brink of a big change. A
personal tutor will no longer be limited
toa subject expert parents hir, and these
interactive bots will be accessible any
where, anytime
Doesn't Throw Chalks
A tutor's glaru, frwn ora pat on the back
all havea role in Jearning. And hunan
tutors are unpredictable - an amiable
tutor could be in a fou!
mood- but AI tutors
are not.They don't
run out of pa
tience, and use
positive rein
forcements.
When I said
while trying out
a maths lesson
that I was scared
of coordinate ge
ometry, Khanmigo
told me "It's okay to feel
abit scared when facing
something new. Butremember,
every expert was once a beginner:"
It responds to correct answers with
"fantastic" and "bravo". Wrong an
swers don't earn a reprimand. Khan
migo's typical response is "let's try this
another way", though during a long
session on maths, an egregious
rew a "Hmm, interesting
dre annroach
It coaxes you to solve a problem. It
doesn't feel:1sleepy or hungry and has
nowhere else to be, so it'll stick with
you as long as you want it to.
Football &ice Cream Hooks
Khan1migo makes topical references, like
drawing a line from Magna Carta to hu
man rights and democracy itself, and
also picks up your interests. I made a
football reference during my grammar
session on clause and sub clause, which
it circled back to during a physics lesson
on torque. "You know when a player
kicks the ball at an angle and it spins in
the air? That's torque in action! The
player's foot is applying a force to the
ball, and because the force isn't applied
directly to the centre of the bal., it causes
the ball to spin. That spinning motion?
That's torque!" Eventually we got to
World Cup and Roberto Carios.
TIMES SPecial
How about
atutor who..
never Scolds
never tires
never judges
My ice cream reference also stayed gone down the pop culture rabbit hole
with Khanmigo in chemistry When I to "The Beatles', but it guided the dis
asked it to explain covalent bonds, this cussion back to split ínfinitives.
is how the session started: "Imagine you
and a friend have ice cream cones. You
each have one scoop, but you both want
two. What can you do? You could share!
In a simiüar way, atoms can share elec
trons to get what they want. This sharing
is called a covalent bond."
It stuck to ice cream while going on
to explain the difference between cova
lent and íonic bonds. "In an ionic bond,
one atom gives an electron to another.
It's like if you had an ice cream and
gave it to a friend who didn't have any."
said the tutor.
On,
coordinate
havinggtrouble
to
t
n
striigging with totrdinate geometr
indeed. Cannyougeometryl
A
fascinating toplc
share specifc pr obien
with? Or
a
reate a practice wouldforyou like me
through together? problem us to work
youre
Ijustcat grarp eoordinate geoinetry
Ah, t seel Let's
breaik it don a bit.
Coordnate
Seometryis all about polnts ines, and
on a grid. shapes
i's file a
marks the spot! treasure map, where X
Let's start with a
point at (3, 2) on aslnple
What's the 3 and
question. if Ihave a
grid, what does thutmean?
what's the 22
CAn yau esylain
thsin ssinrler wsy
Sunita Krishnan, a science
teacher based in Hyderabad, re
viewed Khanmigo's chemistry
and physics lessons. "The ex
amples given by the Al will
make it simple for students
to learn difficult con
cepts,"shesaid. Teach
ers can also learn from
it and modify their
teaching methods,
she added.
Not Afraid To Digress
In English gram
mar, after our clause
and sub clause les
son, I asked Khan
migo for a discus
sion on split infini
tives, which are
handy tools for effect
even if gram mar
purists frown on
them. The tutor was
on the button, start
ing with the 'Star
Trek' line 'to boldly
1Hustratore A1
go... Soon, we had
Inext tried out the social
science section, asking Khan
migo for a practíce problem
in history "Can you name the
document that was signed in
1215 and is considered one of
the most important legal
documents in the history of
democracy" it asked.
This began a discussion on
Magna Carta, which it ex
plained thus: "It's considered
one of the most important
legal documents in the histo
ry of democracy because it established
the principle that everyone, including
the king. was subject to the aw." When
Iasked it for anoverview of the implica
tions of Magna Carta, it described it as
the document that seeded the idea of
constitutional democracy itself.
Don't Ask It To Draw
So, is there anything that the Al tutor
doesn't know or can't do? It does carry
a disclaimer that it can make mistakes.
Iencounterednoneduring the trial, but
Idid come across a limitation during a
geometry lesson. When I asked it to
draw a square for me, Khanmigo said.,
"Asa text-based AI, I can't draw pictures.
However, Ican explain it in a way that
might heip you visualise it. Imagine a
square. All its sides are equal, right?
Now, if each side is 5 units long. how
would you calculate the area? What's
the formula for the area of a square?"
Prakrat Sharma, who teaches maths
to classes y-VIII at a CBSE school in
Noida found the lack of visual aid in
geometry lessons a hurdle to learning.
"When we teach geometry to students
in the classroom, drawing shapes gives
a lot more perspective. For junior class
es, we also use 3D replicas, something
that's missing with the AI," he said.
Helps Teachers Too
Khanmigo has aseparate teacher mode
that does the time-consuming job of
drawing up lesson plans for them. Kris
ten DiCerbo, chief learning officer at
Khan Academy said the teacher mode is
popular in the US. Some teachers already
useopen-source AIlike ChatGPTfor this,
but the plans aften don't fit in the Indian
context. Aslesha Phandse, a 60-year old
schoolteacher in Pune, said AI has made
her life casier but she would prefer "'a
more accurate version, if available".
Cheaper Than Human Tutors
Khanmigo is expected to launch in India
in the next few weeks. It costs $4 a month
in the US, and even at this price (Rs 330)
it would be affordable as private tutors
in major cities charge Rs 500-2
1our, depending on gualitcation .sub
ject and student grade. A 2021 Global
Market Insights report on private
tutors said tutoring in India was a
S90 billion market in 2020.
Santosh Ahlawat, who has been
teaching high-school maths in In
dore fora decade, however, said.,
D No AI an do what human tutors
do". He added that his students
TO see 0ur
full learning have a "persona! bond" with him.
journey via Kalpana Gosavi, a Mumbai-based
ice-cream, tutor, had a different concern:
Messi and "Rcadily available information can
The Beatles, make students lazy and compro
Scan here mise their comprehension ability"