From chalkboards to chatbots in Nigeria

7 lessons to pioneer generative AI for education

Key Points:

In 1984, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom demonstrated that students receiving one-on-one tutoring vastly outperformed their peers confined to the traditional classroom setting. Despite these proven benefits, the prohibitive cost of providing individualized attention to every student has remained a significant barrier for most families.

Forty years on, with the rapid advent of generative artificial intelligence, many countries have an opportunity to reach the ideal of one-to-one tutoring. Today, large language models (LLMs) can interact with students personably and adapt to their learning needs.

While recent studies highlight AI's potential to enhance learning outcomes, they often fall short in two key areas. First, they focus predominantly on developed countries. Second, they rely on specialized but unaffordable software. However, unlike traditional AI, which excels at pattern recognition and prediction, generative AI can create new human-like content, opening up broader possibilities for application in education.

Leveraging generative AI in Nigeria

Building on this potential, a recent experiment in Edo State, Nigeria, represents one of the pioneering efforts to leverage free generative AI tools to enhance educational outcomes in a context where it’s most needed.

Over June and July 2024, 800 first-year senior secondary students attended after-school English classes in computer labs twice a week. Each session began with the teacher introducing the week's topic, followed by students interacting with Microsoft Copilot, a generative AI tool powered by ChatGPT, to master the selected topics comprising both grammar and writing tasks. Acting as “orchestra conductors” of the pilot, the teachers guided students in using the LLM, starting each session with a suggested prompt. As the students interacted with the AI, the teachers mentored them, offering guidance and additional prompts. They also led brief reflection exercises at the end of each session.

Note: The video production was directed by Chuka J. Agu.

PIONEER AI Model

Source: From chalkboards to chatbots in Nigeria: 7 lessons to pioneer generative AI for education