The American private school network Alpha School is changing the game. Instead of the traditional six hours of classes, students only need two hours a day with an AI system that adapts the pace and difficulty to each individual. The results are staggering, with students ranking in the top 2 percent of national tests and graduates heading to prestigious universities, including Stanford and Vanderbilt.

Alpha School refers to its model as "2-Hour Learning". Within two hours, students will go through academic exercises in math, science, reading, and language arts. The software gives them assignments based on their current level of proficiency and only moves them forward when they demonstrate full mastery of the material. The school deliberately does not use chatbots to prevent cheating. Rather, the system is a sophisticated platform resembling a "turbo-checklist" with a built-in algorithm for repeating the material at specific intervals. In addition to results, it also monitors students' concentration and evaluates whether they are wasting time aimlessly clicking or guessing answers.

What they do after school

The rest of the day is spent in activities focused on teamwork and personal development - from sports and cooking to project work. In one case, they even built a working food truck together. The school says it is these activities that reinforce the skills that conventional teaching cannot provide.

Key elements of the Alpha School model:

  • two hours per day focused on academic subjects
  • AI that determines the pace and difficulty of learning
  • tracking concentration and time lost through inactivity
  • afternoon block dedicated to projects, sports and cooperation

The results so far speak clearly. Alpha School students are achieving top scores on the AP, MAP, and SAT tests, and eleven of the first graduating class of twelve have earned spots at prestigious universities. The network plans to open branches in ten more U.S. cities in the next year.

But not everyone is enthusiastic. School boards in California, Pennsylvania and Utah rejected applications for charter school status from sister project Unbound Academy because it did not meet the required standards. Moreover, critics point out that the effectiveness of the two-hour model has not yet been confirmed by independent studies.

Alpha School is not the only experiment with AI in education. In Miami-Dade, Florida, they have deployed chatbots in schools and trained over a thousand teachers. In both New Jersey and Silicon Valley, they are testing Khanmigo, Khan Academy's GPT-4-based AI tutor that answers students with questions to encourage critical thinking. Kira Learning, in turn, is working on using AI for lesson planning, assessment, and support for weaker students, while the American Federation of Teachers is building a national AI training center.

Artificial intelligence is thus entering education with huge potential. Alpha School shows that it can fundamentally reduce the time needed to acquire knowledge and free up space for personal development, collaboration and creative activities. It is not yet clear whether this model will take off on a large scale, but the debate about the future of school will never be the same.

The Batch - DeepLearning.Ai by Andrew Ng / gnews.cz - GH