New Google Cloud Student Success Services help educators scale individualized learning

Education institutions are working harder than ever to provide learning opportunities to the increasing number of students they serve. But gaps still exist in the skills needed by employers once students graduate. A recent McKinsey & Company survey found that 87% of companies reported that they are experiencing skills gaps now or in the coming year. And the impact of the pandemic has only added to the urgency for schools and education technology companies to find new ways to support even more learners.

To help organizations meet these challenges and scale specialized learning across more students globally, we are expanding our portfolio of Student Success Services with a new Google Cloud artificial intelligence powered learning platform, which features the interactive tutor. This platform will provide new ways for educators to share curriculum and will bring more on-demand learning opportunities to students.

An AI-powered learning platform to help scale education

With our new AI-powered learning platform, students can learn in highly individualized ways, and educational institutions can scale their efforts to meet student needs. The platform is a suite of applications and APIs that can be integrated into an institution's existing infrastructure. Educators build competency skills graphs that feed the platform, which then uses AI to auto-generate learning activities for students. Learners can easily access these activities through an app—Google Cloud’s customizable interactive tutor solution for educational institutions.

One of the first institutions to use the learning platform is Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), one of the fastest growing universities in the nation, with more than 3,000 on-campus students and more than 160,000 online. SNHU is constantly innovating to serve the ever-changing needs of its student body and workforce, using new educational approaches and technologies. 

“We are partnering with Google Cloud to build an AI-powered system that supports this new model for learner centricity, with initial emphasis on recognizing who our learners are and what motivates them,” Travis Willard, Chief Product Officer at SNHU, explains. “For example, with this platform, a student can see auto-generated and personalized recommendations for courses based on their prior learning, interests and career goals. We’re excited to explore the additional learning assistance students will get with this new learning platform, from in-course planning to tutoring.” 

To bring our Student Success Services to more institutions and organizations worldwide, we’re also partnering with LearningMate, who is integrating Google’s AI-powered learning platform within its own solutions, including its popular content management solution, Frost. LearningMate will be a key go-to-market partner, helping institutions design, launch, and maintain their own learning infrastructure. With LearningMate’s 20 years of edtech experience and through this new partnership, we’re scaling Google’s Student Success Solutions globally, helping more organizations understand learners’ engagement, performance, and preferences.

“We see a profound shift in education, with new technologies opening up educational opportunities to more people and communities. AI-powered learning solutions will play a key role in this digital transformation, helping institutions, educators, and edtech companies empower students to learn and achieve more,” SVP & Business Unit Head, Higher Education of LearningMate, Nachiket Paratkar, says. “We are especially excited to be working with Google Cloud to offer its to augment students’ learning experience and help institutions to provide personalized learning at scale.” 

An interactive tutor to meet individual needs

Google Cloud’s interactive tutor is a foundational, student-facing app that assists students with learning. The interactive tutor uses APIs to present a chat-based experience for students, incorporating AI-generated learning activities. It provides individualized, scalable guided practice, and coaching for reading comprehension and writing. For example, the interactive tutor can generate targeted questions based on reading materials to help students understand and practice concepts in a way that meets their individualized learning needs. This approach also provides educators with greater bandwidth to work directly with students who require additional hands-on support.  

Walden University was the first institution to work with us and inform the development of these solutions as the university recently launched Julian, its interactive tutor that leverages the Google Cloud learning platform. Steven Tom, Chief Transformation Officer at Walden shared, “The breakthrough cognitive tutor transforms learning and knowledge mastery through the power of AI, enabling a dynamic and engaging nature for instruction. As we continue to develop this tool, it will allow us to provide personalized instruction at scale to meet the needs and busy lives of adult learners.”

The interactive tutor currently offers four types of learning activities that students can choose from: 1) short-answer questions, 2) multiple-choice questions, 3) paraphrasing practice, and 4) guided note-taking, with more expanded learning activity offerings on the way.

Getting started with Google Cloud

To learn more join us at the Government and Education Summit, Nov. 3-4. Register for this free online event and be sure to check out sessions “Increasing Student Success with the Power of AI,” “The Education Innovation Journey,” and “Reimagining the Learning Experience.”  

If you want to talk to an expert, contact our team to learn more.