With the arrival of the new school year, students have ushered in a fresh start. Against the backdrop of rapid technological development and the ever-changing times, educational resources are constantly innovating and enriching, bringing students a more diverse and personalized learning experience.

As an important participant in the education industry, Xueersi has been committed to deeply integrating advanced technology with education to promote innovation and development in the education industry. Recently, Zhao Puzheng, head of Xueersi Learning Machine, gave an interview to Xinhua, sharing in depth the exploration and practice of Xueersi in the integration of artificial intelligence and education, and how this integration promotes the development of new productive forces.

The following is the transcript of the interview:

Xinhua News Agency:  In your observation, what changes have occurred in our educational concepts and learning resources in recent years?

Zhao Puzheng: With the implementation of the new curriculum standards and the development of technology, significant changes have taken place in children's learning resources, content, and learning methods.

First, in terms of the learning content itself, the educational goals have shifted to focus more on cultural literacy, situational application, and the cultivation of comprehensive quality. This means that children need to access and understand more diverse knowledge, including cultural, historical, and scientific practices, rather than just traditional subject knowledge.

Second, the change in learning methods is also significant. In the past, learning mainly relied on offline classroom teaching; later, with the development of network technology, live online courses became possible; now, with the help of artificial intelligence technology, interactive courses and learning machines have become new forms of learning. These changes make learning more convenient and efficient, while also providing more personalized learning experiences.

Finally, the development of technology has had a profound impact on the presentation of learning content. New learning methods such as high-frequency interaction and AI Q&A allow children to participate more actively in the learning process and engage in deep interaction with the knowledge content. This change not only improves learning effectiveness but also cultivates children's independent learning and problem-solving abilities.

Therefore, education needs to keep pace with the times, continuously update its educational goals and methods to help children better adapt to future challenges. In terms of cultivating children's goals, the previous approach was called "lifelong beneficial ability," and now we advocate for "future-oriented abilities."

Xinhua News Agency: As a seasoned practitioner in the education industry, what major challenges do children of different age groups face in their studies? What specific learning requirements do parents and schools typically make for children of different age groups? How do these requirements affect children's learning habits and habits?

Zhao Puzheng: In the enlightenment stage (3-8 years old), the cultivation of curiosity and interest is crucial. Parents need to actively respond to their children's questions, satisfy their curiosity, and stimulate their learning interests. At this time, parents should avoid excessive pressure to prevent children from developing resistance to learning.

In the later stages of primary school (grades 4-6), as the difficulty of subjects increases, parents need to pay attention to children's learning habits and mastery of basic knowledge. By cultivating good learning habits and solid basic skills in mathematics, language, and reading, children can better cope with subsequent learning challenges.

In the junior high school stage, the establishment of a knowledge system becomes particularly important. Children need to abstract a complete knowledge system from specific knowledge points in order to better understand and apply the knowledge they have learned.

In the high school stage, children's learning goals and directions are more specific, and parents and teachers need to provide more targeted guidance and support based on the child's interests and aspirations.

In the process of educating children, parents should maintain relatively stable and clear expectations and requirements, avoiding swinging between two extremes. At the same time, it is necessary to respect the individual differences of children, teach them in accordance with their aptitude, and create a good environment for their growth.

Xinhua News Agency: In your opinion, what positive impacts do modern technologies like artificial intelligence have on children's learning?

Zhao Puzheng: Questioning as a learning method has been increasingly valued by more and more people. Through questioning, children can not only gain knowledge but also cultivate their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. With the support of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, through interactive Q&A systems, children can raise questions of their own interest anytime and anywhere, enhancing their learning experience and inspiring their thinking, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of knowledge.

In addition to providing children with more abundant and diverse learning resources, modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality are gradually deepening their application in the field of education, with intelligent grading being a crucial breakthrough.

In the past, intelligent grading was mainly limited to objective questions. With the assistance of multi-modal recognition and other technologies, intelligent grading can now cover more subjective types of questions, such as fill-in-the-blank and open-answer questions, as well as various question types like matching, graph-answer questions, and chart problems, as well as Chinese and English composition, improving the efficiency and accuracy of grading.

During this process, intelligent grading is able to collect and analyze a vast amount of data generated by children in the learning process and provide them with timely feedback, allowing them to understand their learning progress and areas that need improvement, which helps to stimulate their learning motivation and allows them to actively participate more in the learning process. Through intelligent grading systems, parents can gain real-time understanding of their child's learning situation and provide targeted study suggestions, providing children with precise derived exercises.

Overall, modern technologies primarily focus on improving learning experience and efficiency. By enhancing the learning experience, children can concentrate more on learning, thereby improving learning efficiency. Through improving learning efficiency, children can grasp more knowledge in a shorter period of time, further enhancing the learning experience, achieving a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.

Xinhua News Agency: As an important participant in the education industry, what specific plans does TAL Education Group have for developing new productive forces? From what aspects does TAL plan to start in order to promote the development of new productive forces?  

Zhao Puzheng: It is an honor for TAL to be part of the national artificial intelligence open platform, the Smart Education Project, and as one of the first batch of national certified holders of educational big models, we deeply understand the mission and responsibility on our shoulders. Regarding the development of new productive forces, TAL has clear plans and a multi-dimensional strategy.

The primary task is to deepen the integration of artificial intelligence and education. We believe that this is the most important direction and entry point at present. The Jiuzhang big model, as the core of the intelligent learning system, is continuously learning and evolving in the fields of grading, automatic problem solving, and automatic teaching. Precise recognition and multi-modal recognition technology are key, and automatic problem solving and teaching are advanced functions that we are striving to tackle.

Taking the development of Xueersi Learning Machine as an example, we have always focused on children's interests, parents' needs, and the application of technology. We are committed to making children learn happily, parents support with peace of mind, and technology drive progress. At the same time, we are also actively responding to the requirements of the new curriculum standards, focusing on the practicality and situational nature of the questions, allowing children to experience more fun in the process of doing exercises and better understand and apply the knowledge they have learned.

Under the learning and practicing section, we have carefully designed synchronous practice and graded practice functions. Synchronized practice closely follows the curriculum, while graded practice optimizes and enhances synchronized practice. For high-frequency scenarios such as mental arithmetic and recitation, through the development of specialized tools, we enable children to complete learning tasks independently, engage in interaction, and conduct targeted exercises for unfamiliar parts.

In addition, we pay special attention to the needs and feedback of parents. Through the parents' platform, parents can understand their child's learning progress and effectiveness in real time, enabling them to provide more appropriate guidance and adjustments. We have also launched the "Learning Plan" feature, making it convenient for parents to establish personalized learning arrangements for their children.

It is gratifying to observe that with the use of learning machines and learning practice machines, we have noticed an increasing proportion of personalized learning plans and self-initiated plans by children. This indicates that children are becoming more actively involved in the learning process, and parents are gradually shifting from being the main drivers to becoming assistants. This transformation not only reduces the burden on parents but also allows children to gain more autonomy and a sense of responsibility in the learning process.

Finally, we also pay special attention to the psychological health of children. Through AI conversation emotion recognition technology, Xueersi Learning Machine provides personalized care and support for children. We believe that this will be an important development trend in education in the future.

This article is reproduced from Xinhua News Agency: https://www.news.cn/tech/20240914/fab7a29ac0614363af97f08988951d24/c.html