ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE EDUCATION OF FUTURE ENGINEERS: FOCUS ON THE SUBJECT AREA

Abstract

The article discusses the impact of artificial intelligence on engineering education in the focus of teaching the discipline “Physics”. An attempt has been made to demonstrate the capabilities of artificial intelligence to solve the problems during the development of a physics course in engineering university, related to the low level of mathematical training of junior students, the difficulty of visualizing many abstract physical concepts, and a large volume of practical tasks. The authors proposed the methods of organizing
teacher–student interaction when using artificial intelligence in the course of teaching physics. Based on an online survey of 326 students of 1–2 courses of technical training, conducted on the Yandex Forms platform, the authors revealed the involvement and attitude of students to using artificial intelligence during training. Most students treat artificial intelligence as an additional rather than the main source of learning. According to students, lecturers rarely discuss or formulate policies on the use of artificial intelligence, which is a significant uncertainty. The question of the possibility of officially introducing artificial intelligence into education is of interest to students, but also the need for clear rules and controls. In the course of the study of the opinion of teachers of the disciplines of the natural science cycle, it was revealed that they quite confidently perceive artificial intelligence as a technical assistant. The low level of their trust in artificial intelligence in making pedagogical decisions is due to a lack of practice and a lack of proven models. There is a potential for increased trust and willingness to adopt new approaches with methodological and administrative support. On the other hand, the introduction of artificial intelligence into the educational process poses the risk of losing the ability to think outside the box, becoming dependent, and diminishing the creative qualities of both teachers and students. This path requires rethinking and improving the didactic foundations of disciplines in engineering education.