interview (June 20, 2014) by Bloomberg TV<\/a>, ventures capitalist Rory Stirling claimed that education will be changed \u201cbeyond recognition\u201d by big data in the next ten years. \u00a0\u00a0Big data can change admissions, budgeting, marketing, student services to ensure that university resources go where they are most needed.<\/p>\nLarge amount of data is now collected with the use of personal technologies. \u00a0\u00a0It is especially popular in electronic governance, online commerce, and banking. \u00a0\u201cBig data\u201d, or data in general, should also be a driver for change in the design of learning experiences. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Data will help us to see patterns which then could lead to instructional improvement or innovations, which in turn will help with the advance of learning.<\/p>\n
With the ubiquitous uses of mobile devices and \u00a0learning management systems, it is now possible to gather student data to enlighten educators about the learning processes as well as the learning outcomes. \u00a0\u00a0Technology enables educators to check such data as access frequency, page view information, click history, and time spent on particular tasks. Such data can be a rich mine for educators to find out how they are doing and where improvements can be made.<\/p>\n
Some data may be simple, yet useful. \u00a0For instance, teachers in online programs have found from user analytics that many adult students with jobs access their courses before 8 o\u2019clock in the morning or after 5 in the afternoon. \u00a0\u00a0With such knowledge, teachers will set the release time to be, say, four in the morning, which would allow early risers extra time to work on their learning tasks. \u00a0\u00a0When group collaborations are involved, \u00a0most people tend to \u201chang out\u201d later in the evening. \u00a0Such data, simple and beautiful, \u00a0would provide opportunity for instructional interventions.<\/p>\n
It is also possible to use technology tools to understand when student access certain information, how they access it, for how long at a time, and how that relates to learning outcomes. \u00a0\u00a0Such data can be used to optimize teaching for future semesters, if not during the rest of the semester.<\/p>\n
Teachers can also use test statistics to find out student familiarity with content. \u00a0If more than half of the class have chosen the wrong answers for a particular question, it would be wise \u00a0to go over certain content again to make sure that all students, or the great majority of them in class, achieve mastery. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Services such as Turnitin have accumulated a large and ever-expanding database of writing, which can be used to check plagiarism and understand other kinds of writing behavior.<\/p>\n
Teachers should also be able to use data to individualize learning to really implement individualized learning. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With rich data from students, and the technology for branched learning, \u00a0it is now possible to custom-make the teaching experience for different students without having to involve teachers in the logistics of managing it, since most branching will be done automatically through selective release mechanisms.<\/p>\n
Data or big data may seem to be realms for information technology professionals, instead of teachers and administrators. \u00a0 \u00a0As a matter of fact, gathering data does not have to be prohibitively “high-tech”. \u00a0Low-tech methods such as using cards marked with A,B,C or D in the classroom, or paper surveys, can also help us gather useful data to understand what is going on in student minds. \u00a0That being said, teachers and administrators should make improvements in their ability to make data-driven decisions instead of shooting in the dark. \u00a0 Educators\u2019 skill portfolio should include the abilities to capture, read, analyze, communicate and utilize data. \u00a0\u00a0In the meantime, it is necessary to develop talent who can bridge the skill gap when deeper data management expertise is required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently gave a talk titled “When Big Data Meets Big Education”, together with Mr. Tu Zipei, California-based author of several best-selling books on Big Data. The following is part of what I shared: In an interview (June 20, 2014) by Bloomberg TV, ventures capitalist Rory Stirling claimed that education will be changed \u201cbeyond recognition\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42260],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-of-learning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3301,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions\/3301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/adamscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}