by Tony Bates, Online Learning and Distance Ed Resources
Will the mining of the mass of student data lead to pedagogies that will help students understand chemistry, mathematics, or art? Will the mining of data simply be an exercise in petrology, or will it uncover new pedagogies? Audrey Watters cites the online company, Knewton, which claims to provide personalized solutions using their technology to move students through course material “at their own pace.” She points out how Knewton uses PR spin to claim that they offer “adaptive learning” by means of its technology. One of my reasons for wanting to use the P-20 Longitudinal Data System is find out what student data they are using and storing in the data warehouse. No doubt they will include transcript type data such as grades, attendance, behavior, age, etc. And no doubt we will find student test scores accumulated over the years in every subject that was tested. But what kind of data, beyond these, will enable educators to “make better data-driven decision-making,” especially to personalize student learning? Will this data be valuable to the day-to-day teaching of our chemistry, math, or art teacher?
http://www.artofteachingscience.org/the-race-to-top-p-20-data-system-is-it-petrology-or-pedagogy/
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