Imagine an ordinary language class in high school. Samantha is one of the 25 students sitting in that classroom and struggling with the French language.
After a couple of classes, the teacher conducts a quiz on French grammar rules. The quiz shows that Samantha is proficient in verb conjugation but facing problems when dealing with adjectives.
Since the French class has 25 other students, the teacher doesn’t have the ability to look after each student. He is unable to see what specific problems Samantha faces when studying French. This means that he can’t help her to overcome those problems and achieve good results on her exams.
This is not an uncommon situation in our educational system. Just take a look at the statistics. According to the CreditDonkey, 57% of students enrolled in college have not graduated after six years. Of that 57%, 33% of them drop out entirely.
And it’s no better when it comes to learning difficulties that students face throughout the schooling. One website that deals with learning disabilities say that only 12% to 26% of high school students with learning disabilities got average or above-average scores on math and reading assessments.
How did we get here and what is wrong with our educational system?
For starters, our current educational system is built for a different era and for people who lived their lives completely different than we do.
Most lessons and lectures are not customized with our life context. Teachers are using the same way of teaching for every person. And guess what? One size doesn’t fit all.
Now, the question is, can we use big data to improve education and to personalize it for every student?
The answer is ” yes, we can. Let me show you how.
In our digital world, data are gathered from every sector. When you’re using your mobile or laptop, data about you, your behavior, preferences, and skills are gathered.
Let’s take open online courses as an example. When you’re going through some of the courses on popular e-learning platforms such as Coursera, edx, or Free Code Camp, you build your own learning path and preferences.
Like you, millions of other people around the world are learning through online courses. All this information is gathering data. This data can be used for the improvement of online courses. They can become more personalized, and they can fix things that are not working out well.
But there is more to that.
Software-based learning tools are used daily in education: colleges, universities, high schools. This means an explosion of data that can be used to improve educational success.
And now, let’s take a look at some ways in how we can apply big data analytics on education:
Using big data analytics, teachers can monitor and measure how well students understand the material
Plus, they can adjust their teaching style to students‘ learning styles.
This is exactly what Arizona State University did. They started using big data analytics (BDA) to customize their learning process and to create individual profiles for each student. They wanted to spend more time supporting students individually and less time on generalized lecturing.
The result was excellent ” ASU reduced the number of students dropping out by 50% and increased passing rates by 10%.
BDA can personalize the learning experience
People are individuals with different learning styles and different levels of knowledge and abilities. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other one. Using data about each individual means that specific content for specific needs can be delivered.
A good example of this is Purdue University. PU developed a system called Course Signals. This system helps with detecting academic and behavioral issues among students.
Through data mining, Course Signals can measure the engagement of students, academic preparation and effort levels and create a profile for each student with attention on the risk of failing or dropping out.
According to their website, Course Signals manages to improve student performance, grades, and retention:
As and Bs have increased by as much as 28% in some courses. In most cases, the greatest improvement is seen in students who were initially receiving Cs and Ds in early assignments, and pull up half a letter grade or more to a B or C.
Big data can identify students who need extra attention and help
Georgia State University has been doing exactly this since 2012. The university uses BDA to help the students who might be in danger of dropping out or failing.
Through their program of Student Success initiatives, GSU uses software to point out to an advisor which students need additional help. After that, the advisor reaches out to the student and, together, they work on a solution to a particular problem: additional tutoring, advice about majors, etc.
Since 2012, the university’s data analytics software has mined each student’s records daily. According to GSU’s website, in this way, the university nearly reduces the chance that an individual student in trouble could slip through the cracks.
In our modern world, students are faced with serious academic challenges which are often recognized too late.
Successful use cases of big data in education show us that BDA can be applied not only to online education but also in more traditional learning environments.
Using big data can help educational institutions to detect and correct problems early before it’s too late. That is why many institutions such as colleges and universities are starting to look at big data solutions.
