how teachers use data
The Three Ways Teachers Use Data—and What Technology Needs to Do Better
By Karen Johnson May 17, 2016
After surveying more than 4,650 educators, we learned that teachers are essentially trying to do three things with data—each of which technology can dramatically improve:
1. Assess
2. Analyze
3. Pivot
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What’s At Risk When Schools Focus Too Much on Student Data?
The U.S. Department of Education has increasingly encouraged and funded states to collect and analyze information about students: grades, state test scores, attendance, behavior, lateness, graduation rates and school climate measures like surveys of student engagement.
The argument in favor of all this is that the more we know about how students are doing, the better we can target instruction and other interventions. And sharing that information with parents and the community at large is crucial. It can motivate big changes.
what might be lost when schools focus too much on data. Here are five arguments against the excesses of data-driven instruction.
1) Motivation stereotype threat.
it could create negative feelings about school, threatening students’ sense of belonging, which is key to academic motivation.
2) Helicoptering
Today, parents increasingly are receiving daily text messages with photos and videos from the classroom. A style of overly involved “intrusive parenting” has been associated in studies with increased levels of anxiety and depression when students reach college. “Parent portals as utilized in K-12 education are doing significant harm to student development,” argues college instructor John Warner in a recent piece for Inside Higher Ed.
3) Commercial Monitoring and Marketing
The National Education Policy Center releases annual reports on commercialization and marketing in public schools. In its most recent report in May, researchers there raised concerns about targeted marketing to students using computers for schoolwork and homework. Companies like Google pledge not to track the content of schoolwork for the purposes of advertising. But in reality these boundaries can be a lot more porous. For example, a high school student profiled in the NEPC report often consulted commercial programs like dictionary.com and Sparknotes: “Once when she had been looking at shoes, she mentioned, an ad for shoes appeared in the middle of a Sparknotes chapter summary.”
4) Missing What Data Can’t Capture
Computer systems are most comfortable recording and analyzing quantifiable, structured data. The number of absences in a semester, say; or a three-digit score on a multiple-choice test that can be graded by machine, where every question has just one right answer.
5) Exposing Students’ “Permanent Records”
In the past few years several states have passed laws banning employers from looking at the credit reports of job applicants. Employers want people who are reliable and responsible. But privacy advocates argue that a past medical issue or even a bankruptcy shouldn’t unfairly dun a person who needs a fresh start.
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more on big data in education in this blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=big+data+education