Due to the advances of modern technology, there has been a great change in the academic landscape. This substantial change has already had a great impact on the overall performance of students due to the more sophisticated approach to learning in general.
Historically speaking, traditional teaching methods had a great deal of disconnect with the way that students learn, which is why so many of them fell behind. Given that the current generation is very digitally oriented, the educational sector has to switch its methods in order to be able to relate to these students who have grown up in the digital age. In this article, we bring you the story of big data and its impact on student performance and learning approaches.
Given the age we live in, it comes as no surprise that various forms of online learning are becoming prevalent in comparison to traditional offline methods. For example, many of the traditional learning mediums are moving entirely online – it is enough to think about physical books and e-books, paper notebooks and tablets, standard classrooms and online courses. In fact, according to arecent studyby the Babson Survey Research Group in 2015, it is likely that every student will be enrolled in at least one distance learning course during their academic careers in the coming years.
For example, in 2015, the percentage of students enrolled in at least one distance course increased 3.9% from the prior year. Due to this transition, there has been a plethora of data generated with the purpose of understanding how students learn. Since the data has been gathered, technological experts have been working in conjunction with educational institutions in order to transform this data into ways to increase the potential for students to be able to learn more in the classroom.Â
Today, educational facilities increasingly utilizetech-based educational solutions, including various online learning platforms. Many of those platforms have a feature that allows them to track information about the learning process of each student. When that information is combined with the general knowledge about students’ behavioral patterns, it is possible to gain valuable insights into ways that students learn.
For example, there is a tool calledEduvantwhich can record information on the ways that students learn. This platform generates data ranging from student performance to warnings about certain student´s slow progress. With its daily information and actionable insights, this is one of the many great tools out there that provides useful findings about students.
By analyzing those findings, educational institutions can decide on which learning approach is the best for each of their students. This will also allow the institution to pick up on different learning styles that tend to vary in correspondence with the subject that is being taught. A viable example of this can be seen when a specific student excels in a self-paced learning technique in a history class, but needs an instructor-led course when studying chemistry.
In the past, educators had to monitor dozens (even hundreds) of students in order to ascertain which of them had difficulties. However, it was often really hard to identify those students that needed additional attention. For example, a low score on an examination was the only way that a teacher could assess the student’s lack of understanding. Today, there´s the data-based approach to help both students and teachers.
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