After confessing about health conditions of people based on real time analytics and predicting the winning chances of a player in a match among others, Big Data is now on its way to revolutionize the education sector.
Take a moment to think about it. A digitally connected education system where teachers analyze the answer sheets to know why some of them have scored less than expected and get accurate reports on which concepts they were not able to grasp.
The momentum of online classes also called “e-Tutorials” is increasing rapidly. This is where Big Data can shine, if the experts are to be believed. According to a recent article by the Brookings Institution, public demand for more evidence-based impact of programs and use of analytical capabilities to utilize the data in the best ways possible will drive the growing adoption of Big Data to empower schools in making data-driven decisions.
There are a multitude of ways to use Big Data in the education system. Big data is revolutionizing the entire K-12 education system. Case in point- when students change schools, it becomes difficult for new teachers to understand the aptitude levels of students for specific subjects for quite some time. But, thanks to Big Data, common core standards (CCS) makes data interchangeable across schools and universities. It’s even helping schools which are in the process of implementing CCS to know the academic requirements of students on the basis of informational databases. Since CCS is trying to change academic requirements, it’s important to know the intellectual level of students or if they’re ready for a change in their institution or not.
Imagine classrooms fitted with sensors and cameras to capture facial expressions and social interaction of students. Or a system where the time period of completing graduation wouldn’t depend on university guidelines but on the performance of a student. Yes, you got it right.
In the Big Data driven model, performance of students and the time taken by them to complete a particular assignment would be taken into consideration to give them the opportunity to graduate faster, resulting in more flexibility in the ways of working and delivering quality education to achieve better outcomes. An education startup, AltSchool, works on observation technologies by monitoring the students through audio recorders, video cameras, motion-tracking and facial and speech recognition software. According to Education Week’s new special report on fresh approaches to personalized learning, ‘AltSchool’s commitment to Big Data means that Stream (it’s flagship product and its other tools) is evolving almost real-time, in direct response to the wishes and experiences of the teachers and parents who are actually using it.’
Chicago based education startup ThinkCERCA offers an online platform for students to advance their skills. After quantifying human behavior that surrounds the back and forth of reading and writing, these analytics can provide educators with the right methods of classroom teaching and a new understanding of posing the right questions.
To actually revolutionize the education system, experts in the arena of Big Data will be in high demand. Because, anyone who has worked with Big Data analytics knows the value of working in tandem with technological advances. By advancing career in the chosen field, Big Data Certifications showcase the responsible and reliable nature of the candidate. Academicians today are unsurprisingly looking for ways to get certified in order to unlock the full potential of Big Data analytics in education system.
Big data could also be leveraged to revamp the already existing education system in order to enable a creativity and problem solving approach, not just for the students but for parents and teachers as well.
