In the last few years the phrase "data-based decisions" has been famous and has been mentioned in various occasions: speeches, literature, seminars, workshops, etc. In the last few years, many powerful soft-wares that can analyze millions of data in a little time have been developed. Given the technology at our disposal, to make a data-based decisions makes sense. Data analysis helps to identify area of problems and extent of the problems. If you know what the problem is and how big the problem is, you will clearly know your target and you know how much resources you will need to fix these problems. There will be less waste of resources.
Schools seem to struggle to clearly identify where the weakness is in order to improve student achievement. If the problem is not clearly identified, there will definitely be waste of resources by directing their resources to the wrong "problem." So how how does data help to improve student achievement?
At Student Level. This data comes in the form of the number of times the student visited to the portal or how many times does a particular student attempted to access the course or attempted to complete the quiz or test. His online behavior can be reflected by this data of the student. If a teacher has this information at his disposal, he can have some knowledge about the student. If a student is accessing the course many times, or if the student has been attempting to complete the assignment many times, but still struggling in the course, the teacher can provide special instruction to the struggling student. That way the teacher can differentiate his instruction according to the need of each student. The support could be in the form of tutorials, after school programs, etc.
At Teacher Level. This is when teachers assess their own work and the effect of their teaching strategy on their students. Data analytic can provide a teacher how his classes are doing. He/she can identify which class of the same course is doing good and which ones are not doing so well. A teacher can also see the performance of his students for different courses. He can pick the best practice and modify his/her instruction based on this information.
At Course Level. This is to use the data to assess the relevance of the lessons in the course or to assess if some lesson have to be added to the course. It is about reviewing the course and re-design it if necessary.
At Program Level. Effective use of assessment data could lead to intensive review of the curriculum or the program. Based on this data, the administration can make the necessary changes to the program including training teachers on how to use student data to adjust their instruction.
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