Data Analysis in the Classroom

Technology is obviously an important aspect of the 21st century classroom. Not only are we using technology in instruction, but we use it to analyze data surrounding the classroom. There is a constant drive to use data to help close achievement gaps in education. While schools and districts are still searching for the data analysis program that will work effectively for them, we are neglecting the benefits of data analysis programs in other fields like medicine and finance. These programs do not work effectively because education often takes these programs and tries to use them, but does not spend the time to adapt the programs for educational purposes.

I read the article “11 Ways to Make Data Analytics Work for K-12″ and from it I realized a few things that would benefit education if implemented. There is so much data that is collected throughout the school year and over the school years on each and every student who walks the schools halls. All that data is archived somewhere and probably never touched again. If we changed this fact, and routinely looked at and analyzed the data collected over the years we could find patterns within the data that could aid major change within the district to better benefit students needs.

This article pointed out another major flaw in the way the K-12 system manages data, once data is compiled teachers do not have immediate access to it. There are times where immediate access to data would be nice. Mainly in the area of test scores. Often there are months between the administration date and the time you can access the data. In that time things may have changed or you could have used those scores in some way. Immediate or quick access to data would be extremely convenient!

This article provides several other ways to make data analysis work in the K-12 system, but these are the two that really stood out to me. If these changes were made there would be several positive effects within the school system.