Giving Compass' Take:

• The author describes three trends in education data: interoperability, meta-analysis of usage for optimization and continuous improvement/formative practice. 

• What insight will these trends provide educators and edtech developers toward improving educational practices? 

• Read about how trends in technology will impact education. 

Education data (eddata), whether through the facilitation of measurement for personalization, the optimization of budget planning, or efforts to ensure equitable access to strong outcomes, has the potential to be a powerful tool for improving learning for more students. Unfortunately, many would say that it is currently not being used to its full potential, for a number of reasons–but there are a number of promising trends that provide a reason for hope.

The aspect of eddata that gets the most headlines today is privacy and security. This is an undercurrent throughout the field (as it should be), including the three trends highlighted below.

  1.  Interoperability This shouldn’t be surprising, as it arguably has the greatest effect on actual data usage. Administrators often want to see student data from various tools compiled into one dashboard. Teachers want to avoid manually entering student data into several systems when getting started with a new tool and spend less time interpreting data in multiple forms.
  2. Meta-Analysis of Usage for Optimization A second trend gaining steam is the meta-analysis of the usage of edtech tools. One organization facilitating access to this practice is LearnPlatform. LearnPlatform is an EdTech management and rapid cycle evaluation tool that organizes and streamlines the process of analyzing the impact of various tools and teaching practices.
  3. Continuous Improvement/Formative Practice We’ve been learning a lot from the How I Know initiative, an effort to discover and share out best practices around formative assessment sponsored by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. At the heart of this is the idea of shifting from summative, end-of-quarter/semester/year feedback to more day-by-day, growth-oriented feedback and mindset changes.

Read the full article about education data by Erik Day at Getting Smart