5.8 Assignment Critical Reflection Journal – Blog

Technology and Data in Education

What is new to my thinking or learning this past week?

Digital systems worldwide generate a staggering 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day.  Digital technologies have advanced more rapidly than any innovation in our history, reaching over half of the developing world’s population in only two decades and transforming societies.  The recent COVID-19 Pandemic has further institutionalized the applications of digital technologies in education. These digital technologies have made a paradigm shift in the entire education system.  Technological improvements in education have made life easier for students. Instead of pen and paper, students use various software and tools to create presentations and projects.

While there are many benefits to digital systems, a critical use of digital systems or cloud technology for education is that it allows institutions to retain full ownership of their student data and receive expert support from partner technology companies on integrating security protocols and creating governing policies around that data. 

Data is a powerful tool to strengthen academic outcomes for all students—especially underserved students. Using data tells us whether certain groups of students have been disproportionately tracked into lower-level classes or special education and whether they are proportionately represented in college-prep classes, honors or advanced placement courses, and other academic enrichment programs. Data disaggregated by factors such as race/ethnicity, English proficiency, income level, and disability status can lead to policies and practices designed to reduce dropout rates and improve the quality of instruction for underserved students.

Comparative data studies allow schools, districts, and states to share best practices based on hard evidence. Data use informs teacher preparation and training needs, supports revised instructional practices to improve student performance, and measures the effectiveness of ongoing academic and social support programs. Greater reliance on data has led some teachers to be more accountable to one another through collaborative school improvement work and reflective practice. Importantly, data have been used to challenge untested assumptions and beliefs about some students’ inherent abilities.

Data on student achievement provides critical feedback to community stakeholders, parents, students, and teachers. Some schools and districts have a growing impetus for creating longitudinal student record data systems as repositories of individual student histories. This data can improve curricular alignment and student transitions throughout the P-16 pipeline by identifying essential variables impacting students’ academic progress at critical points. Such data systems can also be rich informational tools to aggregate individual records for national, state, and district analysis to inform policy, planning, and resource allocation.

How has this new information challenged me? How has this stretched my professional growth and development?  What are the implications of this week’s learning on my professional practice?

 Technological advances have allowed schools to use comparative data studies allowing schools, districts, and states to share best practices based on hard evidence. Data use informs teacher preparation and training needs, supports revised instructional practices to improve student performance, and measures the effectiveness of ongoing academic and social support programs. Greater reliance on data has led some teachers to be more accountable to one another through collaborative school improvement work and reflective practice. Importantly, data have been used to challenge untested assumptions and beliefs about some students’ inherent abilities. 

Although many national, state, district, and school leaders have increasingly come to recognize the value of using evidence-based data to accelerate progress in closing our nation’s persistent achievement gap, some significant obstacles remaining include the use of data as a mechanism for criticism and blame, rather than a constructive strategy for school/program improvement; lack of professional development or technical assistance for school/program leaders and practitioners to translate multiple measures and multiple levels of student achievement data into a  realistic action plan for improvement; insufficient capacity to develop evaluation strategies that appropriately connect and measure the effectiveness of action plans; and limited typical planning time for teachers/  program staff to work collaboratively in data teams. 

Continued advances in technology have expanded the use of data to improve learning.  Data helps us personalize and adapt experiences to our individual needs in almost all aspects of our daily lives. However, much work remains to realize the full potential of using assessment data to improve learning. One recent study of teacher perceptions of the use of data revealed a range of frustrations with many current implementations. These frustrations include being overwhelmed with large amounts of data from disparate sources, incompatibility of data systems and tools that make data analysis unnecessarily time-consuming, inconsistency in the detail and quality of data, and delays in accessing data to modify instruction.  As an educator, it is essential to understand how to interpret and then use data and technology to improve classroom outcomes. 

Technology and data can help us imagine and redefine education in various ways. Using these tools, teachers can provide unobtrusive measurements for learners using technology to conduct experiments using mobile devices and manipulate simulation parameters. Problems can be situated in real-world environments, where students perform tasks or include multi-stage scenarios that simulate authentic, progressive engagement with the subject matter. Teachers can access information on student progress and learning throughout the school day, which allows them to adapt instruction to personalize learning or intervene to address learning shortfalls.

How can these new learnings be used to impact my personal faith journey and my impact for the Kingdom?

Though data and scripture tell us a story, we often try to manipulate them to tell the story we want to tell.  In the case of scripture, we often choose which verses we want to follow to fit our situation best and that we are most comfortable with.  Similarly, Richard Stearns, in his book “The Hole in Our Gospel,” talks about how often we often follow the scriptures we want to follow and disregard the ones we don’t.  He says we must embrace the whole gospel, not just the parts we agree with.  Likewise, when we look at data, we must consider all the data, not just the details we agree with or that tell the story or outcome we hope for.  Ultimately, how we use our data, knowledge, and understanding of scripture to advance the Kingdom of God will be up to us.  Personally, I believe knowledge is power, and if I am to live out The Great Commission daily, I need to use the knowledge and data I have to win souls for Christ.