The Power of Small Data
Greg Thompson · T.H.E. Journal Technological Horizons in Education · 2015
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Security and privacy concerns have made some parents reflexively opposed to any collection of their children's information, but in order to deliver personalized education, districts have to gather and share students' statistics. Here's how the strategic use of can boost teaching and learning. WHEN IT SEEMS LIKE every week brings news of a theft or questionable use of private information, data is in danger of becoming a four-letter word. But if districts want to provide truly personalized education, gathering and sharing certain types of student is absolutely necessary. According to Patricia Cotter, a veteran entrepreneur who recently completed her doctorate in work-based learning at the University of Pennsylvania, Recent technologies like Big Data, the Internet of Things, mobile apps and improved storage have made it possible to acquire, combine, store, analyze, interpret and report findings during any phase of management. Taking a break from the business world, Cotter has recently trained her keen eye on education, where she sees a renaissance in collection. repositories residing in disconnected, fragmented departments with little sharing have now been transformed into centralized, interrelated systems to enable fast and efficient retrieval of interrelated for quick and informed decision-making, she said. Here are some examples of how getting the right information to the right people at the right time can inspire teachers and students to do their best work. Instant Feedback for Students and Parents Classrooms usually have a wide range of academic levels, and nowhere is that more true than combination classes such as the one headed by Lisa Wilson, a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher at Arroyo Seco Elementary School in Livermore, CA. With two grade levels in the same room, Wilson individualizes the mathematics curriculum using TenMarks Math, which allows her to customize assignments for each student. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Students use the TenMarks online tool, which is essentially an interactive workbook. Wilson, a 24-year teaching veteran and technology lead teacher at her school, explained, get percentages and scores on the different standards they work on. She can see which students are not passing a given standard, then I pull those students for intervention that same day. The crucial element of timeliness makes it easier for Wilson to avoid the slow fall through the cracks that affects so many students. They work in the morning, and I check scores at recess, she said. After lunch I know who I need to work with in a small group. It used to be you would only know after you gave the test and you were on to something else, and you would never catch those kids. Since I've been using TenMarks--only since January 2015--the number of my kids failing the math test has gone way down. For intense practice in math facts, Wilson points her students toward XtraMath, a Web program that tracks proficiency in basic facts. For example, if students keep missing 9 times 7 or 6 times 8, they get those every other problem, and if they don't get the answer correct within a few seconds, the program will put the answer in gray scale so students have to type it in and learn it. The program provides instant feedback, and Wilson keeps a close eye on the data, making a point to know where her students are with math facts. SpellingCity and MobyMax help Wilson to track spelling and vocabulary, and to collect the most familiar bits of data: grades. My students take online spelling tests now on SpellingCity, and they wear headphones, said Wilson. can give students different spelling lists, and they do it on Chromebooks. SpellingCity corrects the tests and sends me the scores. School Loop helps tie it all together by allowing Wilson to tell parents how their kids are doing in real time. …