Today the teaching pedagogy has changed dramatically. With innovations in technology and increasing student mobility, educational delivery is changing constantly. Many schools have adopted the idea of personalized learning and they examine each student on their cultural background, needs and interests to create a customized educational program to generate interest and maximize outcomes. Similarly, schools, colleges and universities across the country has infinite data on students, teachers and staff which has to be effectively managed and analyzed to uncover insights that can improve operational effectiveness and boost student engagement.
In such a competitive world, education institutes need to develop programs that meet the market need and can enhance learning in numerous ways for students. It is crucial for educational institutes to track and record educational performance, attendance, extra co-curricular and placement records data, along with monitoring the financial planning and budgeting process, and other operational data. This data can be analyzed to discover meaningful patterns, and can be used to make operational decisions such as faculty attrition, popular courses and helping students opt for courses in higher studies, in turn, aiding them in their journey to choose an ideal career path. Here analytics can help personalize the learning process for each student, identify students at risk of leaving the course. It will also improve institute’s efficiency by managing financial performances and allocating resources better.
We are all familiar with the way Flipkart/Amazon suggests us to buy a book based on the last book we purchased from the site. This recommendation is based on the data collected on reading interest of large number of users which works really well in our next shopping experience. Similarly, we can use the same principle of online business to online learning to improve the experience of students. Of course, not all education takes place in the classroom. Thanks to the internet which made remote learning possible for people of all ages whose geographical location, income level, or general lack of free time makes attending traditional educational establishments difficult. With massive open online courses (Moocs), where learning material is available online to all, it becomes easy to observe students’ patterns of behavior through data analytics. Data gathered from millions of people that take the course online can be analyzed to find the stumbling blocks that cause learners to fail.
With hundreds of students in classroom, it is difficult for the teacher to monitor each and every student’s activity. It is hard to identify which student needs an extra helping hand or which individual student’s learning is not progressing as expected. A data based approach facilitates to make assessment of each student and understand their achievements and weaknesses which means more personalized learning can be delivered based on student’s individual interests, prior knowledge, and considering level of academic ability into account. In addition, Big Data helps teachers to assess the effectiveness of different learning tools to develop ‘smart’, interactive learning materials that can make education more enjoyable.
There is tremendous growth opportunity for Big Data & Analytics market in education sector. Big Data makes all this possible if used wisely, it can unlock the door to a more personalized learning experience which will motivate students to study and equip them for life beyond the classroom.
If your business too requires the power of Big Data , then it is worth exploring CIGNEX Datamatics’ unique technology capabilities. Do write in to us to know more about our Big Data services.