If you’re not using learning analytics to assess your education technology product efficacy, now’s the time to get started.

Learning analytics are more than simple data.

They are a compendium of a vast array of info gathered from multiple sources most times throughout learning. Educators rely on this data to better understand the effectiveness of instruction, and so should you.

Learning analytics show educators how to increase learner performance 

Data in the Classroom 

Schools gather a large amount of data on their learners. By using formative assessment tools, educators can determine instructional effectiveness from lesson to lesson. Within minutes of collecting completed learners’ tests, educators can generate a clear picture of learner performance. They can view missed questions, which answer was chosen the most often, and what the responses indicated.

Include with this data collection demographics like socioeconomic status, gender, and participation in school programs. The learning analytics paints a vivid picture of learner, class, grade level, school, and educator performance. 

What Educators Need the Most

Every educator has one goal in mind for the school year: learner success. To help their learners achieve that academic success, educators must determine what learners know and don’t know. They meet their learners at the last place of mastery in the curriculum and then provide focused instruction.

In some classrooms, that can mean as many as thirty different starting points. Every kid works at an individualized pace. There is little likelihood that any two learners are ever at the place at the same time. This makes the educator’s work harder.

Educators need education technology solutions that can help them support their learners. These products must also provide learning analytics that assists in identifying the next course of action for instruction.

How Your Education Technology Product Can Help

Learning analytics assist educators in mapping curriculum and making customized instructional decisions. The best educators focus not only on details but also take the big picture into consideration. 

In addition to collecting data about how learners answer questions, some of the metrics you might measure include:

·      Learner attitude

·      Overall health

·      Location 

·      Classroom size

·      Available role models

·      Time spent 

·      Time of day

·      Learner engagement in lessons

Finally, talk to educators about the kind of data they want to see when making instructional decisions. 

In summary

In the past, educators assigned letter grades for every learner, which was a good enough indicator of academic success.

Today learner achievement is no longer determined that way. Educators must know what has contributed to or detracted from that success. They explore a variety of variables. Tech enables them to gather several data points and look for connections. Learning analytics provide a picture of what’s going on with each kid in the classroom. 

Contemporary teaching requires learning analytics. Education technology companies that want to succeed will have to provide educators with a wide compendium of analytics.