What if you, as a teacher, could access a program that collects real-time data on all your students? Have you ever imagined being able to identify which students are struggling the most in a particular subject and, based on that, develop teaching strategies to help them learn more easily? What if that same data showed how many students are truly engaged in your class and which ones are about to fall asleep? What if you could conduct a survey to decide democratically what content should be covered in the next class?

If you think this is a scenario from a school of the future, know that it is, in fact, already a reality today—and one poised for significant growth. In recent years, many institutions have been embracing the trend of using big data to analyze and cross-reference data to map students’ learning and, based on that, design instructional strategies capable of addressing each student’s unique needs, implementing what is known as “personalized learning.”
According to a MarketWatch study, by 2024 the adaptive learning software industry will reach global revenue of $586.7 million, up from $362.9 million in 2019. Just as data has already established itself as the primary driver of new business transformation across various industries, it is also becoming increasingly essential in building a new education system grounded in algorithms.

Make a note of this: effectively managing learning processes is already—and will continue to be—essential for a pedagogy focused on developing the essential skills for 21st-century citizens, who will likely experience the Fifth Industrial Revolution.

We offer a wide range of software that teachers and school administrators can use to analyze a vast array of behavioral data and information related to students’ learning abilities. By understanding students’ socioeconomic and socio-emotional profiles, as well as their “superpowers,” teachers will be able to effectively respect their students’ individuality.

It’s as if every student had a school to call their own. What’s more, it becomes possible to identify the factors driving dropout rates and make data-driven decisions to reverse this trend.

But incorporating data extraction, cross-referencing, and analysis to implement personalized education requires a first and essential step: preparing teachers, who need to know how to access and use big data systems, read and interpret graphs, define what they want to discover, and determine what questions they need to ask.

The APEI-50 Index—Assessment of Innovative Educational Practices(1), a methodology developed by the Crescer Institute to analyze the degree of innovation in Brazilian schools—shows that we are paving the way, but there is still a long journey ahead before we can take full advantage of big data and the opportunities for personalized learning that it offers.

The iAPEI-50 score of 2.24—on a scale of 0 to 4—for the indicator related to extracting data from online systems to assess learning outcomes shows that this aspect remains a major challenge for the educators who responded.

Meanwhile, the indicator that analyzes the use of digital technologies to personalize teaching practices and create a variety of activities to meet students’ different learning styles and needs achieved an iAPEI-50 score of 2.47, which is not very different.

Even in countries where education already incorporates innovation into its teaching strategies, such as the United States, personalized learning is still in its infancy. A survey of 600 American teachers conducted by the Education Week Research Center found that only 4% consistently use adaptive learning software to allow students to learn at their own pace.

Data Turns Students into Protagonists 

This still unclear landscape of digital skills development needs to change. With the digitization and organization of knowledge in databases, schools will be able to break away from traditional teaching models and empower students to take the lead in shaping their own futures.

Applying the concept of big data to education will allow us to move toward adaptive learning—tailored to each student—that can engage and involve them, understand what and how they learn most easily, identify their difficulties, and determine the next topics to be studied, all to ensure their progress aligns with their individual needs and characteristics.

Acting as mentors, teachers will inspire and guide students on the best path to follow on their journey of learning; they will track which texts students have read, which videos they have watched, which assignments came most easily to them, and which ones they need to review. And they will be able to determine which teaching methodology fosters the greatest engagement and yields the best results based on each student’s abilities.

With the adoption of technology that cross-references structured data with multimedia content, students will no longer attend the same classes, taught at the same time and using the same teaching methods by a teacher standing on a pedestal, immune to any interaction with their students. This is the school of the present with an eye toward the future: the school that understands and respects each individual’s learning pace.
What about you? Are you ready to transform your school using Big Data?

(1) The iAPEI-50 (APEI-50 Index) provides a detailed overview of the Brazilian education system through 50 indicators that make it possible to assess the extent to which teachers have been innovating in their teaching practices, as well as to identify areas for improvement in the use of educational technologies. It uses scores ranging from 0 to 4, corresponding to the categories Emerging, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, on an ascending scale of technology adoption by teachers. We invite you to read the report, which includes some insights from the first year of this assessment. It is worth noting that the APEI50 assessment is online and free, and should be completed by teachers currently in the classroom as a means of self-reflection on their practice.