The Possibilities of using Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Students interacting with universities often leave behind a virtual footprint that is used to gauge how well the university has managed to help and prepare these students. Learning analytics is using this data to analyze, measure, collate data, and more about the progress made by both students and educators. And while this particular faction wasn’t very popular earlier due to the skepticism most feel in welcoming new ideas, universities have begun to realize the great possibilities of using learning analytics in higher education of which some are mentioned below:
Introducing innovations for performance improvement
According to research conducted, learning analytics has helped improve the quality of education by bringing about an improvement in the quality of teaching as well as the performances of students. Analytics can give teachers the right data about how well their current teaching strategies are performing and what can be altered to improve teaching methods, which activities can be added within the curriculum to benefit students, etc., boosting the overall quality of education.
Boosting Student Retention
Student retention is one issue that most universities have been dealing with on a large scale. Among most challenges that educational institutes face every academic year, the greatest by far is ensuring that the students are retained until the end of the academic year, giving them the chance to earn their degree. The use of learning analytics in higher education is what can bring about a change in the student retention .rate, spiking it up higher than ever by figuring out the major reasons why student drop out of college. They can also work toward creating a more positive environment for students of all communities to feel accepted and appreciated. With most students who tend to drop out being from a low income background, colleges and universities can also take measures to ensure that these students are given their rights to education.
Helping Educators Gauge the Progress of Students
When students are less interactive, educators often find it more difficult to gauge the progress of their students. Learning analytics, on the other hand, helps them figure out the progress of the students and reform their teaching methods when necessary to cater best to the students. Preparing the young minds for a better future, educators can also lay an emphasis on courses that offer job skills and more needed to be learnt along with polishing the minds.
Creating More Productive Strategies
One of the greatest advantages to analytics is the opportunity to improve current strategies to ensure that the students are being taught in the most productive manner. From their curriculum to the approach taken by mentors and professors while educating these young minds, everything is taken into consideration with analytics comes into the picture. University learning analytics helps understand how to best creative more productive strategies that benefit students as well as educators.
Using learning analytics in higher education can help universities in all of the above-mentioned factors that form an important basis of improving student-teaching interaction, the quality of education, and bettering the students and university overall.
