Technology continues to advance the lives of citizens around the world as continual innovation and new ideas help shape day-to-day routines. As more higher education institutions continue to incorporate advanced technology into their curricula, some are using data-driven systems to develop, and sometimes discourage, students.
A recent article by The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New York Times documented schools such as Arizona State University, or ASU, that have begun integrating data-driven technologies into their classrooms and curricula. The university has a degree-monitoring system that overlooks a student’s progress in his or her major.
The school also offers online classes that help students focus on concepts they do not understand, while allowing them to skip over other concepts based on how well they have answered previous questions.
Data-driven technology has helped professors alter their course schedule in order to better suit the needs of their students. This type of software also can predict how well students will do in a class before they even have their first lesson, and helps tailor students’ schedules in a Netflix-esque manner, rating some classes higher than others for students to consider taking based on how well they have done in previous classes.
However, this technology also can discourage students from taking classes unrelated to their major, disallowing them to explore different fields of thought and perhaps find a new subject of interest. Data-driven technology can also force students to switch majors if they are not performing well in prerequisite courses.
Certain aspects of data-driven technologies that universities such as ASU began implementing in their curricula can be beneficial for students.
Courses that provide online work for students with a system that tracks their previous answers to help them with concepts and allow them to skip others could help many concentrate on things they do not yet grasp, instead of forcing them to complete superfluous questions to which they easily already know the answer.
The degree-monitoring system can help younger students choose their first batch of classes based on how well they did in high school and their standardized test scores. It also can help sway older students into taking more beneficial classes that are easier for them to understand based on how well they did in previous classes.
But no student should be forced out of their major because they did poorly in a couple of their required classes. This software could also sway younger students away from taking a series of classes unrelated to their major in order to explore different subjects and different areas of thought.
Students should be able to explore a variety of subjects when first attending college, as many could find they have different interests and want to pursue a different major than they once thought.
Students should not gain too much of a reliance on technology.
Although this software can predict how well a student will do based on his or her past or how similar students have done, each student is still an individual and should make his or her own decisions.
Technology can assist with the decision-making process, but in the end, every student has a responsibility for his or herself.
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