The anlyatics reveals that this particular student has more success with peer tutoring than one-on-one time with a professor. The software then pairs the student with a peer who has a measurably better grasp of the subject matter.
“Leveraging concepts in human motivation, behavioral economics, and machine learning, analytics can humanize and optimize student experiences,” Kil said. “In other words, analytics becomes far more than just a predictive tool.”
Mark Milliron, the former chancellor of Western Governors University-Texas, said data tools in the future will give faculty a better sense of when is the best time to connect with a student.
“Understanding when a student would be particularly receptive to personal outreach, or when the need for personal outreach is crucial, is incredibly useful,” Milliron said. “It’s not just about understanding patterns of performance, but also understanding the best ‘human’ moments to intervene.”
Some of these changes in the faculty job description will be – and are already being – met with understandable skepticism and concern from professors and instructors. MOOCs and other online experiments, like Southern New Hampshire University’s teacher-less College for America, have professors worried that the job isn’t just changing.
It’s being phased out completely.
Driven by changing technology, public pressure, and ballooning costs, there’s a war of pedagogical ideas brewing between faculty and administrators.
By 2023, will there be a clear winner?
The final part of our three-part series examines how administrators will manage the changes to higher education over the next decade — and how their roles, too, will change by 2023.
Follow Jake New on Twitter at @eCN_Jake, and share your predictions for the future with #eCN2023.
- What does higher-ed look like in 2023? - January 5, 2015
- Are ed-tech startups a bubble that’s ready to burst? - January 1, 2015
- Are MOOCs really dead? - August 28, 2014