At Education Analytics (EA), we enjoy collaborating with our staff and partner organizations to write blogs that discuss the current challenges and successes in education and data spaces and work at EA.
As we finish out 2023, we look back on the year and highlight our five most popular blogs.
Blog #1: The Path Forward for AI in Education by Andrew Rice
The release of generative AI tools like ChatGPT unleashed innumerable possibilities for new interfaces between computers and human experts (like teachers), where the algorithm is not only reporting information, but also acting like a superpowered assistant. Although AI models have the potential to provide valuable insights at a low-cost to educators, challenges remain when applying these models to the education sector due to privacy concerns and data infrastructure barriers.
In this blog, EA’s CEO Andrew Rice describes the importance of training AI models using specific contextual data and proposes a public-interest driven AI strategy that uses common data surfaces, prioritizes non-commercial infrastructures, and empowers educators to leverage AI tools while safeguarding privacy and avoiding commercial exploitation.
“In education, the data that one would need to train an AI model on contain sensitive private data (PII) that absolutely cannot be released to an external company without extensive protection. Because of that, these models—if we want to use them—must be trained inside of education organizations themselves. We can start with the models and training that already exist in the general open-source field, but we need to host and apply those models to private, secure data systems that protect the privacy of the students and families in the system," CEO Andrew Rice said.
Blog #2: From datasets to data streams: How we can move the education field away from being data rich but information poor by Andrew Rice
At EA, we believe that deep integration of education research and technology has the power to create a new breed of modern, data-centric education organizations capable of achieving breakthrough student outcomes. But this integration requires the field of education research to catch up to the advances of modern technology, and the technology field to apply research-grade thinking to how we build and scale technology. In this blog, we propose that to achieve this integration, we need to replace the concept of a dataset with a data stream, and we examine this challenge from the perspective of education researchers and from technologists.
“By bringing together state-of-the-art data infrastructure, technology, and technical expertise with best-in-class research expertise, we are closing the gap between experts who know how to structure data and experts who know how to make meaning from it. In doing so, we aim to contribute to an educational system that is data rich and information rich, which ultimately is in service of improved outcomes for students," CEO Andrew Rice said.
Blog #3: 10 research questions interoperability will radically transform by Andrew Rice
Data interoperability is poised to radically transform educational research by making work with educational data less costly but more efficient, scalable, and actionable. In this blog, EA’s CEO Andrew Rice highlights 10 questions that researchers could answer more meaningfully, accurately, and quickly when using interoperable data streams. The blog describes how interoperability is on the cusp of revolutionizing educational research by effortlessly bringing together data from different sources, allowing statistical research outputs to live in real time, and turning rigorous research into actionable, operational systems for educators.
“With interoperability, the answers to pressing research questions can create informed instructional, policy, systemic decisions to enable actionable educational changes. How? Interoperability can provide a real-time picture of where students, teachers, and schools are at any given point, so that decision makers are well-positioned to make changes in strategies, practices, and policies," CEO Andrew Rice said.
Blog #4: Introducing Podium, an Ed-Fi enabled set of common dashboards to support school and district decision making by Joshua Terchek
The amount of data generated by schools and school districts continues to grow and it is a challenge to bring together all those data in a manner that informs timely action. Our latest product, Podium, empowers schools and school districts with actionable data to help better serve students, families, and staff. In this blog, we describe how Podium helps to deliver the right data at the right time.
Questions that can be asked and answered by Podium
“Podium is Education Analytics’ set of standard visualizations that makes using data generated by schools and school districts easier. Podium is a catalyst for change, allowing districts to focus on solutions to their challenges rather than spending time determining how to wrangle the data needed to answer pressing questions. Podium empowers content area experts with actionable data to help better serve students, families, and staff," Senior Data Strategist Joshua Terchek said.
Blog #5: What does it take to create an equity focused system of school accountability? by Tracy Diel
In pursuit of our mission to use data and evidence to help close opportunity gaps for the most vulnerable and historically marginalized students, EA applied for and received a research grant from the K12 Research for Equity Hub to explore how accountability systems can better promote equity in schools and districts. In this blog, we examine the benefits and challenges of bringing together our knowledge of predictive analytics and early warning systems to transform these accountability systems into transformational data systems for school improvement.
“Critical to the goal of redesigning an accountability system to better promote equity among historically marginalized communities is involving these communities in the process. EA is partnering with the Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) at Loyola Marymount University to gather input from parents and educators with the goal of having community engagement contribute to more equitable and responsive measures that reflect the values of these communicates for their students and children. Such a system could be used by parents and educators to inform their decisions at all points in students’ high school careers," Director of Research Tracy Diel said.
This year’s blogs came from the dedication and creativity of our talented staff and partner organizations. The unique perspective of each author helped our blogs to be timely, engaging and forward-thinking for our readers. 2023 brought EA new experiences, products, challenges, and successes, and we look forward to what 2024 holds.