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This article originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.
CoSN’s Driving K-12 Innovation initiative recently announced that Analytics & Adaptive Technologies as a Top Tech Enabler (tool) for 2025 and it’s appeared on the list five of the past seven years. The Driving K-12 Innovation Advisory Board defines Analytics & Adaptive Technologies as: these are digital technologies that collect and use data related to teaching and learning. Analytics refers to the process of analyzing data collected about student learning and the opportunity to leverage data to inform instructional decision making.
Adaptive technologies are tools that adapt to the student based on their interactions with the technology. These adaptations could be in the form of suggesting next steps, providing remediation, controlling pacing, or providing feedback based on analysis of the student’s performance.
But what is this topic exactly and why is it important for moving education forward?
During the November 2024 meeting of CoSN’s EdTech Innovation Committee, participants were asked those same questions, and shared their perspectives on what educators should do about the topic. Read on for 10 key takeaways from the discussion.
- How much is too much data? “When I moved to Virginia [from Ireland], what struck me about the U.S. education system was your engagement with data,” said John Heffernan (CEF Professional Development, Ireland). “In Ireland, we don’t use data in the same way. We don’t collect the same amount of data, and I just wonder, is this a U.S.-centric thing that everything has to be measured?
- We need common language and understanding around these terms. During the conversation, there was a need to define terms and shared language. For example, Analytics & Adaptive Technologies or Personalization? Personalized or Individualized Learning? Committee member Ruben Puentedura (Hippasus, Massachusetts) explained that we also need to distinguish between traditional data, like test scores, and the much bigger world of data that “can be used creatively and usefully applied by students and teachers that can include a range of things from students’ interests and type of social networks that exist in a classroom.” Puentedura added: “The data can be used, not just as a question of how to assess something, it can be used to scaffold and underpin what happens in a classroom. AI allows you to take rich worlds of quantitative data and qualitative, narrative data and do qualitative analysis on a scale that you couldn’t do before.”
- Just as EdTech innovators need common terminology, we then need to be able to communicate it with leadership. “As we look at what the messaging should be, how can it be simplified for both school leaders and for teachers in understanding what it is? And then, what workload that we can eliminate from districts from an already full agenda,” asked Andrew Fekete (Community Consolidated School District 93, Illinois). “There’s a lot of resistance in saying that we don’t have time for this conversation. And my pushback is, we don’t have time to not have this conversation.”
- Challenges in data collection and usage.” Right, wrong, or indifferent, we still have significant pockets of school districts that don’t grasp even the basics of data,” said Beverly Knox-Pipes, EdD (Former CTO/Education Consultant, Michigan). “As a result, they are often reactive rather than proactive, failing to plan and strategize effectively for what they truly need. This includes not only setting up and managing their student information systems but also understanding how to gather and use data to drive student achievement—the ultimate purpose of education.”
- The impact of AI and machine learning on educational data. “With the advent of AI and small language models, we’re going to be more and more dependent on our own data internally,” said Pete Just, CETL (Just Strategics, Indiana). “I’ve been talking to a lot of school districts about this as they’re trying to figure it out. But the number one thing is: you have to have good data. So if you’re going to try to make decisions and try to go deep on using an AI tool to help make those decisions. They’re going to be off if your data is not quality.”
- The importance of digital literacy. A high school teacher in Committee member Kathleen Stephany (School District of Holmen, Wisconsin)’s district is piloting a new course called Data Science, which will have a math component, content knowledge, and communication. “The teacher, when she proposed it, talked about how much data is created per minute,” said Stephany. “If you think about Venmo transactions, streaming videos – there’s tons of data. [The course is about] how to use that data and what goes into that.”
- Since the beginning, this topic has been about student agency. “The role of adaptive technology and analytics was to grow student agency in their own learning path, whether it’s mastering outcomes or failing forward. To learn from it and the process,” said Janice Mertes (CDW Education State Level Ambassador). “There is an adult use of the term and a student use of this term, to the point of adding knowledge of data, literacy, and analytics.”
- Analytics & Adaptive Technologies are about teacher agency, too. “We should also be talking about the need for teacher agency at the same place where we need student agency in conversations like these, especially when we’re talking about professional development of staff and being able to choose their pathway and have more choice in the targeted professional learning that we offer. We need ways that allow our educators to follow those paths based on the needs that they’re identifying and thinking about how we design those,” Nick Stoyas (Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205, Illinois).
- Current concerns about data privacy. “I worry about how the data will be used after the student’s assessment. I’m a big believer in analytics and adaptive tech. I think that there’s some definite positives, but I just want to make sure we don’t lose track of that data privacy piece that protects our kids,” Ryan Cox (Osseo Area Schools – District 279, Minnesota).
- The role of vendors when it comes to ethics and transparency in educational technology. A lively discussion arose about the need for vendors to be transparent about how student data is used and assessed, and Puentedura stated that if the vendor cannot share that information, they could not be considered. Many Committee members agreed. “It should be a checkbox, if they’re not transparent in what they’re doing with student data and supporting their privacy, the school should automatically pass and move on,” Emily Marshall (Vail School District, Arizona).
Thanks to all EdTech Innovation Committee members who participated in this essential discussion!
