The Datafication of Learning: Data Technologies as Reflection Issue in the System of Education

Abstract

Like other parts of the social system, education is becoming an informationdriven venture: data technologies pervade all levels of the system. This datafication of education seems to take place alongside a general turn to learning that Gert Biesta has called learnification: a progressively singular focus on the manipulable features of individual learning in education. Given rapidly rising levels of datafication, it seems timely to take up Luhmann and Schorr's contention that education entails a technology deficit and discuss datafication as reflection issue in the system of education. Against their argument that human learning is not amenable to a technology, I develop the counter-argument that data technologies are replacing human learning outright with data at the level of organisation. Data thus present a concretely digital form of what Raf Vanderstraeten has called education as an ersatz order. In a data-driven form of organising education, human dimensions of learning become secondary to a systemic dimension: making learning visible as data and so susceptible to databased manipulation. The text treats school-wide positive behaviour support interventions as an evidence-based exemplar of this trend towards datafication in the system of education.

Crowdsourcing the (Un)Textbook: Rethinking and Future Thinking the Role of the Textbook in Open Pedagogy

“…Perlmutter (1997) notes that the textbook "is influenced by a complex amalgam of industrial, commercial, and social domains of control related to the particular qualities and complexities of the targeted audience" (p. 70). Beyond the replication of traditional textbook copyright constraints, the industry trajectory towards platformization and datafication (Prasad et al, 2016;Thoutenhoofd, 2018) points to the potential for an increasingly inaccessible and proprietary future constrained by the evolution of these technologies. Hamilton (2003) argues that textbooks have been used to, "mediate the structure of knowledge on the one hand, and the performance of teaching and learning on the other....at the same time, however, textbooks contain a deep contradiction.…”

Externalisation and structural coupling: Applications in comparative policy studies in education

“…External causes -such as the neoliberal move to outcomes-based governance and knowledge-based regulation in public administration -are effective only if they resonate internally, are rendered meaningful and are translated into the logic and language code of the system. In education, the orientation towards outcomes was translated into the shift from teaching to learning and from government to governance (Fenwick et al, 2014;Mangez and Vanden Broeck, 2020), a move that ultimately resulted in a 'datafication' of learning (Thoutenhoofd, 2018). Whether the class size was large or small, teachers qualified or unqualified, sufficient resources allocated to schools or not (to list only a few input indicators) was rendered irrelevant compared to the question of whether students had achieved the prescribed learning outcomes.…”

Škola u oblaku: online platforme kao posrednici obrazovanja

“…Isti su mehanizmi automatskog generiranja i prikupljanja podataka operativni i prilikom korištenja uređaja i usluga povezanih s edukacijskim platformama. Prikupljanje podataka o obrazovnim aktivnostima učenika, nastavnika, ali i samih školskih administracija putem tehnologija praćenja podataka u realnom vremenu pruža osnovu za uvođenje i legitimiziranje kvantitativne analitike učenja kao povlaštenog (informatičkog) znanja pomoću kojeg se vrednuje i usmjerava pedagoška praksa (Pierlejewski 2020;Thoutenhoofd 2018;Roberts-Homes 2014). Pojedini autori (Stevenson 2017) smatraju da operacije datafikacije vode sve većem saobražavanju obrazovnog procesa logici brojeva, što omogućava primjenu ne samo raznih standardiziranih obrazaca mjerenja performansi nego i sistema odgovornosti povezanih s nagrađivanjem i sankcioniranjem dostignute razine produktivnosti.…”