EduTECH 2019: How analytics and AI are closing the ‘feedback loop’

Analytics and AI are combining to provide fantastic insights into “student learning and progress”.

While today’s learning platforms can provide basic feedback on, say, how much of text a student has read or whether they have completed a section of a course, the learning analytics of tomorrow will provide more nuanced feedback that will close, in real time, “the feedback loop” between teacher and student.

In this promising new world of analytics- and AI-driven feedback, students can expect the strengths of their arguments to be evaluated as well as the quality of their writing and referencing. It will offer students “much higher definition feedback” than the periodic tests and exams of old. It will also flag course material students find challenging and, most importantly, reduce the amount of “labour intensive” feedback educators have to handle.

Education Review spoke to University of Technology Sydney learning analytics Professor Buckingham-Shum at EduTECH 2019 about this new age of feedback and some of the potential dangers.