The pressure on learning institutions to register high scores can be overwhelming, negatively impacting teachers’ motivation and morale. Often, their worth is judged solely by test performance, overlooking the multifaceted nature of effective teaching and the diverse needs and abilities of students. However, a transformation in progress is changing the landscape for both educators and learners.
Kenya is transitioning from the common exam testing of Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education to a Competency-Based Assessment model that is systematic and continuous. This new approach involves the gathering of information from multiple sources for informed decisions on learners’ knowledge, learning needs and abilities.
The CBA model emulates the data-driven instruction approach, an educational model where teachers continuously assess students during lessons and let the collected data guide the teaching and learning process. This is important for a learning institution because it supports teachers to prioritise individual learner’s needs based on data, backed with science.
Although the data-driven approach requires more effort and careful understanding of the feedback educators are receiving, it is one sure way to create a better education system for students since it enables educators to base learning materials on assessed individual learner's needs rather than on broad assumptions.
To ensure a higher success rate among students, learning institutions need to embrace and centre the data-driven approach. Teachers stand to benefit from this approach by being able to co-create learning materials with their students. Co-creation, in turn, makes students active participants in the process of developing educational materials and structures through the valuable data collected by teachers.
Additionally, data-driven learning places the student’s real-time progress at the core of lesson planning, which means that teachers can continuously create educational materials based on the evolving needs of their students.
In doing so, teachers gain a deeper understanding of their students’ progress, enabling them to make immediate improvements based on the data and capitalise on the learning materials and processes that have proven the most effective.
Learning becomes easier for students when they no longer need to undergo constant trials to discover what works for them. The data-driven model allows teachers to create concrete learning materials and processes that have a higher rate of success because they are based on data from their students.
A key success factor for data-centred learning is the teachers’ ability to constantly adapt to the needs of their students. This introduces dynamism that allows the learning experience to be much better suited for each individual student as well as taking into account the needs of both individual students and the classroom as a whole, providing the best experience for all.
For institutions that have a discrepancy in budget and resources available to offer students a well-rounded education, this approach allows them to bridge the achievement gap. By analysing the discrepancies among their students, learning institutions can put strategies in place to ensure that every learner is receiving the education they need to achieve the same levels of success as their peers.
Data-sharing approach enhances parental involvement and fosters a sense of responsibility in learners. Further, it ensures excellent academic progress by assessing the effectiveness of the curricula coverage.
Data analysis and data-driven decision-making require skills that are usually completely out of the scope of a teacher’s training for day-to-day delivery of learning. Learning institutions can focus on training teachers on distilling the data they receive to best help their learners excel academically.
Through continuous improvement and a commitment to data-driven excellence, learning institutions can fully explore the transformative power of a student-centred, data-informed approach to education.
As the country ushers out KCPE and ushers in the CBA model, there is an opportunity to embrace data-driven learning to enable students to perform at the peak of their individual abilities. Therein lies the real measure of the success of a teacher and, indeed, of a learning institution.
Head teacher, Makini School Kibos
