Adaptive learning is pushed by commercial and philanthropic interests. Its data raises ‘dataveillance’ concerns, and dashboards can deskill teachers. It’s a solution only if education is reduced to transmitting information, so define the problem first.
Arguments
- Morozov: “Digital technologies might be a perfect solution to some problems, but those problems don’t include education.”
- Selwyn (2013) Distrusting Educational Technology / Education in a Digital World; Ball (2012) Education Inc.; Morozov (2013) To Save Everything, Click Here.
- Dashboards risk displacing teachers’ own knowledge of students (deprofessionalisation).
Design checklist (from the post’s implications)
- What problem, for whom, and how will we know it’s solved?
- Be transparent about data: what is captured, who sees it, why.
- Teacher override: dashboards inform decisions, they don’t make them.
- Who profits from the student data?
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Write a one-paragraph “problem statement + data use” for every product (RS Insight, Coursebook-to-Lesson, the LMS, the homeschool platform) before adding features. It combines this note with AI guidelines for teachers - six principles.
Connections
Adaptive learning - hype vs evidence · Nothing is as practical as a good theory