[scott_s]

I'm not sure you read the whole thing, because I did not get that vibe at all.

I see them trying two different things: using data in class to get the students to engage with and learn from each other; and using data in aggregate to predict how well students will do.

I don't see how your objection applies to getting students to engage with each other, so I'm going to skip it. I think you're objecting to the second thing. But I don't see it as "it's our fault the students are failing," I see it as "this student is in danger of failing, so we should help them." Blame is irrelevant. In small courses, professors already know who is in danger of not doing well. I think they're targeting larger class sizes where the professor is unable to look at a student and immediately recall their past performance.

You're correct that an unmotivated student will not learn. But even motivated students need help sometimes. Some students have not yet learned how to learn.

[zackzackzack]

I suppose the core of my objection is the focus on technology being the solution to the problem of students not learning. It feels like it is really easy to fall into the trap of "Students who clicked 5 times instead of 4 when navigating to the back button were found to have performed marginally better within the 5th percentile, but significantly better overall."

The tools are all there and I agree that some good will come out of it. But without a motivation to learn something, I don't see these technologies as being a solution. More of an amplifier of a solution than anything else. Start ups focused around creating technology to measure students seem like a good way to make the above "quadruple click back button for success" scenario play out somehow.

[scott_s]

Look at it this way: colleges can't control a student's internal motivation. But they can control how they structure class time, and how they intervene with troubled students. So they're focusing on what they can control instead of what they can't.

Although, I think that well-timed intervention can help students with motivation problems. Students tend to lose motivation when they're struggling and don't know how to improve.

[teyc]

Very true. Much is already known about the rites/rituals/practices of successful students. It is a matter of giving timely feedback to encourage students to stay on course.