The Netflix Effect

When you log in to Netflix, it will remember who you are, who your friends are, all movies you saw in the past, and the movies your friends saw and recommended. It will take all of these factors into consideration, and offer you a movie you're will like; quite accurately, I must add. How is it possible that when a student walks into a classroom, the professor does not know her name, her academic history, her strengths and weaknesses – virtually nothing? Most importantly, we almost never know what the student already knows, exactly, and what she needs to learn.

The problem is that differential education, developmental portfolios, and other such worthy educational idea just never had the technology to make them workable and economical to use. Remember the buzz about electronic portfolios? Universities spent a lot of time and money on them, imagining how we will be able to track each student's learning journey. And it all failed miserably, because no one has the time to grade papers in one's own class, not to mention going back and reading each student's academic journey. Even looking up 25-30 transcripts is an ordeal no one has the time for. The same is true for pre-assessments. They are often crude, fragmentary, and give more of a snapshot than any real tool for individualizing instruction. The latter is impossible to do, because… you've guessed right, time.

The truth is, we need the same level of sophisticated data analysis tool the netflixes and the googles of the world just recently mastered. Their computers manage to learn from every search, every purchase, and every click you make. Learning from users, and then selling back to users what they have learned is the secret. Their algorithms analyze and store that information, and convert it into more helpful helpful information. That is what we really need to borrow from them. Every time a student looks for information, registers for classes, asks a question in class, writes a paper, completes a quiz – every time a computer will record, remember, digest, and spit it out for the students and for her instructor.

I imagine working on a new class a few weeks before semester begins. I pull up not just a list of names, but a set of graphics, of easy to read profiles, which assemble themselves into the whole class profile, recommend me content and strategies, assignments and assessments that will move these particular students forward the farthest. All of this would be matched with what I can offer – my strengths, my background, my research, and classroom experience. The Teachflix will even suggest who should teach a class, picking the best instructor for a group profile of students not by what department we happen to be in, or what expertise we happen to claim, but by what we actually know and can deliver. It will also write a professional development program for me as an instructor, scrutinizing what I did the last time around and mercilessly disrobing my weaknesses and gaps, the opportunities missed. And you know what? It is no more difficult or scary than the Netflix; the same algorithms can probably be used. All we need is some imagination, a lot of money, and people to do it. Looks like something a private company might pull off?