Have you ever thought search engines seem to know the next word that you will key

in the search bar?

Perhaps, you have already wondered why the advertisements popping out on your social media are
within your interest and taste.

Learning Analytics: Definition and Application

Because of the fast pace of internet development, data has been easily accessible and openly available.
Through the use of artificial intelligence, analysts can make use of the data online to come up with
decisions primarily used in advertising and business. This concept is called data analytics.

The same concept is also used in the context of education. Granual and massive data from student
interactions in online activities can be used to understand and measure learning. Educational
technologists label it as learning analytics, educational data mining, or academic analytics (Bienkowski,
Feng, & Means, 2012; Elias, 2011).

The primordial aim of learning analytics is to capture a better understanding of the educational settings
and ultimately improve learning capabilities. In this sense, teachers' and educators' decision could be
influenced mainly by using learning analytics (Scheffel et al., 2014).

For instance, teachers can identify the preferred websites where resources could be retrieved by mostly
studying and comparing the number of visits to such sites. In that way, teachers can enhance learning
resource generation in their classes.

Using learning analytics, teachers can also predict and track learners' performance and detect
problematic issues of struggling students' risk (Educause, 2010; Johnson, Smith, Willis,Levine, &
Haywood, 201)

For instance, based on the collected online data, Purdue University provided intervention measures to
struggling students using predictive modeling.

Summary of learning analytics possibilities that correspond to education-system levels by Gedrimiene,

Silvola, Pursiainen, Rusanen, and Muukkonen (2019)
CHAPTER 7 The Nature of Human Knowing In this chapter, we shall examine some theories of
knowledge. The relevance of understanding the epistemological dimension of human existence
emanates from the need to ground our knowledge of the world into the concrete. We shall look into
Kant's and Hegel's exposition of the nature of knowing and examine their differences. It is also the
humble task of this chapter to look into the nature of empirical knowledge and see how it is applied to
the practical aspects of human life through science. Now, since man can transcend the mere factual
concepts he deals with through the method of science, we shall see if it is possible for man to attain the
knowledge of the metaphysical. Kant's Theory of Knowledge Kant put forward the priority and necessity
of a critique of reason in order to determine what makes knowing possible. Before any knowing can
possibly unfold,reason must be scrutinized to liberate it from the things that are not proper to its
operations. In this sense, Kant's critical philosophy aims at investigating the limits of human reason.
Human knowledge, Kant says, is limited to the appearances of objects. 1. Man and the Problem of
Knowledge Kant writes in the Critique of Pure Reason that it is human reason that imposes meaning on
the outside world.This turn in Kant is branded as his Copernican Revolution. It is not the world that
informs the human mind, but it is human reason through the categories of understanding that gives
meaning to the manifold contents of sense-experience. Thus,the human mind is not a passive recipient.
Kant conceives the human mind as an active agent organizing the meaning of objects it experiences.

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Kant aims toexamine the basic'structurosof holan reason.lis critical philosophy seeks to shed light on the
conditions that enable human cognition.The German philosopher's thesis is grounded on the question
whether the human mind can proceed with certainty to know things beyond what is given in sense-
experience. Kant claims that man does not have any knowledge beyond phenomena nor of the thing-in-
itself. The human mind does not possess the capacity to reach out beyond the appearances given in
sense-experience. The human mind is so structured that it is barred from knowing the nature of the
thing-in-itself. Human reason is limited to the examination of the rules of the faculty of understanding
Understanding refers to man's capacity to renderjudgments on the objects of perception Pereeption for
Kant means the sensory consciousness.of external objects.The only connection between the human
mind and its objects are the sensory items provided by the mind's sensible experience of the object.
Knowledge, according to Kant, is linited to phenomena or the way things appear to the senses.Human
understanding can only make judgments on the representations 0f -abjanteThese representations refer
to their appearances Thus,mar's concept of an objecf depenas on thesc appearances. This means that
man's knowledge is limited to the appearances produced by the object.With regard to the reality of
objects as they are in themselves, such is beyond the domain of the faculty of understanding.The reality
as they are i themselves is forever hidden from man. What we know are the representations of things
through their appearances.In themselves,they are unknown. 2. The Structure of Human Reason We have
said that for Kant what is available to human cognition is the appearance of the perceptible object,not
the object- in-itself.Intuition,or the reception of sensible data, in this sense,is limited to the reality of
appearances from the objects of perception. The true nature of an object, its being-in-itself, is beyond
the grasp of the faculty of understanding.The human mind cannot have an intuition of the thing-in-
itself.Human sensibility is constrained by he fact that it has aw vithin the conditions immanent
conditions
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of knowing possus04,130 0canins.lior Kant,the thinmg-in-ilsolt is concealed from thehuman mind.II

liesoutside the realm of possilble knowledge.Kant's crilerion of truth therefore makes the noimenal
nature of things unavailable tothe human mind,and this is becauso of the limitations of the immanent
structure of reason. Kant's criterion implies that reality can only be comprehendel as phenomena.
Henceforth,the world is always experienced in a purely sensual manner. Kant says in the Critique of Pure
Reason that human intuition only results to a knowledge of.the representation of phenomena.Things as
they are in themselves are beyond us. What the senses make available is limited to what appears to us.
Kant,however, does not deny that the thing-in-itself exists.Itis just that reason does not have the means
to acquire any knowledge of it. This is because for Kant the thing-in-itself is the cause of the appearances
of objects.This means that what appears to us are the effects of the thing-in-itself,but with regard to its
essential nature, the thing-in-itself is unknowable. The formal conditions of human understanding limit
human knowledge to themanifold synthesis of appearances which constitutes man's knowledge of an
object. There ekist,for Kant,an a priori knowledge,which to him refers to the formal structures of the
understanding. To explain the meaning of a priori knowledge,it is perhaps important to point out here
Kanť's encounter with David Hume.Hume,according to Kant interrupted his dogmatic slumber. Hume
argues that experience is the source of all human knowledge,and thatitisnot possible for man to have
any knowledge of any reality beyond the empirical data apprehended by human sensibility. An important
issue between the two philosophers is Hume's contention that causality is a mere illusion. He conceives
of it as the mental habit of connecting things.Hume believes that there is no experience of causality, and
hence it is not possible to deduce any causal relation between things. Hume's conclusion is that causality
does not exist. Kant, however,disagrees with Hume's conclusion. He says that causality is not
experienced a posteori, that is, directly through sense-experience, butapriori,or from the faculty of
understanding. Causality is a categor understanding that is independent of 0 any Sense experience.For
nderstanding is a free and pure

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、11-111v1!1 、01 lnough nothing,else but locdl Understanding: posss aln inheren1 cnpacily 10 rgni le
contents of sensilble pereeption independent of any experience. Thus theapriori catejories are
immanent to the structure of reason itself 3. The Categories of Human Understanding Human reason
possesses a priori categories that enable the possibility of organizing the sensible appearances we
acquire from our intuitions.In this sense,these categories are the human mind's means of interpreting
the objects presented to it.The categories of human understanding mark the limits of human
knowledge.In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant intends to prove that reason only finds legitimacy in the
formulation of the rules governing the faculty of understanding.The faculty of understanding is the
human mind's irreducible capacity to conceptualize orjudge on the appearances of objects. The faculty
of understanding is incapable of going beyond making judgments that are not within the domain of the
different mental categories. Kant lists these categories as unity, plurality, totality, negtion, reality,
limitation, substance-attribute, cause-effect, activity- passivity, possibility-impossibility, existence-non-
existence, and necessity-contingency. To know what an object is means knowing certain relātionshups
whiclr belong to the very concept of the object Objective knowledge begins with sensibility. Objects exist
in the net of space and time. Perception allows the knowing subject to grasp the appearances or sense-
contents of objects which are thereby transmitted to the faculty of understand- ing.Understanding,on
the one hand,organizes these sense data by means of the mental categories which provide a synthesis or
unity of the object perceived.This synthesis is our conćept of the object On the other hand,the thing-in-
itself is beyond conception because it lies outside the domain of Kant's mental categories Kant claims
further that any notion of an object is limited to its appearance,and that it is not possible for us to hope
that we can know more of any object than its appearance. Kant has shown the ground for the possibility
of knowing. This is done by examining the rind's inherent capacity to recėive

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sensations from the objects we perieewhich in turn are processed by the faculty of understanding.These
representations provide a unity which becomes the basis for man's knowledge of the world. What is
knowledge then? Objective knowledge depends on the subjective conditions of human reason and
cannot go beyond it. What Kant has proven in the Critique of Pure Reason is that reason is incapable of
acquiring knowledge of what is beyond phenomena because reason is limited to the rules governing the
faculty of understanding.Kant, in this sense,limits the function of reason to its critical function. For Kant,
the role of reason is to show. that understanding is limited to the task of integrating the appearances
available to the mind's intuition of sensible objects.