scholarly journals The MOOC Phenomenon: an useful data source for teachers

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Mayara Lustosa de Oliveira ◽  
Eduardo Galembeck

INTRODUCTION: In recent decades, biological sciences had undergone an unprecedented revolution. The major focus of biology remains unchanged, but breakthrough discoveries have changed the nature of questions asked. Although the changes in the practice of biology as a science occur fast, in the curriculum they occur slowly. In order to transform this scenario, the Vision and Change project brings proposals that combine the use of student-centered learning methodologies, the alignment of learning objectives with evaluations and the use of assessments data to improve the teaching process. The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) associated with learning analytics tools on a large scale provide great opportunities for achieving these goals. OBJECTIVES: To develop a MOOC that allows a student-centered experience and to assess aspects related to learning, such as: user’s behavior flow, grades, time spent answering questions and engagement in each activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The MOOC was built as a mobile application, named “The Cell”. Data here presented were collected from the “Chemical Composition of the Cell” module. We used two tools to treat user’s data: its own database, and Google Analytics. DISCUSSION AND RESULTS: We mapped users behavior to identify their learning strategies and performance. It was possible to identify students who were guessing and those who were seriously answering questions. Furthermore, it was also possible to verify which questions the students were missing most frequently. Learning analytics tools reduce the time to tabulate the data and enable specific and real time intervention by the instructors. CONCLUSION: The association between MOOCs and learning analytics tools are promising and effective to help teachers. They provide student’s behavior and performance indicators that allow intervening on identified weaknesses, to provide continuous feedback of student’s progress and the use of assessment data to enhance the learning process.

Author(s):  
Iman Rashid Al-Kindi ◽  
Zuhoor Al-Khanjari

One of the most important pillars of smart cities is the smart learning environ-ment. This environment should be well prepared and managed to improve the in-struction process for instructors from one side and the learning process for stu-dents from the other side. This paper presents the student’s Engagement, Behav-ior and Personality (EBP) predictive model. This model uses Moodle log data to investigate the influence and the effect of the students’ EBP factors on their per-formance. For this purpose, this paper uses the data log files of the "Search Strat-egies on the Internet" online course in Fall 2019 at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) extracted from Moodle database. The intention of conducting this kind of experiments is of three-facets: 1. to assist in gaining a holistic understanding of online learning environments by focusing on student EBP and performance with-in the course activities, 2. to explore whether the student’s EBP can be considered as indicators for predicting student’s performance in online courses, and 3. to support instructors with insights to develop better learning strategies and tailor instructions for personal learning of individual students. Moreover, this paper takes a step forward in identifying effective methods to measure student’s EBP during the learning process. This may contribute to proposing a framework for the smart learning behavior environment that would guide the instructors to ob-serve students’ performance in a more creative way. All the 38 students who participated in this experiment had compatible statistics and results as the relationship between their Engagement, Behavior, Personality was symmetric with their Performance. This relationship was presented using a group of condition rules (If-then). The extracted rules gave us a straightforward and visual picture of the rela-tionship between the factors mentioned in this paper.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Martin ◽  
◽  
Abdou Ndoye ◽  

Learning analytics can be used to enhance student engagement and performance in online courses. Using learning analytics, instructors can collect and analyze data about students and improve the design and delivery of instruction to make it more meaningful for them. In this paper, the authors review different categories of online assessments and identify data sets that can be collected and analyzed for each of them. Two different data analytics and visualization tools were used: Tableau for quantitative data and Many Eyes for qualitative data. This paper has implications for instructors, instructional designers, administrators, and educational researchers who use online assessments.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Martin ◽  
Abdou Ndoye ◽  
Patricia Wilkins

Quality Matters is recognized as a rigorous set of standards that guide the designer or instructor to design quality online courses. We explore how Quality Matters standards guide the identification and analysis of learning analytics data to monitor and improve online learning. Descriptive data were collected for frequency of use, time spent, and performance and analyzed to identify patterns and trends on how students interact with online course components based on the Quality Matters standards. Major findings of this article provide a framework and guidance for instructors on how data might be collected and analyzed to improve online learning effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Robert Williams ◽  
Dan Woods

This chapter begins with a consideration of the state of school-based assessments as an unavoidable consequence of the contemporary societal emphasis on accountability and curricular prescriptions at the state and national level in the United States of America. Additionally, the authors comment upon the potential inaccuracies inescapable in large scale, high-stakes, standardized assessment instruments, especially when such instruments are turned to the task of evaluation—whether norm- or criterion-referenced—in a teaching and learning engagement. Likewise, the chapter concludes with suggestions and templates (elaborately configured with specific activities and assessment rubrics included) to support teachers who want to develop their own, rigorous, valid, and reliable assessments instruments embedded seamlessly in student-centered learning activities, and that accommodate the reality of literacy as a culturally situated behavior that, for contemporary learners, includes all manner of meaning-making in all manner of modalities from the pencil and paper to the purely electronic (and potentially wordless, at times) video- or audio-based.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margret Lepp, ◽  
CeCelia R. Zorn, ◽  
Patricia R. Duffy,

The purpose of this research was to describe the reflections of 10 Swedish and U.S. baccalaureate nursing students who participated in a semester-long, student-centered, interactive video-conferencing (IVC) education project. Reflective journaling was incorporated as one of several learning strategies to enhance students’ personal and professional development. Principles of phenomenography were used to analyze the data; three categories, with two sub-categories in each, emerged from the journal data. Participation in this student-centered project spurred the students in both countries to reflect upon themselves, their transition, and their profession.


2016 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dee Hansen ◽  
Leslie A. Imse

Music teacher evaluations traditionally examine how teachers develop student music-learning objectives, assess cognitive and performance skills, and direct classroom learning experiences and behavior. A convergence of past and current educational ideas and directives is changing how teachers are evaluated on their use of student-centered instructional approaches in the music classroom. These are classrooms facilitated rather than directed by the teacher in which students regularly communicate, collaborate, self-reflect, problem solve, and peer-evaluate about their learning. The authors trace the influence of three important initiatives that, among others, contributed to the implementation of student-centered learning in music classrooms: Arts PROPEL, Comprehensive Musicianship, and 21st Century Skills. The article also explores relationships between these entities, the National Music Standards, and teacher evaluation and provides an innovative model of teacher evaluation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Robinson ◽  
Helle Neergaard ◽  
Lene Tanggaard ◽  
Norris Krueger

Purpose The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the complexity and heterogeneity of entrepreneurship education. In order to achieve this objective, this paper combines educational psychology with perspectives from entrepreneurship education research to make explicit educators tacit assumptions in order to understand how these assumptions guide teaching. Design/methodology/approach Using ethnographic analysis, the paper reports data from the continuous development and implementation of a single course over a period of ten years bringing in the educator’s and the students perspectives on their achievements and course content. Findings We find that it is sometimes advantageous to invoke and combine different learning theories and approaches in order to promote entrepreneurial awareness and mindset. It is also necessary to move away from entrepreneurship education as being teacher-led to being more student-centered and focused on experiential and existential lifelong learning practices. Practical implications Practically, we make suggestions for the design and delivery of a course that demonstrates how four diverse learning theories can be combined to consolidate entrepreneurial learning in students invoking experiential and curiosity based learning strategies. Originality/value There are very few examples of concrete course designs that have been researched longitudinally in-depth using ethnographic methods. Moreover, most courses focus on the post-foundation period, whereas this paper presents a course that is a primer to the entrepreneurial process and exclusively centered on the pre-foundation phase. Rather than building on a single perspective, it combines a range of theories and approaches to create interplay and progression.


Author(s):  
Natela Baghatrishvili ◽  
Nino Modebadze

The article is based on a needs assessment carried out at Telavi Public School N7 to understand teachers' attitudes towards student-centered learning strategies. In particular, it examines how intensively and effectively student-centered approaches are integrated into the teaching process and how teachers interact with each other in student-centered learning. The study was carried out in the 2018-2019 academic year, but the inspiration for the study was the Directorate's informal participation in the educational process during the 2017-2018 academic year. A mixed type of study with quantitative and qualitative methods was used to test the hypotheses. To further investigate the problem and identify a common need, teachers from Telavi State School No. 7, as well as elementary and secondary school students, participated in the study. The interventions were carried out after the completion of the first phase of the study. Observing and analyzing teacher activities helped us assess the effectiveness of our problem-solving and needs-based interventions. The study highlights the fact that creating a collaborative atmosphere between teachers has a positive effect on the learning process. The study found the importance of fostering a culture of collaboration among teachers through the use of diverse resources, activities and challenging classroom assignments. Students' views, opinions and feelings about such lessons were also determined. As a result of the analysis, conclusions were drawn that allow recommendations to be made for identifying and solving similar problems and needs.


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