scholarly journals Are We Living in LA (P)LA Land? Reporting on the Practice of 30 STEM Tutors in Their Use of a Learning Analytics Implementation at The Open University

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Tom Olney ◽  
Steve Walker ◽  
Carlton Wood ◽  
Anactoria Clarke

Most higher education institutions view their increasing use of learning analytics as having significant potential to improve student academic achievement, retention outcomes, and learning and teaching practice but the realization of this potential remains stubbornly elusive. While there is an abundance of published research on the creation of visualizations, dashboards, and predictive models, there has been little work done to explore the impact of learning analytics on the actual practice of teachers. Through the lens of social informatics (an approach that views the users of technologies as active social actors whose technological practices constitute a wider socio-technical system) this qualitative study reports on an investigation into the practice of 30 tutors in the STEM faculty at Europe’s largest distance learning organization, The Open University UK (OU). When asked to incorporate learning analytics (including predictive learning analytics) contained in the Early Alert Indicator (EAI) dashboard during the 2017–2018 academic year into their practice, we found that tutors interacted with this dashboard in certain unanticipated ways and developed three identifiable “shadow practices”.

Author(s):  
Chrissi Nerantzi ◽  
Craig Scott Despard

In this paper we describe the use of LEGO® models within assessment of the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) offered at the University of Salford. Within the context of the PGCAP, we model innovative and contextualised assessment strategies for and of learning. We challenge our students, who are teachers in higher education (HE), to think and rethink the assessment they are using with their own students. We help them develop a deeper understanding and experience of good assessment and feedback practice in a wider context while they are assessed as students on the PGCAP. We report on an evaluation of how the LEGO® model activity was used with a cohort of students in the context of the professional discussion assessment. We share the impact it had on reflection and the assessment experience and make recommendations for good practice.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-4
Author(s):  
Geraldine E. Lefoe ◽  

Welcome to the third and final issue of Volume 8 of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning (JUTLP) in 2011. As the year draws to a close we are seeing some striking changes to the higher education sector internationally. In England budget cuts have seen the closure of the twenty-four Higher Education Academy subject centres at the same time as the establishment of student fees. In Australia the cap has been lifted across the board on the number of students that can be enrolled in universities with the resultant projected increased student numbers. The focus in Australia is on social inclusion yet in England the concern for the introduction of fees is just the opposite, these will be the very students who may now be excluded. The changes in both countries see new measures of accountability and more complex regulations put in place. Will this cause people to rethink the way we teach and the way students learn? For the Higher Education Academy in the UK, new directions see the hosting of a summit on learning and teaching with a focus on flexible learning, an indicator of new directions for many institutions. In Australia, we see a renewed opportunity to investigate such changes through the opening of the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) and its role of recognising the importance of learning and teaching through grants and awards schemes. We hope in 2012 we’ll hear more from our authors about the impact of these transformations, as well as those changes occurring in other countries around the world, on teaching practice in our universities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Winer ◽  
Nitza Geri

Learning Analytics Dashboards (LAD) promise to disrupt the Higher Education (HE) teaching practice. Current LAD research portrays a near future of e-teaching, empowered with the ability to predict dropouts, to validate timely pedagogical interventions and to close the instructional design loop. These dashboards utilize machine learning, big data technologies, sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, and interactive visualization techniques. However, alongside with the desired impact, research is raising significant ethical concerns, context-specific limitations and difficulties to design multipurpose solutions. We revisit the practice of managing by the numbers and the theoretical origins of dashboards within management as a call to reevaluate the “datafication” of learning environments. More specifically, we highlight potential risks of using predictive dashboards as black boxes to instrumentalize and reduce learning and teaching to what we call “teaching by the numbers”. Instead, we suggest guidelines for teachers’ LAD design, that support the visual description of actual learning, based on teachers’ prescriptive pedagogical intent. We conclude with a new user-driven framework for future LAD research that supports a Learning Analytics Performance Improvement Design (LAPID).


Author(s):  
Dirk Ifenthaler ◽  
David Gibson ◽  
Doreen Prasse ◽  
Atsushi Shimada ◽  
Masanori Yamada

AbstractThis paper is based on (a) a literature review focussing on the impact of learning analytics on supporting learning and teaching, (b) a Delphi study involving international expert discussion on current opportunities and challenges of learning analytics as well as (c) outlining a research agenda for closing identified research gaps. Issues and challenges facing educators linked to learning analytics and current research gaps were organised into four themes, the further development of which by the expert panel, led to six strategy and action areas. The four themes are 1. development of data literacy in all stakeholders, 2. updating of guiding principles and policies of educational data, 3. standards needed for ethical practices with data quality assurance, and 4. flexible user-centred design for a variety of users of analytics, starting with learners and ensuring that learners and learning is not harmed. The strategies and actions are outcomes of the expert panel discussion and are offered as provocations to organise and focus the researcher, policymaker and practitioner dialogs needed to make progress in the field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 150-167
Author(s):  
Ying Wang ◽  
Chao Wang

Combining “the Internet plus” technology with education makes it possible and convenient for learning to happen beyond the restraints of time and place. Following this new trend of autonomous learning, learners have obtained easier access to the learning resources they need. Freshmen are clearly an indispensable group who benefit from it. Based on the theory of multiple intelligences and constructivist learning theory, this thesis aims to discover the current status of freshmen’s autonomous learning in the internet plus era through questionnaires and interviews, explore the impact of learning tools and learning environments supported by internet plus technology on students’ autonomous learning ability and effectiveness, and provide some corresponding advice for college English learning and teaching practice.  A questionnaire survey followed by a face-to-face interview is employed in this thesis. The researcher randomly selected 460 freshmen with an English proficiency of level B (the intermediate level based on the Entrance Level Test hosted by BIPT) as subjects, issued relevant questionnaires online, and analyzed the final data via SPSS 20. Results show that freshmen at BIPT do have the awareness of autonomous learning with the help of various platforms online and apps on smart phones, but they have problems in making a long-term study plan, and following the plan regularly. They do have the motivation to improve their English competency through autonomous learning in the “Internet-plus” environment, but they have difficulty in information processing and resources acquisition. There is a correlation between college freshmen’s autonomous learning ability and their English academic achievements. Freshmen with better abilities of autonomous learning tend to get higher scores in the English test. It is strongly suggested that students should be more self-disciplined in terms of self-planning and self-supervising. In order to guarantee the effectiveness of autonomous learning, it is necessary for teachers to provide specific guidance, such as helping students make feasible study plans and regularly checking their implementation of the plans. Due to the limitation of time and resources, the design of the questionnaire only focuses on certain aspects of autonomous learning, and the quantity of the sampling is not large enough. The author hopes that more researches would be done to further explore the nature of autonomous learning in the “Internet plus” era and make it a booster for education and self-development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Franck Iradukunda ◽  
A Ananda Kumar

COVID-19 pandemic has left the largest disorder in education systems in history; these affected more than3.6 a billion learners in more than 200 countries. Suspending of physical learning of colleges, institutions and universities have impacted more than 95% of the world’s learner’s population. This has brought changes in all aspects of our usual education systems. Social distancing, mask-up and restrictive movement policies were put in place by several governments that have considerably interrupted ancient instructional practices. Re-opening of learning establishments and universities after relaxation of restriction is another ultimatum with many new standard operating systems and procedures that will be put in place.Since late 2019 after discovering the COVID-19 pandemic, several researchers have shared their findings on teaching and learning practices. Many colleges, faculties and universities have abandoned face-to-face teaching and learning practices. We tend to might lose the 2021 academic year or perhaps additional within the coming future. This recommends we’d like to introduce and implement different educational systems and assessment ways during which learning and teaching will continue however additionally putting in place the mitigation to fight against the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us an opportunity to introducing and improve digital learning and teaching systems to the very best level as never been before. This analysis aims to provide a radical report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education sector in Zambia, specifically at DMI-St. Eugene University.


Author(s):  
Siti Mariana Ulfa

AbstractHumans on earth need social interaction with others. Humans can use more than one language in communication. Thus, the impact that arises when the use of one or more languages is the contact between languages. One obvious form of contact between languages is interference. Interference can occur at all levels of life. As in this study, namely Indonesian Language Interference in Learning PPL Basic Thailand Unhasy Students. This study contains the form of interference that occurs in Thai students who are conducting teaching practices in the classroom. This type of research is descriptive qualitative research that seeks to describe any interference that occurs in the speech of Thai students when teaching practice. Data collection methods in this study are (1) observation techniques, (2) audio-visual recording techniques using CCTV and (3) recording techniques, by recording all data that has been obtained. Whereas the data wetness uses, (1) data triangulation, (2) improvement in perseverance and (3) peer review through discussion. Data analysis techniques in this study are (1) data collection, (2) data reduction, (3) data presentation and (4) conclusions. It can be seen that the interference that occurs includes (1) interference in phonological systems, (2) interference in morphological systems and (3) interference in syntactic systems. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 525
Author(s):  
Idawati Idawati

This research was conducted by using a descriptive method with a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach was chosen to be tested theories by examining and measuring variables in the form of relationships, differences, influences, contributions, and the others. The research was carried out by describing the students acquisition data on the new student admission (PPDB) using zoning system based on the academic year 2019-2020 and the student acquisition data on the academic year PPDB 2018-2019 as a comparison. Based on the results of the study, the new students of PPDB using zoning system was considered lower in terms of economic and educational background of parents. There were more parents with less education (elementary & junior high school) in the zoning system than in the rayon system, whereas parents with higher education in the zoning system were fewer than the rayon system.  Likewise, in terms of income, there were more people with the low income in the zoning system than in the rayon system, and those having high income were fewer than in the rayon system. The study showed that the intelligence and the result of National Examination Score (NUN) in the zoning system is lower than in the rayon system. The intelligent level of the students in the zoning system is mostly dominated by the scores under 90-109, while in the rayon system were dominated by the scores above 90-109.  The National Examination Scores (NUN) in the zoning system were evenly distributed from a range of scores 0 to 30, while in the rayon system the scores were dominated by a range of scores 28-30, with the lowest score 24.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
D. Richardson ◽  
I. Silver ◽  
A. Dionne

This evaluation of the integrated Stepping Stones (SS) Teaching Certificate program, including its instructional development (workshops) and theory review (journal club) components, will inform further program development. Results of this project will also add to the limited amount of scholarly work in the area of faculty development program evaluation. Faculty development literature in the area of organized program assessment reveals use of either quantitative OR qualitative methods. In this project, a novel method combining both techniques was used to explore program impact. Participants completed 2 questionnaires to identify skill-set knowledge gaps in teaching effectiveness. Pre- and post-program quantitative gaps were generated. Focus groups were used for qualitative exploration. Areas explored pre-program included: a) motives for enrollment, b) program expectations and c) prior teaching preparation. Post-program discussion explored: the impact of the program on a) participant’s perceived gaps, b) teaching behaviour change, and c) its influence on their career in education. We believed the program’s interprofessional environment would foster development of a learning community having impact on faculty knowledge, skills and attitudes related to teaching, and potentially elicit behavioural change in teaching practices. Results from a 2004-2005 cohort of participants have identified a variety of benefits for faculty and their teaching practice. Results from a second separate cohort, 2005-2006 participants, validated the initial findings. Remarkable harmonization in the results of the qualitative analysis between the two cohort samples was evident. Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were found in each of the domains examined qualitatively. Both qualitative and quantitatively, program effectiveness was demonstrated immediately following completion of the program. Follow up to assess the sustainability of the effects is ongoing. The analysis of the quantitative discrepancy (gaps) data has lead to a possible technique to assist in identifying unperceived educational needs. McLeod PJ, Steinert Y, Nasmith L, Conochie L. Faculty Development in Canadian medical schools: a 10-year update. CMAJ 1997; 156(10):1419-23. Hewson MG, Copeland HL, Fishleder AJ. What’s the use of faculty development? Program evaluation using retrospective self-assessments and independent performance ratings. Teach Learn Med 2001; 13(3):153-60. Moore EM. A Framework for Outcomes Evaluation in the Continuing Development of Physicians, in: The Continuing Professional Development of Physicians. Eds. Davis D, Barnes BE, Fox R. AMA Press, 2003.


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