Teacher Practices in Using Learning Analytics to Enhance Learning in Blended Online Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-108
Author(s):  
Airina Volungevičienė ◽  
Josep M. ◽  
Justina Naujokaitienė ◽  
Giedre Tamoliune ◽  
Rasa Greenspon

While higher education institutions (HEIs) are exploring innovative ways to enhance and facilitate learning experience of students and so to improve the overall quality of studies, technology enhanced learning (TEL, henceforth) becomes inevitable. Having explored the possibilities and benefits of TEL, HEIs encourage teachers to develop blended online courses in virtual learning environments, to use new tools and solutions available for student learning monitoring and enhancement and to research how these practices are successful and what are the factors that make impact to teaching and learning success. This paper aims to identify teacher practices how the use of learning analytics in virtual learning environment may enhance learners’ engagement in blended online studies in HE.

Author(s):  
D. Thammi Raju ◽  
G. R. K. Murthy ◽  
S. B. Khade ◽  
B. Padmaja ◽  
B. S. Yashavanth ◽  
...  

Building an effective online course requires an understanding of learning analytics. The study assumes significance in the COVID 19 pandemic situation as there is a sudden surge in online courses. Analysis of the online course using the data generated from the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS), Google Forms and Google Analytics was carried out to understand the tenants of an effective online course. About 515 learners participated in the initial pre-training needs & expectations’ survey and 472 learners gave feedback at the end, apart from the real-time data generated from LMS and Google Analytics during the course period. This case study analysed online learning behaviour and the supporting learning environment and suggest critical factors to be at the centre stage in the design and development of online courses; leads to the improved online learning experience and thus the quality of education. User needs, quality of resources and effectiveness of online courses are equally important in taking further online courses.


Author(s):  
Jacqueline Mayumi Akazaki ◽  
Leticia Rocha Machado ◽  
Ketia Kellen Araújo da Silva ◽  
Patricia Alejandra Behar

Virtual courses are increasingly being offered in Brazil, making it imperative to develop technological resources and research to help in the teaching and learning processes in this modality. One approach is to analyze student's socio-affective profile in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). The co-operative learning network (ROODA) VLE has two features called the Social Map (SM) and Affective Map (AM), which can both contribute to the visualization of data regarding social interaction indicators and students' moods in the environment. The SM presents the social relations formed through indicators, which are the absence; collaboration; the distance from the class; evasion; informal groups and popularity, enabling the identification of the participating subjects in the form of sociograms. The AM identifies students' moods graphically through indicators, which are excitement, discouragement, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction. Thus, this article aims to map the possible recurrent socio-affective scenarios in a VLE using Learning Analytics (LA). LA is defined as measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about students and their contexts to understand as well as optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs. It can also contribute to the understanding of student's learning profile, based on social and affective aspects, thus allowing the teacher to develop pedagogical strategies consistent with the needs of each subject. The importance of integrating the possible social and affective scenarios was verified using LA, making it possible to deepen the comprehension of the subjective and qualitative questions regarding the students' interactions in the VLE. In this study, the scenarios are understood as the intersection between the Affective Map and Social Map indicators identified in a VLE. It has both a qualitative and quantitative approach. The choice is qualitatively justified because the research object involves social and affective phenomena that were subjectively expressed in texts and social interactions manifested in the ROODA VLE. It is quantitatively justified by the need to measure the mapping of socio-affective indicators through social parameters and moods applying LA. The subjects were undergraduate students who participated in distance learning courses at a Brazilian public university that used the ROODA VLE in the second semester of 2019. Data were collected from social and affective maps to identify if there was a relationship between them. As a result, based on the existing indicators of social interactions and moods, the socio-affective indicators were created using LA in order to analyze the students’ behavior in relation to the forms of interaction and communication that occur in the ROODA VLE.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Steve Leichtweis

Universities are increasingly being expected to ensure student success while at the same time delivering larger courses.  Within this environment, the provision of effective and timely feedback to students and creating opportunities for genuine engagement between teachers and students is increasingly difficult if not impossible for many instructors, despite the known value and importance of feedback (Timperley & Hattie, 2007) and instructor presence (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2010).  Similar to other tertiary institutions, the University of Auckland has adopted various technology-enhanced learning approaches and technologies, including learning analytics in an attempt to support teaching and learning at scale.  The increased use of educational technology to support learning provides a variety of data sources for teachers to provide personalised feedback and improve the overall learning experience for students.  This workshop is targeted to teachers interested in the use of learning data to provide personalized support to learners.  Participants will have a hands-on opportunity to use the open-source tool OnTask (Pardo, et al. 2018) within some common teaching scenarios with a synthetically generated data set.  The facilitators will also share and discuss how OnTask is currently being used in universities to support student experience, teaching practice and course design.  As this is a hands-on workshop, participants must bring a laptop computer to work with the online tool and the prepared scenarios.  References   Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2010). The first decade of the community of inquiry framework: A retrospective. The internet and higher education, 13(1-2), 5-9. Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of educational research, 77(1), 81-112. Pardo, A., Bartimote-Aufflick, K., Shum, S. B., Dawson, S., Gao, J., Gaševic, D., Leichtweis, S., Liu, D., Martínez-Maldonado, R., Mirriahi, N. and Moskal, A. C. M. (2018). OnTask: Delivering Data-Informed, Personalized Learning Support Actions. Journal of Learning Analytics, 5(3), 235-249.


Author(s):  
Carlos Morais ◽  
Paulo Alexandre Alves ◽  
Luisa Miranda

The regular use of virtual learning environments by educational institutions and the availability of large quantities of data regarding the teaching and learning process both challenge teachers, institutions and researchers to explore such data within the perspective of learning analytics in order to obtain indicators which might contribute to the improvement of the teaching and learning process. Consequently, such improvement may lead to students’ better learning outcomes as well as a better relationship with the institution they attend. Taking into account that student retention and dropout from degree courses before their completion have highly negative consequences for a high number of students, the aim of this research is to look into indicators associated with such problems through a mixed methodology, both qualitative and quantitative, and through procedures of analysis and research of data from databases containing academic information provided by a sample of 1,588 undergraduates. The focus of the study lies upon the relation and analysis of the following variables: students’ frequency of access per course unit to the virtual environment of the institution they attend; quantity of course units passed; and mean of the marks obtained in the course units passed. Among the results obtained, we highlight the existence of a positive degree of association with moderate correlation between the variables frequency of access per course unit to the virtual environment and the mean of the number of course units passed. Following the division of the sample into four different groups, each group corresponding to one quartile, resulting from the data regarding the frequency of accesses per course unit to the institution’s virtual environment, significant differences were found concerning the mean of the course units passed between the groups showing a higher frequency of access to the virtual learning environment and those with a lower access frequency, to the advantage of the groups showing a higher frequency of access to the virtual environment. Therefore, considering the way the groups were constituted, there is proof that the higher the frequency of access to the virtual environment is, the higher the probability of students succeeding in the course units they attend will be.


2021 ◽  
Vol LXIX (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Iulia Gonţa ◽  
Cristina Tripon

The challenges of online learning, created by the COVID-19 pandemic, have prompted a significant demand in researching this particular field of education. The adaptation to online learning, unfortunately, was applied in a context of unprepared teachers and students. This situation was caused by the new format of education, which differs significantly from massive open online courses, traditional learning or distance learning. The new hybrid model of education, prompted by the pandemic, has certainly become a trend that could incite future transformations in terms of teaching and learning. To better understand the specifics of this type of online learning, we asked the students (N = 705) from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest to express their opinion on their learning experience during the pandemic. The survey included the problems and expectations of the interviewees, and the research results were analyzed in the article. Our goal was to improve educational practices in the virtual educational environment. In this regard, we analyzed the important components of online learning, focusing on the following ones: the quality of the educational resources used to support the content, the improvement of the quality of the teacher- student relationships, time management, online assessment. The article also provides solutions for effective online learning, from the students’ perspective.


Author(s):  
Aftab Dean ◽  
Andy Lima

Over the last decade the adoption of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), at University, has become an accepted norm of support for student learning. However, despite the major investment in VLE’s there is a major disparity between what universities are offering, on their online platforms, and how this material and activities are being utilised by students. This research provides empirical evidence of the passive use, both by tutors and students, of the VLE. The literature provides evidence of the inertia that still exists, within Higher Education (HE), among tutors, to fully embrace the spectrum of VLE engagement tools. The lack of transition, among many tutors, to utilise the VLE as a pedagogical engagement tool continues to impact the expectations of fee paying students in the UK, who no longer expect that a Socratic dialogue will suffice to catalyse their intellectual curiosity. Today’s generation of students have been exposed to a plethora of technologies that facilitates the acquisition of instant information and often through a multitude of sensory (visual, audio) formats. Furthermore, with the growth of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) that are freely available to students the expectations, of HE students, from universities is becoming more demanding. In light of this competitive virtual learning landscape the authors propose a learning framework. To enable universities to create a unique and effective learning experience, for their students, through prudent investment in VLE tools and a complimentary learning environments. Resulting in deeper learning and informed students prepared for seminars.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. e41110212727
Author(s):  
Carlos Gomes Fontinelle ◽  
Laura Michaella Batista Ribeiro ◽  
Vitor Bremgartner da Frota ◽  
Daniel Nascimento-e-Silva

This study developed a virtual learning environment to support face-to-face teaching of the subject of Mobile Cellular Telephony of a federal institution of professional and technological education that operates in Northern Brazil. The methodology used consisted of quantitative-qualitative research, of a technological nature, developed in seven stages: 1) installation of the XAMPP and Moodle software, 2) configuration of the teaching environment, 3) allocation of the Moodle platform, 4) use of virtual resources interactive, 5) production of learning objects, 6) measurement of environmental performance indicators and 7) analysis and generation of results. The results showed that a) this was the first virtual learning experience for almost all participating students and teachers interviewed, b) teachers and students were motivated to use virtual environments in their teaching and learning activities, since c) the environment proved to be highly efficient and effective in generating effective learning and d) almost all students carried out the evaluation questions without much difficulty, as usually happens with traditional classes. The conclusion was that a discipline planned from the Moodle platform's perspective has several advantages, such as optimizing study time and the dynamics of classes.


Author(s):  
Li Hsien Ooi ◽  
Lay Huah Goh ◽  
Arathai Din Eak ◽  
Cheng Teik Ong

Online facilitation in distance education presents many challenges that involve both the learners and instructors. Through these challenges, the roles tutors' play and their best practices used in online facilitation should be looked into to improve the distance-learning experience. In view of this, this chapter attempted to examine the perspectives of experienced tutors engaged in the university's virtual learning environment, WawasanLearn. Based on the interview findings of eight tutors, several emergent findings highlighted the roles and challenges of effective online facilitation. As this research is based on the guidelines of the prominent Salmon's model, the findings also highlighted antecedents that substantiate best practices of online facilitation. Findings indicated that understanding the dynamics of online facilitation among relevant stakeholders is critical to improve the teaching and learning experience in distance education.


Author(s):  
Sandeep Chowdhry ◽  
Karolina Sieler ◽  
Lourdes Alwis

In university education a lot of emphasis is placed on the use of the virtual learning environment (VLE) in teaching to enhance the student learning experience. As a result, the academic staff is encouraged to use VLEs in different ways, including as a platform to provide online access to the study material but also as a source of additional online module activities aimed at enhancing student learning. This article reports on a study conducted on 257 students to investigate whether the utilisation of VLE has any impact on the final marks achieved by the students. As part of the study, the VLE logs were contrasted with the final marks of the students participating in a Law Module (LM), an Electrical Engineering Module (EEM) and a Mechanical Engineering Module (MEM) delivered at Edinburgh Napier University in the academic year 2013/2014. The results showed that the number of VLE visits did not have a direct impact on the final marks obtained by the students. However, for one of the modules there was some correlation between the final marks obtained by the students and the way the modules were structured around the VLE. The results of the study emphasised the need for continued improvement of the technology-enhanced teaching and learning skills of the academic staff in order to enhance the student learning experience.


Author(s):  
Li Hsien Ooi ◽  
Lay Huah Goh ◽  
Arathai Din Eak ◽  
Cheng Teik Ong

Online facilitation in distance education presents many challenges that involve both the learners and instructors. Through these challenges, the roles tutors' play and their best practices used in online facilitation should be looked into to improve the distance-learning experience. In view of this, this chapter attempted to examine the perspectives of experienced tutors engaged in the university's virtual learning environment, WawasanLearn. Based on the interview findings of eight tutors, several emergent findings highlighted the roles and challenges of effective online facilitation. As this research is based on the guidelines of the prominent Salmon's model, the findings also highlighted antecedents that substantiate best practices of online facilitation. Findings indicated that understanding the dynamics of online facilitation among relevant stakeholders is critical to improve the teaching and learning experience in distance education.


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