How teaching with learning analytics can promote success for all students in the classroom
Emily Oakes, Indiana University and Lauren Marsh, University of Minnesota
Watch the Keynote video (opens in new tab, corrected captions coming soon)
Understanding our students’ engagement with course materials and activities has always been a challenge, and that challenge has taken on more urgency and relevance as the demand for online courses has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Fortunately, the shift toward digital learning, both as part of in-person and online courses, has provided us a tool we’ve not had in our toolbox before: the digital footprint that your students leave when they move through your class, a.k.a. learning analytics. Learning analytics can supplement the information you glean from personally interacting with your students in your classes, providing novel information – and novel challenges.
This keynote begins by situating the conversation squarely in the classroom, exploring the responses we received from faculty participating in structured conversations across multiple institutions describing what data they would find useful in their teaching. The responses from those faculty reveal a strong interest in using learning analytics to more effectively – and ethically – identify challenges in their courses, ranging from discovering a lack of student engagement with particular content to finding common stumbling blocks in their course design. The feedback we received from faculty also revealed common misconceptions about what data can do, and, finally, they provided insights into how we can apply learning analytics in the classroom in support of all of our students.
Ultimately, this session will help you identify indicators of success or challenges in your courses using previously inaccessible data about your students’ behaviors. Recognizing that this novel view into your students’ activities brings with it an abundance of new ethical questions and conundrums, we'll also provide caveats and recommendations that will help ensure we’re promoting our students’ agency in their own learning, maintaining their trust in their instructors, and supporting their learning and success.
Brief Bios
Lauren Marsh
Since joining the University of Minnesota’s academic technology unit in 2003, Lauren Marsh has served in many roles, including Manager, Service Owner, and Senior Academic Technologist. She managed the University’s 18-month Faculty Fellowship Program for 10 years; the program focused on cultivating faculty leaders in the area of academic technology. Currently, Lauren supports the University’s efforts to create a culture of learning analytics: she co-chairs the Learning Analytics DiaLOG group, which guides the operationalization of learning analytics as educational practice at the University of Minnesota, and coordinates learning analytics pilot efforts (MyLA and ECoach).
Lauren has been active in Unizin since 2015 and is currently serving as Chair of the Unizin Teaching & Learning Advisory Group. As co-chair of the Faculty Development Subcommittee along with Emily Oakes, she has managed the Stepping Stones Initiative, a learning analytics curriculum for faculty and supports efforts to identify faculty questions and priorities for learning data through Structured Conversations
A proud English major, Lauren earned her doctorate at the University of Minnesota in 2003 and keeps a tall stack of novels on her nightstand.
Emily Oakes
Emily Oakes is the Indiana University Data Steward for Learning Management and Learning Analytics data, co-chair of the IU IT Leadership Community's Diversity & Inclusion action team. She is also IU's principal representative to the Unizin Consortium, and co-chair of the Faculty Development Subcommittee along with Lauren, leading the Stepping Stones Initiative. She is also a first-generation, non-traditional student who has spent her lifetime navigating systems of education with a disability.
Emily's 10-year career at IU as an information technology professional has involved direct support of faculty and students as they interact with university systems, most notably teaching and learning tools. As Data Steward, she is responsible for the university-wide governance of learning management and learning analytics data. She works to protect the information security and privacy of both students and instructors by developing and maintaining high-level guidance for data access, management, and handling to react to ever-changing technical environments, data protection and privacy laws, and security threats. Her experience with technology systems and passion for effective and equitable teaching powers her efforts to unravel complex problems at the intersection of people and technology – challenges ranging from course content affordability to the effective and ethical use of learning data in the classroom.
About the Unizin Consortium
Founded in 2015, Unizin is a member-based nonprofit 501(c)3 that enables higher education to meet the moment of digital transformation by developing and delivering solutions that address the pressing and complex challenges of data, analytics, and digital content. The consortium model and partnerships enable Unizin to build technology solutions, establish relationships, and pursue research that no single institution could achieve cost-effectively on its own.