Learner Dashboards to Inform Instructional

Approaches

Peter Shea

Director, Office of Professional Development

Middlesex Community College (Massachusetts)

Bedford, MA

Objectives

• Describe what learner dashboards are & how they may impact educational practice

• Identify ways in which colleges and universities can successfully engage faculty and staff to consider the value of analytics related to their roles

• Discuss how to achieve institutional “buy-in”

• Explore the ways simulations and edugames can be used to gather critical student performance data to inform instructional approaches and to accurately measure learning outcomes

Sampling of Questions Posted1. “What are they?”

2. “What tools are out there that would easily integrate with an LMS such as Canvas? What research has been done on the effectiveness of such tools?”

3. “What questions does a learner dashboard address? What does it not answer so well?”

4. “I'm most interested in how to get started. How do you pull the data together, where, and from what systems? What tools do you use to create the dashboard? Etc.”

5. “How they could be used in an art context (we're a school of art and design)?”

Definition"[Learner] Dashboards typically capture

and visualize traces of learning activities,

in order to promote awareness, reflection,

and sense-making, and to enable learners

to define goals and track progress toward

these goals." (Verbert, et al 2013).

Let’s Start with the Basics…….

Sample Course Shell (Blackboard LMS)

Basic Dashboards (Blackboard LMS)

Basic Dashboards (Blackboard LMS)

Basic Dashboards (Canvas LMS)

Advanced Dashboards (Blackboard Analytics)

What is the Need for Learner Dashboards?

“Although estimates vary, teachers likely make as many as 800-1,000 decisions a day (Good & Brophy, 2008).”

Dr. Kristen DiCerbo

Principal Research Scientist at Pearson

Dashboards for Everyone?

Why are Some Useful Practices Quickly Adopted and Others Slowly?

Gawande, A. (2013, July 19). Sharing Slow Ideas. Retrieved January 21, 2016, from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/slow-ideas

Discussion Activity (15 minutes)

Please respond to at least two of the following questions:

- Can you estimate how many of your faculty use LMS technology on a regular basis?

- Do any of your faculty or staff make use of Student Performance Data Tools?

- What issues do you perceive your institution would encounter if it tried to promote the use of learning dashboards among faculty?

Potential Obstacles•The “Two C’s”

•Cost

•Culture

What are Some Means of Obtaining Institutional Buy-In?

• Emphasize that there are already tools available in the existing LMS that can promote analytics thinking among faculty

• Indicate that available data in dashboards can assist in the decision-making process for instructor

• Identify dashboard tools for student use that promotes a sense of agency among students (ex: helps them plan their curriculum, allows them to identify their overall academic strengths/areas in need of improvement)

• Promote discussion between advising and faculty on the subject of how these new tools impact their work

• Align this technology with larger institutional goals (more accurate measurement of student learning outcomes)

The Next Stage? Learning Dashboards for Simulations and Edugames

Learner Dashboard: Agent Surefire (Cybersecurity Training)

Sample Edugame Learning Dashboard (Toolwire)

Sample Edugame Learning Dashboard (Toolwire)

What Learner Performance Information Can from Be Obtained from a Simulation or Edugame?

• Provide instant feedback on the user’s performance during the training (as opposed to failing a test after the fact)

• Determine weak areas in the user’s skill set, directly impacting his/her job performance. From a higher education point of view, it means we can tell how well a student can perform the task, pinpointing to knowledge deficits and/or necessary corrective actions.

• Identify “Expert Blind Spots” where a majority of the students perform poorly due to an unclear delivery of the training content. In other words, as developers of training products we can identify problems with the course itself.

[Source: Bora Aytun, MAVI Interactive]

Recommended Article on Learner Dashboards

Verbert, Govaerts, et al. (2014) “Learning dashboards: an overview and future research opportunities.” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing. Volume 18, Issue 6, pp 1499-1514.

Questions?

Special Thanks

• Dr. Jim Mabry, President, Middlesex Community College (Massachusetts)

• Nancy Curll, Manager of E-Learning, Middlesex Community College

• Bora Aytun, CEO, MAVI Interactive

• Anthony Jovanis, Customer Success Advocate, Blackboard Inc.