Welcome to the February 2019 edition of the Edubytes newsletter. Edubytes features articles that focus on emerging trends and innovations in teaching and learning in higher education.
This month, we are dipping into our first themed edition of the newsletter to focus on learning analytics. Our guest editor, Craig Thompson, a research analyst with CTLT and newly elected treasurer of SoLAR, has curated the first part of this edition.
If you have any suggestions on higher education trends you would like to read more about, feel free to contact us at edu.bytes@ubc.ca. We would love to hear your thoughts.
Guest editor: Craig Thompson
Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.
A growing number of leading universities have "learning analytics", "student analytics", or "student success analytics" initiatives, all focused on using data collected institutionally to improve the student learning experience. These programs are exploring ways to increase student engagement, measure the effectiveness of new teaching initiatives, and provide timely interventions to students in need of support. Through the use of learning analytics, many universities are aiming to instill a culture of continuous improvement in the student learning experience.
Below are some exciting recent developments in learning analytics:
Video — OnTask: Actionable feedback for studentsOnTask is a new tool for delivering mass-personalized feedback to students that enables instructors to provide timely, actionable, tailored advice, in large courses where the student-instructor ratio would typically preclude this level of detailed feedback. This video, produced by the University of Technology Sydney, showcases how the tool can be used to provide customized feedback and support.
STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classesA recent study conducted by Elizabeth Canning et al. demonstrates that instructor beliefs about whether intellectual ability is fixed or malleable (i.e. "growth" mindset) have a significant impact on both student achievement and motivation. In a survey of about 15,000 students, 150 professors and 600 STEM courses, students performed more poorly in courses taught by instructors with a fixed mindset than those with growth mindset beliefs. Furthermore, achievement gaps among underrepresented minority student groups are greater in courses taught by faculty with fixed mindset beliefs. As the authors state, "faculty-centered interventions may have the unprecedented potential to change STEM culture from a fixed mindset culture of genius to a growth mindset culture of development while narrowing STEM racial achievement gaps at scale."
Implementation of a student learning analytics fellows programAs more institutions pursue analytics initiatives aimed at improving student learning, we can see some early leaders emerging. George Rehrey et al. from Indiana University received a Best Practitioner Paper award last year at the annual International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK). The paper describes the structure of their Student Learning Analytics Fellows program, the types of research undertaken by their fellows and how institutional transformation is taking shape through a commitment to connecting learning analytics research with practice at IUB.
Video — Timothy McKay: Can a university become a learning laboratory? In his inspiring keynote address to the LAK community, Timothy McKay lays out a vision of the university as a "learning laboratory": a place where "...everything we do contributes to generalizable knowledge about teaching and learning." McKay presents on the history of learning analytics work at the University of Michigan — one of the leading institutions in the area. He then draws parallels between the rise of learning analytics and the successful history of evidence-based medicine, suggesting that the future of education will include continuous, systematic improvement through experimentation, while taking a student-centered, privacy preserving approach.
February 2019 Edubytes roundup 2019 Key issues in teaching and learningThe EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) has special initiatives in order to support the teaching and learning community by addressing key issues in higher education. The key issues serve as the framework or focal points for discussions and programming throughout the coming year. More than 1,400 community members voted, and the following were identified as the 2019 Key Issues:
Faculty Development & Engagement
Online & Blended Learning
Instructional & Learning Design for Learning
Digital & Information Literacy
Accessibility & Universal Design for Learning
Competency & New Methods of Learning Assessment
Learning Analytics
Open Education
Evaluating Instructional & Learning Innovations
Academic Transformation
Adaptive Teaching & Learning
Learning Spaces (including Makerspaces)
Microcredentialing & Digital Badging
Digital Learning Architectures
Integrated Planning & Advising for Student Success (iPASS)
Another perspective on AI in higher education Klutka, Ackerly, and Magda (2018) at The Learning House, a Wiley brand, collaborated to evaluate how Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts higher education and what opportunities the technology could offer in the future. Tony Bates, a well known researcher in online learning and distance education, posted his comments on their report. He provides a brief summary of the report identifying four key areas for applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education. Although he acknowledges the value of the report in terms of providing specific examples of how AI is actually being applied in higher education, he also raises questions about the merits of AI applications currently in use.
Student-centred learning and student buy-inStudent buy-in for active learning has been positively associated with engagement and learning gains. A new study published by PLOS ONE found that when a course is transformed to include active learning, student buy-in increases as the share of students who completed the course grows within a given student population — due to a sense of community, and not just teacher efficacy. According to Tarren J. Shaw, a co-author of the study, student resistance lessened every time the revised course was taught. “This underscores the need for faculty and administrators to understand the time frame over which student buy-in to change occurs. Both patience and persistence are needed,” stated Shaw.
Innovating pedagogy 2019The Innovating Pedagogies report, which was created by The Open University in collaboration with the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, Norway, summarizes ten innovative pedagogical approaches that are currently being practiced, but haven’t had a widespread impact yet. For each of the themes, the report provides a brief sketch that summarizes how it is being applied and illustrates its transformative potential. This is the seventh year the annual report has been published. Themes from the previous Innovating Pedagogy reports are available on the project web site.
