Can Data Help? - Learning Analytics on the Path Towards Personalised Assessments

In this presentation, Vesa Pajaanen will share simple examples of learning analytics that support the study work of students. He will also talk about the pitfalls of self-regulated learning and about the limitations of analytics that inform about the activity of students in the LMS.

While higher education has been shifted more and more online and students study while interacting with a learning management systems (LMS), there is a mass of data available that is underutilised and could be used for learning design and support the students. 

This requires the mining of large datasets and obtaining detailed information about the daily activity of students is not without ethical and juridical questions. However, the biggest challenge in learning analytics is related to the practical work: how can we use the data about daily study work, learning strategies and learning success of students for our daily teaching and for supporting our students.

At the University of Eastern Finland, a large proportion of teaching was turned into flipped classrooms in 2016. Since then and to understand the reasons behind dropouts, underachievement, and challenges, we have been tracking the LMS log activity of our students in bioscience. 

Through this experiment, we could identify some elements that were essential for students to reach their study goals and we also found some risk factors that were linked to drop-outs. 

We also revealed the benefits of regular feedback on the study activity of the students so  we modified our assessments to increase personal feedback and teacher-student-interactions.

Besides these promising results, the learning analytics were not been able to help avoid dropouts for students with low LMS activity. Messages of lagging behind did not increase the activity of students-at-risk and their problems of procrastination or in finishing their studies were more related to educational or personal factors than motivational challenges.

Event though leading online platforms contain tailored material to analyse the learning challenges of the student, we don’t believe LMS based assessments will become the golden standard in the near future, not even in blended teaching or in small online courses with small teaching resources. 

We do believe that fast and simple tracking methods can offer background information for teachers to help students in their learning process but to use these methods, teachers must be motivated to know their students and allocate time to give them personal feedback on the course.

Overview

• How information of students’ LMS activity can be used for their guidance.
• Limitations and pitfalls related to simple data-driven feedback to limit dropouts.
• Use learning analytics to develop your teaching and understand the role of interactivity for learning processes.

During this presentation you will gain inspiration on using Learning Analytics (LA) to create value for ALL students and gain insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching methods.

Our research seeks to explore the role that learning analytics can have in making university education more accessible and equal to students with a disadvantaged background.

Based on data collection among students, we investigated the impact of teaching methods on the relationship between a student background and learning outcomes.

Learning analytics can thus be a tool for making education more effective and efficient, but also enables all students, irrespective of their background, to gain more value from education.

Overview

• Explore the possibilities of LA to make university education more accessible to disadvantaged students.
• Insights into ex ante factors that affect student learning outcomes.
• Insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching methods.

This presentation will discuss the current Special Education Needs (SEN) challenges within the education sector. Topics include the future of inclusion, current classroom practices and the impact the current system has on both the learners and professionals involved.

We live in an era in which data is supreme and new technologies are constantly being created. This has impacted the way we teach and learn with many online tools being used to enhance or facilitate the learning process. However, considering the diverse profile of learners in schools today, the future of learning goes beyond substituting and improving functionality of classroom material or redesigning tasks through technology, but focuses on learning technologies that transform educational practices and finds solutions to the many challenges that schools currently face.

This presentation will focus on the use of technology to:

• provide special educational needs learners with customised learning processes that also benefits neurotypical learners
• select the right metrics and measures to create positive learning experiences that are relevant to the learners’ needs
• use data to identify developmental needs and inform health care plans and individualised education programmes

This interactive presentation, which will include short conversations between participants together with the opportunity to add value to the presentation itself through their input using interactive online tools, will stimulate discussions related to:

• the current challenges within the education sector
• whether the current classroom practices are leaving the desired effect on our learners
• how inclusion is currently being implemented by educational institutions and why it must change
• the role of technology in creating positive learning experiences for all learners
• using data to create more efficient and effective teaching
• the use of data and technology to facilitate collaboration between professionals working in different departments who are both in direct and non direct contact with the learners.

This vibrant discussion will not only enable participants to meet the diverse range of needs within their educational settings more efficiently, but will also enable them to access tools and use data in a way that benefits schools, administrators, teachers, other professional bodies and most importantly the learner.

Overview

• Create tailored learning processes that benefit all learners.
• Use learning technologies to facilitate skills development.
• Use the right metrics and measures for maximum impact to ensure positive learning experiences and truly inclusive practices.
• Make a case using data generated by cloud based Intelligence, saving time whilst ensuring learners needs are met.