Learning Analytics
Learning analytics promises to harness the power of advances in data mining, interpretation, and modeling to improve understandings of teaching and learning, and to tailor education to individual students more effectively. Still in its early stages, learning analytics responds to calls for accountability on campuses across the country, and leverages the vast amount of data produced by students in day-to-day academic activities. While learning analytics has already been used in admissions and fund-raising efforts on several campuses, “academic analytics” is just beginning to take shape.
Source: 2011 Horizon Report
Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
schiong 4:04 pm on September 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I imagine Learning analytic as a computer “psychologist”. It examines the behavior, pattern, students’ performance, etc … It should also take into consideration the learner’s background (culture, country of origin, age, etc) … It then provides suggestions on which materials would be suitable for the learner for a particular topic. Learning Analytic should provide information to the instructor on the effectiveness of their materials, what’s missing, etc …
David William Price 7:38 am on September 8, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think this fits in with Sal Khan’s backend for the Khan Academy where you can see which questions students answer right/wrong, how long it takes them to answer them, etc. to allow you to focus in on the problem. On the one hand this sounds very helpful. I think though that this data may be of more use to question the design used to teach a course and re-tool that design to fix the problem spots. In that sense, it can be as simple as an instructor facing the “black holes” in his/her course instead of glossing over them and focusing on the fun parts of teaching.
andrea 12:08 pm on September 10, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The story of the “School of One” (http://www.schoolofone.org) looks at the best this has to offer – a way of offering personalized learning solutions based on how students interact with the system – and offers huge possibilities for e-learning systems.
Julie S 12:49 pm on September 11, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’ve been doing business analytics for years now so I would really be interested in exploring more about learning analytics. I think it has a lot of potential. The key is well thought out design and investigating the right questions. I completely understand what the report is saying about disparate data sources. Data quality would be key and the privacy issues complex.