Notes to Learning Analytics

The recent two day seminar on Learning Analytics, organised by the Dutch SURF academy, brought some interested parties from different education institutions and vendors together. While stimulating in its presentation, the seminar mainly presented technical showcases. What got somehow left behind were relevant pedagogic showcases and a feeling of how receptive the teaching practitioner community is to this kind of innovation. Are we running again into the old pattern of being technology driven?

Some interesting showpieces included tools to elicit what I would call educational business analytics (as opposed to learning analytics). To some extent these were not really new, as business reporting systems on student grades, drop-out figures, and the likes have existed for many years, albeit that they are mainly available to university registrars. It is not yet clear what these figures do to teaching and learning when presented to teaching staff instead of administrators, but this would be a novel approach.

Here are some notes that came to my mind while listening to the presentations:

• LA tools are a bit like a cooking thermometer or oven thermostat. It doesn’t give you an indication of what meal a person is preparing or whether it will taste good or not, but it may be a vital (on-demand) instrument to determine the right action at the right time to get it done.

• How do we avoid teachers being turned into controlers, sitting like Homer Simpson in front of a dashboard and control panel looking at visualisations of their students’ datasets? Does an increase in such activities reduce their contact time with students?

• One common assumption I noted is the belief that all students are ambitious and only aim for top grades and the best learning experience. Being a father and having seen a few student generations, I contest this assumption. Many, if not most students, just want to pass. Studying isn’t in fact what they perceive as the prime focus of their lives. Tactical calculations that students are used to doing (how often can I still be absent; what’s the minimum mark I need for passing, etc.) maybe ‘prehistoric’ forms of Learning Analytics that have existed for as long as assessments have been around!