Connecting Analytics and Curriculum Design: Process and Outcomes of Building a Tool to Browse Data Relevant to Course Designers

The disconnect between data collection and analysis across sectors of academic institutions makes it challenging to incorporate data into curricular design. Understanding the factors related to student persistence and success is unlikely to occur by focusing only on one sector at a time. By promoting course design that is informed by data from all sectors we are more likely to understand important connections that could encourage more effective and holistic change. Facilitating evidence-based course design might begin with the creation of a tool that allows real-time exploration of data across sectors for integration into the traditional course/curricular design. Our paper describes how data from institutional, learning, and what we call “developmental” analytics can be incorporated into course and curricular design by using a purposefully built analysis tool that permits the exploration of student and course objects. This Browser of Student and Course Objects (BoSCO) is being built in a faculty driven-process and can be used as a bridge between the analytics space and the course/curriculum design environments. Such a tool can promote alignment of research within institutions and facilitate communication about analytics, therefore encouraging teachers to use analytics for course and curricular design.

[1]  R. Slavin.  Synthesis of Research on Cooperative Learning. , 1981 .

[2]  Jeffrey Heer,et al.  SpanningAspectRatioBank Easing FunctionS ArrayIn ColorIn Date Interpolator MatrixInterpola NumObjecPointI Rectang ISchedu Parallel Pause Scheduler Sequen Transition Transitioner Transiti Tween Co DelimGraphMLCon IData JSONCon DataField DataSc Dat DataSource Data DataUtil DirtySprite LineS RectSprite , 2011 .

[3]  John P. Buerck.  A Resource-Constrained Approach to Implementing Analytics in an Institution of Higher Education: An Experience Report , 2014 .

[4]  Lynne Wigens,et al.  Strategies for change. , 2010, Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987).

[5]  M HERSTEIN,et al.  Let's talk! , 1956, The American journal of nursing.

[6]  C. Henderson,et al.  Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM instructional practices: An analytic review of the literature , 2011 .

[7]  Karen A. Blase,et al.  Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the , 2005 .

[8]  Diana G. Oblinger.  Analytics: What We're Hearing. , 2012 .

[9]  Rebecca Ferguson,et al.  Learning analytics: drivers, developments and challenges , 2012 .

[10]  Jennifer Connolly,et al.  Social self-efficacy in adolescence: relations with self-concept, social adjustment, and mental health , 1989 .

[11]  David W. Johnson,et al.  Cooperative learning methods: A meta-analysis. , 2012 .

[12]  R. W. Rogers,et al.  The Self-Efficacy Scale: Construction and Validation , 1982 .

[13]  Adrianna Kezar,et al.  Understanding and facilitating organizational change in the 21st century : recent research and conceptualizations , 2001 .

[14]  Marek Hatala,et al.  A qualitative evaluation of evolution of a learning analytics tool , 2012, Comput. Educ..

[15]  Rebecca Ferguson,et al.  Social Learning Analytics , 2012, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[16]  D. Farmer.  Strategies for Change. , 1990 .

[17]  Ann Hill Duin,et al.  Cultivating Change in the Academy: 50+ Stories from the Digital Frontlines at the University of Minnesota in 2012 , 2012 .

[18]  Claudia Neuhauser,et al.  The Student Success Coach. , 2011 .

[19]  Henk G. Schmidt,et al.  Academic and social integration and study progress in problem based learning , 2009 .

[20]  Michael Molenda,et al.  In Search of the Elusive ADDIE Model , 2003 .

[21]  Peter D. Eckel,et al.  Examining the Institutional Transformation Process: The Importance of Sensemaking, Interrelated Strategies, and Balance , 2002 .

[22]  Melvin D. George,et al.  Effective practices in undergraduate STEM education part 1: examining the evidence. , 2009, CBE life sciences education.

[23]  George Siemens,et al.  Penetrating the fog: analytics in learning and education , 2014 .

[24]  Vincent Tinto,et al.  Classrooms as Communities: Exploring the Educational Character of Student Persistence. , 1997 .

[25]  Anthony Lising Antonio,et al.  The Influence of Friendship Groups on Intellectual Self-Confidence and Educational Aspirations in College , 2004 .

[26]  Marcia B. Baxter Magolda.  Identity and Learning: Student Affairs' Role in Transforming Higher Education , 2003 .

[27]  L. Morris,et al.  Tracking student behavior, persistence, and achievement in online courses , 2005, Internet High. Educ..

[28]  Shane Dawson,et al.  Mining LMS data to develop an "early warning system" for educators: A proof of concept , 2010, Comput. Educ..