The Learning Analytics Research Collaborative (LARC)
Lead Campus
Indiana University Bloomington
Partners
University of California Davis
University of Kansas
University of Saskatchewan
Description
The Bay View Alliance Learning Analytics Research Collaborative has embarked upon a multi-year project to research how analytical data can be used to improve teaching, learning, and student success. Led by Indiana University Bloomington, which began its own Student Learning Analytics Fellows Program in 2015, participating institutions are undertaking their own version of a Learning Analytics Fellows Program. The program engages faculty in the use Learning Analytics to conduct scholarly research about their students at the course, program and institutional levels
By developing culture that values and empowers individuals and units to make data-informed decisions, the program will help build capacity and bring awareness to the use of learning analytics in order to transform teaching and learning and improve course design and assessment. We anticipate that these activities will encourage faculty to make connections between student performance in their own classes with the pathways students take on their journey toward graduation.
Contact
George Rehrey
grehrey@iu.edu
Tools for Evidence-Based Action (TEA)*
Lead Campus
University of California Davis
Description
The mission of the TEA community is to enhance evidence-based teaching methodology and policy by developing and sharing new technologies. With funding from the Helmsley Foundation we have developed a visualization system to understand the pathways students take through a university (Ribbon Tool) and a classroom observation tool (GORP) used for researching teaching methodology and teacher development training.
Preliminary tests in which faculty were given access to data and analysis tools resulted in quick and positive shifts in the course planning and developing process toward evidence-informed practices. Such rapid and high-level integration into program culture suggests that these resources are meeting a significantly underserved demand, and that the potential to affect broad and long-term change is great.
Measures of intervention impact will include (but are not limited to):
- Tracking faculty use of analytic tools including the type and quality of driving questions
- Changes to course curriculum, instruction, and assessments informed by evidence – and resulting performance outcomes
- Changes to program-level curricular planning, TA training, and/or faculty reward systems related to instruction
- Faculty engagement in curricular pilot projects
Methodologies include interviews of faculty and students, online analytics, and qualitative analysis of course content, instruction, assessment, student assessment responses, and iterative course revision.
The work focused on:
- Continued construction of the tools by the various partner development teams,
- Implementation of tools and training at each partner campus, and
- Assessment of impact including characterization of how data are used and if/how tools and data are impacting faculty culture and student outcomes.
Contact
Marco Molinaro
marcom@umd.edu
*completed project