Learning Analytics – getting a picture of student engagement and performance

 

Learning Analytics (LAs) is a rapidly growing area in formal education that is worth paying attention to because of its rising prevalence and its power to help both students and teachers maximise course performance. The University of Brighton is expanding its successful learning analytics pilot. Here’s a quick overview for you:

What are Learning Analytics?

LAs piece together separate streams of information on learners’ activities to paint an overall picture of engagement with, and progress through, a taught course. This information is presented digitally (usually via a dashboard) in a meaningful way to help students assess where they are on the course (often in comparison to cohort averages) and to help teachers monitor their students’ engagement and the effectiveness of teaching interventions.

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Padlet – a digital pinboard to foster collaboration and contribution

How often do you gather helpful points during a teaching session using a flip chart or whiteboard or sticky notes? They’re great but it would be even better if you could keep a lasting electronic record (without having to take a photo of the board!) or allow participants to continue adding to the discussion after the classroom session (without having to come back to the room!). This is what Padlet offers.

What is it?

Padlet is a ‘digital pinboard’, a website that offers a customisable blank page on which participants can post content – text, thoughts, comments, responses, photos, weblinks, video. To set up a Padlet, you simply create an account, create a board, customise its settings, share the URL with your learners. They go to the address on their computer or mobile device. There’s also a free mobile app.

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More BSMS PollEverywhere accounts now available

https://www.polleverywhere.com/how-it-works

BSMS have access to all the paid-for features of PollEverywhere through the University of Brighton institutional licence but there has only been a handful of account available to us. Now, the University of Brighton eLearning team have recently paid for a much greater number of accounts so there are many more available for BSMS educators to use.

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