Supporting teacher activities and learning design in the online environment with learning analytics. A faculty perspective.

Abstract

Teaching online requires careful planning, monitoring and reflection. Learning Analytics (LA) can help teachers observe, inquire and evaluate their practice. Still, LA is not widely adopted by online teachers towards this end. This mixed methods exploratory case study seeks the perspective of experienced faculty of online graduate studies to describe insights gained through LA. Course data was extracted from Moodle (the Learning Management System or LMS), and presented to faculty in several forms. Discourse analysis was also performed, grounded in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 1999). Faculty were interviewed and asked to assign meaning and elaborate on several aspects of the data and its relationship with course design and teaching practice. Data from the courses represented user activity and the timing and extent of each of the CoI presences (social, cognitive and teaching). Findings indicate that engaging faculty in the quantitative and qualitative process of LA is a powerful way to assess course dynamics, link to theoretical grounding, contrast to faculty observations and perceptions, and engage faculty in a community of practice.