<i>“We’re Seeking Relevance”</i>: Qualitative Perspectives on the Impact of Learning Analytics on Teaching and Learning

Whilst a significant body of learning analytics research tends to focus on impact from the perspective of usability or improved learning outcomes, this paper proposes an approach based on Affordance Theory to describe awareness and intention as a bridge between usability and impact. 10 educators at 3 European institutions participated in detailed interviews on the affordances they perceive in using learning analytics to support practice in education. Evidence illuminates connections between an educator’s epistemic beliefs about learning and the purpose of education, their perception of threats or resources in delivering a successful learning experience, and the types of data they would consider as evidence in recognising or regulating learning. This evidence can support the learning analytics community in considering the proximity to the student, the role of the educator, and their personal belief structure in developing robust analytics tools that educators may be more likely to use

Steklov problem on differential forms

In this paper we study spectral properties of Dirichlet-to-Neumann map on differential forms obtained by a slight modification of the definition due to Belishev and Sharafutdinov. The resulting operator $\Lambda$ is shown to be self-adjoint on the subspace of coclosed forms and to have purely discrete spectrum there.We investigate properies of eigenvalues of $\Lambda$ and prove a Hersch-Payne-Schiffer type inequality relating products of those eigenvalues to eigenvalues of Hodge Laplacian on the boundary. Moreover, non-trivial eigenvalues of $\Lambda$ are always at least as large as eigenvalues of Dirichlet-to-Neumann map defined by Raulot and Savo. Finally, we remark that a particular case of $p$-forms on the boundary of $2p+2$-dimensional manifold shares a lot of important properties with the classical Steklov eigenvalue problem on surfaces.Comment: 18 page

Collaborative trails in e-learning environments

This deliverable focuses on collaboration within groups of learners, and hence collaborative trails. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background to collaborative learning and looking at the kinds of support that computers can give to groups of learners working collaboratively, and then look more deeply at some of the issues in designing environments to support collaborative learning trails and at tools and techniques, including collaborative filtering, that can be used for analysing collaborative trails. We then review the state-of-the-art in supporting collaborative learning in three different areas – experimental academic systems, systems using mobile technology (which are also generally academic), and commercially available systems. The final part of the deliverable presents three scenarios that show where technology that supports groups working collaboratively and producing collaborative trails may be heading in the near future

Kolb in de klas: vijf docenten in het hoger onderwijs onderzoeken de waarde van Kolbs leerstijlen voor hun eigen onderwijspraktijk

Deze bundel bevat de resultaten van vijf kortlopende onderzoeken door deelnemers aan de masteropleiding Teaching in Higher Education, allen docenten in het hoger onderwijs, naar de waarde van de leerstijlen van Kolb voor hun eigen lespraktijk. Uit de onderzoeken komt naar voren dat het onderwijsaanbod niet geheel bepaald wordt door de leerstijl van de docent, maar dat het zou kunnen zijn dat het wel deels hierdoor beïnvloed wordt. Ook zijn vier manieren geïdentificeerd waarop docenten rekening houden met individuele verschillen tussen studenten. Ten aanzien van het verrichten van dit type onderzoek blijkt een noodzaak om het vóórkomen van en voorkeuren voor bepaalde leerstijlen op verschillende manieren te meten en om zowel met kwalitatieve als kwantitatieve methoden te werken; daarbij kan de Chi-square goodness-of-fit test voor één groep, goede diensten bewijzen. Ook lijkt het dat aangetroffen verschillen in leerstijlen wel eens veroorzaakt zouden kunnen zijn tussen verschillen in wat en hoe men meet, en geen reflectie zijn van feitelijke verschillen in leerstijlen

Does excellence matter? The influence of potential for excellence on students’ motivation for specific collaborative tasks

It is often assumed that students with a higher potential for excellence are less motivated to collaborate. So far, the question remains whether this is actually the case. This survey study investigated the influence of business students’ (N = 389) potential for excellence on their motivation to collaborate on a business-related task. Different aspects of potential for excellence were taken into account, including intelligence, creativity, first-year grade point average (GPA), and personality. A structural equation modeling analysis was applied. The findings demonstrated that only GPA had a negative influence on students’ collaborative values, indicating that the assumption that students with a higher potential for excellence are less motivated to collaborate receives limited support. In addition, the findings showed that different aspects of potential for excellence were related to different aspects of motivation to collaborate. This indicates that the relationship between potential f

Pre-service primary school teachers’ knowledge during teaching informal statistical inference

The study reported in this article investigated the appropriateness of Mathematical Knowledge in Teaching of three pre-service primary school teachers (PSTs), teaching an informal statistical inference (ISI) lesson to primary school students. Using an ISI framework and the Knowledge Quartet framework., the presence and appropriateness of the PSTs’ teaching actions were coded and categorized. The results showed that PSTs were consciously engaged in making inferences based on sample data. The PSTs struggled to correctly interpret students’ conceptual input and to explain ISI, in particular, how generalizing from a sample is possible. Teacher education should focus on how PSTs can foster students’ understanding of the logic of drawing conclusions about a population based on a sample.Teaching and Teacher Learning (ICLON

S-COL: A Copernican turn for the development of flexibly reusable collaboration scripts

Collaboration scripts are usually implemented as parts of a particular collaborative-learning platform. Therefore, scripts of demonstrated effectiveness are hardly used with learning platforms at other sites, and replication studies are rare. The approach of a platform-independent description language for scripts that allows for easy implementation of the same script on different platforms has not succeeded yet in making the transfer of scripts feasible. We present an alternative solution that treats the problem as a special case of providing support on top of diverse Web pages: In this case, the challenge is to trigger support based on the recognition of a Web page as belonging to a specific type of functionally equivalent pages such as the search query form or the results page of a search engine. The solution suggested has been implemented by means of a tool called S-COL (Scripting for Collaborative Online Learning) and allows for the sustainable development of scripts and scaffolds that can be used with a broad variety of content and platforms. The tool’s functions are described. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and ease of script reuse with S-COL, we describe the flexible re-implementation of a collaboration script for argumentation in S-COL and its adaptation to different learning platforms. To demonstrate that a collaboration script implemented in S-COL can actually foster learning, an empirical study about the effects of a specific script for collaborative online search on learning activities is presented. The further potentials and the limitations of the S-COL approach are discussed

A portal of educational resources: providing evidence for matching pedagogy with technology

The TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge) model presents the three types of knowledge that are necessary to implement a successful technology-based educational activity. It highlights how the intersections between TPK (Technological Pedagogical Knowledge), PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge) and TCK (Technological Content Knowledge) are not a sheer sum up of their components but new types of knowledge. This paper focuses on TPK, the intersection between technology knowledge and pedagogy knowledge – a crucial field of investigation. Actually, technology in education is not just an add-on but is literally reshaping teaching/learning paradigms. Technology modifies pedagogy and pedagogy dictates requirements to technology. In order to pursue this research, an empirical approach was taken, building a repository (back-end) and a portal (front-end) of about 300 real-life educational experiences run at school. Educational portals are not new, but they generally emphasise content. Instead, in our portal, technology and pedagogy take centre stage. Experiences are classified according to more than 30 categories (‘facets’) and more than 200 facet values, all revolving around the pedagogical implementation and the technology used. The portal (an innovative piece of technology) supports sophisticated ‘exploratory’ sessions of use, targeted at researchers (investigating the TPK intersection), teachers (looking for inspiration in their daily jobs) and decision makers (making decisions about the introduction of technology into schools)