During the last week, I have been thinking about the details of student activities in EchoLu that can be meaningful for tracking student engagement as well as for visualization. I have ended up with many potential meaningful student data that can be tracked in EchoLu.
First, students' page views can be recorded in the database along with the time and date information. These data can help to track students' continuity in using the site. For example, it can help to see whether students access the system only just before exams (or due dates) or use it on a regular base). Moreover, it can also help to observe the overall behavior of the classroom regarding the use of EchoLu and to identify if certain student groups exhibit a similar behavior in accessing the site.
Second, the time and date information of student questions and comments can provide essential information for evaluating students' active engagement and observing the trend of their participation. At this point, the due dates might play a role. The frequency of student posts before due dates and after due dates can be meaningful in understanding how students differ from each other in terms of the purpose of the use. Some students might continue to participate after the due dates, while others might participate based on the due dates for posting. Achievement goal orientation might play a role in such student behaviors. Thus, the due dates for students can be included in visualization to communicate a more complete picture of student engagement. Furthermore, students' tendency to post a question or reply to a question can be tracked. For example, some students might focus on asking questions and getting help while others might replying to questions and providing assistance, and these roles might change in time. Visualizations can help to identify these behaviors and trends.
Last, the trends in anonymous questions and comments can be recognized. For example, a student who prefers to post anonymous questions earlier weeks, may feel comfortable posting questions with his name and surname in later weeks, or vice versa. A visual may present the anonymous posts and non-anonymous posts on a time schedule, which may help to see the changes in students' preference in help-seeking, and the dominant behavior.
Hope to share some drafts of visuals next time!
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Student Engagement in Online Environments - Design Journal #1
Engagement is an integral part of learning. Learning is likely to happen only if students are engaged in learning activities. When students are engaged, they exhibit behaviors that lead to learning. These actions might be observable (behavioral engagement, such as raising a hand) or unobservable (cognitive engagement, such as developing a solution to a problem). Moreover, student engagement is not likely to stay constant and may increase or decrease over time.
Online discussion forums and question&answer tools have been used a great deal in education. In these environments, students engage in learning by interacting with peers and exchanging information with each other in an asynchronous manner, while every student actions are automatically recorded in an online database. In other words, the online learning technologies provide the possibility of keeping track of student interactions with such details as time and frequency, which is not easy to achieve in classroom settings. However, the large sets of raw data of online student interactions can not be easily read by a teacher (or a researcher) to make meaningful and complete observations regarding the change in student engagement.
Thus, I am interested in the visualization of student interactions in an online environment, called EchoLu. EchoLu is an online learning tool developed by me to assist students in seeking help from peers. I am planning to develop a visualization component to EchoLu. As students interact in EchoLu, the visualizations will be available dynamically at any time. The visualizations will show the change in student engagement in individual and class levell. I believe that this will help the teacher to examine the patterns in student engagement throughout the course. Additionally, it will be a research tool for me to investigate how student engagement changes over time depending on the pre-defined posting due dates, and how student achievement goals play a role in this change.
Hope to have more details with some visuals next time!
Erkan
Online discussion forums and question&answer tools have been used a great deal in education. In these environments, students engage in learning by interacting with peers and exchanging information with each other in an asynchronous manner, while every student actions are automatically recorded in an online database. In other words, the online learning technologies provide the possibility of keeping track of student interactions with such details as time and frequency, which is not easy to achieve in classroom settings. However, the large sets of raw data of online student interactions can not be easily read by a teacher (or a researcher) to make meaningful and complete observations regarding the change in student engagement.
Thus, I am interested in the visualization of student interactions in an online environment, called EchoLu. EchoLu is an online learning tool developed by me to assist students in seeking help from peers. I am planning to develop a visualization component to EchoLu. As students interact in EchoLu, the visualizations will be available dynamically at any time. The visualizations will show the change in student engagement in individual and class levell. I believe that this will help the teacher to examine the patterns in student engagement throughout the course. Additionally, it will be a research tool for me to investigate how student engagement changes over time depending on the pre-defined posting due dates, and how student achievement goals play a role in this change.
Hope to have more details with some visuals next time!
Erkan
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