UCL run teacher workshops to design learning analytic tools

By Yvonne Vezzoli (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

During the past 4 months, Yvonne Vezzoli from CISRE Lab, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice has been working as part of the iRead team at UCL on a project on learning analytics in the context of the iRead game (Navigo). When children play with Navigo they generate data that can be visualised and used by teachers to understand the performance and progress of their pupils. This can help them to plan future pedagogies accordingly. With the aim to understand the opportunities offered by learning analytics to improve teaching activities, Yvonne along with Manolis Mavrikis and Asimina Vasalou from the UCL team organised two workshops with primary school teachers to explore what insights teachers would like to have from data.

Learning analytics aim to provide actionable intelligence for learners and teachers through problem definition and the application of statistical models and analysis against existing or simulated future data. The data and insights are usually displayed to educator and students using dashboards and visualisations which provide information about things such as individual and class progress on a task, and learners’ performance.

Given the complexity of the matter, the researchers scaffolded the workshop activities through design methods. In particular, they created some Inspiration Cards which have been used collaboratively to design new possibilities and inquiries for the data generated by the iRead game. For more information about the Inspiration Card Workshop, please see: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1142409. The team are now completing the data analysis, with the aim to write a contribution during the summer.