Founded on the need to help university students develop a greater academic metacognitive capacity, student-facing learning analytics are considered useful tools for making students overtly aware of... Show More

Founded on the need to help university students develop a greater academic metacognitive capacity, student-facing learning analytics are considered useful tools for making students overtly aware of their own learning processes, helping students to develop control over their learning, and subsequently supporting more effective learning. However, early research on the effectiveness of student-facing analytics is giving mixed results and is casting some doubt over the usefulness of student-facing learning analytics. One factor contributing to doubt over the value of student-facing learning analytics is that their design and implementation remains firmly rooted in the technical domain, with virtually no grounding in the knowledge base of learning and teaching. If the growing investment of resources into the development of student-facing learning analytics systems is to be fruitful, then there is an obvious, urgent need to re-position student-facing learning analytics within learning and teaching frameworks. With this in mind, we use Schraw & Dennison's model of metacognition and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development to unpack the ‘learning' in student-facing analytics and work towards an understanding of student-facing analytics that is more conducive to supporting metacognition and effective learning.

The modern student exists in a highly technical and digitally driven educational world. Online delivery of courses and interactions, with the primary purpose of enhancing learning, and access to... Show More

The modern student exists in a highly technical and digitally driven educational world. Online delivery of courses and interactions, with the primary purpose of enhancing learning, and access to learning opportunities is becoming almost mainstream. Yet, despite the broad availability of online education courses and systems, the completion rates and levels of student satisfaction with online courses remains comparatively low. Studies have indicated that online students are seeking personal engagement to drive their learning. This project looked at the importance of having a human face at the heart of the online course materials to help develop a more personal level of engagement. The project, carried out between 2016 and 2018, involved a randomized control trial of 84 students, and compared two sets of course materials, for a common course topic, one with human face-based resources, and one without. The results clearly showed a significant increase in student engagement with the human face-based resources, but the learning outcomes, for those who completed, were not significantly different between the two groups.

Flipped classrooms are an instructional strategy that is becoming popular in educational contexts, particularly higher education. The principle of Flipped Classroom is that events that have... Show More

Flipped classrooms are an instructional strategy that is becoming popular in educational contexts, particularly higher education. The principle of Flipped Classroom is that events that have traditionally taken place inside the classroom now take place outside the classroom and vice versa. Various studies have reported increased student performance and satisfaction after switching to a flipped classroom. However, most of these studies are based on students' perceptions of their own learning, not based on teachers' assessment of students' achievements. This article presents the results of flipping a computer programming course. It first describes how this course was flipped, then it presents the results of comparing the average marks awarded to students between those that took the course offering in flipped mode and those that took the course in the traditional mode. The comparison showed an increase in student performance in a flipped mode. Furthermore, the increase in student performance was sustained for 3 years, which is the full duration of this study. The comparison of student satisfaction showed an increase in student satisfaction in one campus, while the student satisfaction remained steady in another campus.

Organizational success is directly related to the ability of leaders to influence followers in support of strategic goals. Leaders utilize interpersonal skills to communicate goals, brainstorm... Show More

Organizational success is directly related to the ability of leaders to influence followers in support of strategic goals. Leaders utilize interpersonal skills to communicate goals, brainstorm actions, create collaboration, and move followers in desired directions. Successful leaders must be astute at recognizing key characteristics in followers, characteristics that may help or hinder meeting performance expectations. Hence, the ability to generalize and predict behaviors was paramount to leaders adapting to the work environment. Ultimately, leaders who use DISC systems to predict and influence the behavior of followers were more effective when the leaders can generalize distribution data to groups of followers as they recruit, hire, set work expectations and provide training. This article provides a meta-review of organizational initiatives in which DISC assessments were used as tools for leaders. The article includes a distribution study of 100 respondents in leadership development programs intended to aid leaders in predicting follower populations and behaviors.