Educause Day 4

The final day of the conference brought innovation, eportfolios for teaching and a rude wake-up call from SUNY.

"Student-Empowered Learning Analytics Through the Quantified Self" described an experiment that is going on at Purdue right now -- and they are looking for others to join in.  The idea is essentially that we are changing certain kinds of behavior through data analysis:  exercise behavior, spending behavior, consumption behavior, Apps like fitbit, vessyl, run keeper, checky either allow us to enter data or set these apps up to collect data automatically -- and the analysis of this data then allows us to make changes to our behavior, whether that is changing exercise routines, running routes, how often we check our phones.
The idea at Purdue is to apply these principles to student learning behavior -- have students provide data on when and where they work on different parts of an assignment and how they feel about their accomplishments.  Then the assignments are graded, and the students received data on how much time they spent on different parts of the assignment (research, writing, etc) and how their amount of work stacks up to what other students have done and how their grades stack up as well.  The idea is that students can compare themselves to other students in similar learning situations (of course anonymously) and improve their learning behaviors through this comparison.  An interesting idea!

Questions raised were self reporting issues, motivational issues, when would faculty see the data.

"Breaking through Bottleneck Courses:  CSU's Proven Course Redesign Program" showcased what the California State University system is doing to encourage faculty to redesign courses that have a high D, W, or F rate -- the success of the program has shifted emphasis on active and engaged learning, has seen a drop in these rates, and is allowing faculty to show off their ideas through their teaching eportfolios.You can see some at http://courseredesign.csuprojects.org/wp/eportfolios/

The final keynote was deliverd by the Chancellor of the SUNY system, discussing that system's attempts to come to terms with the gaps in achievement they are seeing and the huge number of students who are not successful in their education, starting from 9th grade onwards.  the numbers are staggering, and I was hearing some of our international colleagues gasp when they saw how few students make it all the way from 9th grade to successful college graduation.