This session provides an overview of the Scaling the Adoption of Learning Analytics project. The goal of this project is to support two- and four-year institutions that want to adopt learning analytics in order to improve student outcomes.
Learning analytics has grown over the past decade as a data-driven way to address educational challenges, holding great potential to develop real-time, actionable, and contextualized interventions to improve outcomes in K-12, higher education, and workforce training. Marrying big data and computational approaches with educational theory and practice, the field has shown great promise, but many institutions do not have the expertise to systematically implement large-scale, integrated learning analytics projects. Data science skills are not sufficient enough given the requisite understanding of pedagogy, social processes, and learning science, and there is a significant gap in high quality job candidates to meet the explosive growth of learning analytics use by educational institutions. The Scaling the Adoption of Learning Analytics project seeks to help these institutions by using a networked approach in order to build capacity through a variety of means.
First, the project team will conduct interviews with key stakeholders and two- and four-year institutions currently working with a network of organizations. The results of the interviews will be shared in this session. After completing the qualitative research, the project team will work with the institutions to develop an instrument in order to cluster postsecondary institutions based on their contexts and needs. Institutions will take part in regular meetings and have access to curated resources and technical assistance to facilitate the use of learning analytics. Over the duration of the three-year grant, the project team will continue to evaluate and improve the instrument as additional partner institutions participate with the goal of automating the process in order to scale beyond the first cohorts. Additionally, each of the institutions will have the ability to contribute to a larger co-op, sharing their challenges and successes with similar colleges and universities in order to support their growth.
Session attendees will learn about key challenges and opportunities that institutions face when adopting learning analytics and the Scaling the Adoption of Learning Analytics model. The presenter will ask the attendees to participate in an exercise related to learning analytics at their institution.