Date driven instruction, analytics quest

Different learning management systmes have different tools to analyze student data.  To teach this, Georgia TOOL has asked me to analyze some sample data from a course.  I will link each table below and explain what I learn by looking at the data.

This table shows

• the courses being taught in the spring of 201
• that each course starts on January 7
• that each course ends on May 10
• the name of the courses taught (AP micro, econ, and american government)
• and the number of students enrolled in each course (23, 49, and 43 respectively)

The table above gives information about each student.  It shows whether the student must pay for the course or if the school is paying.  It shows if the student is classified as gifted or not.  It shows if the student took an orientation or not.  In this case, all students did and the date of each student's orientation is shown.  It shows if the students have dropped the course.  None have.  And it shows that all students will be evaluated by an end of course test.

The image above shows a communication log.  It shows the type of contact.  Each contact here was by phone.  A voicemail was left for each person contacted.  The first person on the list was a student.  The other two were parents.  The "nature" heading shows the reason for the call.  In the first one, it is other and explains the reason in the comments.  The student got a welcome call on January 11, four days after the class started.  This is a rather prompt contact - making a positive contact in the first week of the course.  The other two calls went to parents about failing students.  These calls were made in February, still rather early in the course, giving parents and students ample time to work on improving student performance.

The image above show some examples of positive contacts.  The first log shows that a welcome call was made near the beginning of the course (January 16).  The second contact shown documents an email to parents of students who are doing well in the course.  This contact was made mid-semester, March 25.  This is a good way to encourage students who are doing well.  To often, these students are overlooked in teacher contact.

The image above is a bit confusing to me, but I'll explain what I think it means.  The fraction at the left shows how many grades the students have scored.  The first two students have scores for 58/59 grades, so all they have left is the final exam.  The students have missed one or more assignments.  The student at the bottom only has scores for 16 of the 59 assignments; he has not been doing his work.

The numbers along the bottom of the table show the dates of the assignments, and the nubmers in the boxes show the number of kilobytes used on each assignment.  Thus, you can tell that the first two students have been active on nearly every assignment.  Most of their assignments have used multiple kilobytes, with the high being 12 kbytes.  The students near the bottom that have completed few assignments have not been active.  Most of ther assignment have used zero kBytes.  One used 1.

Based on this information, the teacher may need to follow up with failing students and their parents earlier in the course.  Several of the students have just not done their work.

Students should also be taught to analyze data.  This is a report that a student might see.  On the first assignment, "Advertising Evaluation", the student should see his grade, 83%.  He should also see the teacher comment.  It starts with praise for what the student did well and then give constructive criticism and a reminder of the instructions.

The student should see that he failed to do the 2nd assignment, "Multi Media Definitions".

The student should see that he did well on the 3rd assignment, 95%.  Again, the teacher starts with praise and then give constructive criticism.

This image shows questions on a quiz that a student has missed.  The student can see his question and the answer he put (a wrong answer).  This will allow him to look up the correct answer.  This should help him on future assessments.

This image shows a student assignments that he has submitted as files.  He can see his grade, 100 on the first assignment and 92 on the secon.  Beside each assignment is a view button that the student can click to see comments on his assignment.

The image above shows what the student would see if he clicked on the view button beside the resume assignment.  Thus, the student now knows why he lost points on the assignment.


It is important in an online class that teachers, students, and parents be able to access and interpret data about assignments.