Digital Delights

How does a good teacher know if a student is struggling with a concept in the classroom?  We hope that they recognize signs of difficulty while reviewing practice work or are asked for assistance by the student (feedback, hints). If learning analytics are going to provide useful feedback then we should be measuring those feedbacks and requests for help.  A click stream tells me if a student is using material but not why or what that interaction ought to achieve.  A student might skip problems they already know – their lack of answering questions in a particular part of the course is not itself evidence of lack of understanding.  Similarly, a student can struggle while working very hard to try and understand a concept.  Their mere frequency of interaction does not in any way imply instructional success.  Only knowing their clicks, or visits, tells us nothing about their intent, when they wanted help, if they got that help, or what feedback they were given (or should have been given).  Consider the following questions one might want to ask:

• How often is the student getting questions right on the first try?
• Do they eventually get them correct?
• How often are they asking for help?
• Do expert teachers rate this skill is generally difficult?