Data-driven personalization of student learning support in higher education

Abstract

Despite the explosion of interest in big data in higher education and the ensuing rush for catch-all predictive algorithms, there has been relatively little focus on the pedagogical and pastoral contexts of learning. The provision of personalized feedback and support to students is often generalized and decontextualized, and examples of systems that enable contextualized support are notably absent from the learning analytics landscape. In this chapter we discuss the design and deployment of the Student Relationship Engagement System (SRES), a learning analytics system that is grounded primarily within the unique contexts of individual courses. The SRES, currently in use by teachers from 19 departments, takes a holistic and more human-centric view of data—one that puts the relationship between teacher and student at the center. Our approach means that teachers’ pedagogical expertise in recognizing meaningful data, identifying subgroups of students for a range of support actions, and designing and deploying these actions, is facilitated by a customizable technology platform. We describe a case study of the application of this human-centric approach to learning analytics, including its impacts on improving student engagement and outcomes, and debate the cultural, pedagogical, and technical aspects of learning analytics implementation.