It’s the end of the school year and it always makes me take stock of what went great … and what went sideways. I try to base my judgement on data, rather than the complaints of the students about the workload of one assignment versus another. The tool I most often use in our LMS (Moodle) is the REPORTS feature under the Admin Tab:
Depending on your LMS it will be slightly different, but every LMS has a similar feature and they are critical for assessing the engagement with your assignments. Data tracking allows you to take a sometimes humbling picture of just what your year looked like in terms of assignment views, submissions and general engagement in the course. Engagement in this sense is measuring activity. The reports come in many forms but here is a typical one (not from my courses):
This eCourse is delivered weekly, in an online K-6 school. If I was glancing at this chart I would quickly notice that there are a LOT of peaks and valleys. We can ignore the big dip at the end (Christmas Break) and focus on the “ups and downs” from one week to the next. The ACTUAL numbers aren’t really significant, as much as the shape of the chart. The course starts out strong, but quickly loses steam. There are definite patterns of high and low activity. There could be a lot of reasons for the ups and downs on certain weeks. The key is to ask … why?
Tracking: Weekly Delivery
If your course is delivered weekly, data tracking can help you:
1. Learn the TYPE of lesson your audience is responding to, because you know which lessons they are engaging with each week. Do students like immediate feedback and prefer quiz-type assessments? Do they avoid weeks with writing assignments? Is there a lot of text-heavy reading material happening during the “low” weeks?
2. Plan for the inevitable shape of the year. Comparing stats along a calendar allows you to notice the “big dips” and to shift critical learning to higher traffic times like September, post Christmas Break and weeks-before-report-cards). You can also shift assignments to another time and see if WHEN makes a difference, instead of just the WHAT.
Tracking: Topic (or self-guided) Delivery
Topic-style is very different because the learner is generally guiding themselves through the material and could even be working on several activities at once. You will still be able to get a sense of:
1. What types of activities students spend time on. Did they skip your lesson and head right for the quiz? Did they only click on the FIRST link in a set of links and skip the rest? (This is very common when learners are presented with multiple links). Do you notice using language like EXAM, QUIZ, FINAL, etc gets higher views than words like EXTRA, OPTIONAL, and REVIEW? Remember, as Daniel Pink says, we’re all in sales.
2. If students took advantage of your review or extension material. If you triggered a review when a student failed or did poorly on a summative assessment did they actually view it? Which parts of your course aren’t getting accessed? Do they need some jazzing up?
… The bottom line is that there is power in information about the habits of learners in your classes.
Drop me a note or leave a comment below if you need some help investigating your eCourse engagement, or coming up with a plan to avoid some common eCourse mistakes.
I look forward to hearing from you!
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