Analytics has become a feature of many Learning Management Systems and is an important element of a strategy for monitoring student engagement and progress. By having a strategy for monitoring student engagement and progress within topics you are:
helping students to stay on track, get help when needed and to successfully complete a topic
supporting students to transition into tertiary study and to progress in their studies
meeting Student progress policy and Student progress procedures
Use topic analytics to:
Predict how students react to topic activities.
See which students are at-risk and need help.
View how effective your teaching strategies are in allowing students to learn.
See a quick view of what your students are achieving in your topic.
The relevant tool for topic analysis is Canvas New Analytics – see tips below on how to use.
NB: For a deeper dive into all aspects of analytics for student engagement and progress, see the link below under Support for Teachers – a detailed self-paced workshop on this topic.
Tip 1: Access New Analytics overview
You can get a summary of student activities in your topic. You can access data on assignments, quizzes, or discussions and how many people have clicked or viewed certain items in your topic. There is also a separate analytics tool in Studio for tracking student engagement with video material. Using analytics, you can easily see an overview of how your students are performing in your topic and identify any potential areas of concern.
Resources that can help
Canvas guide: New Analytics
Tip 2: Track students' engagement
You can track overall student engagement and individual student activity in your topic. New Analytics provide you with data to understand students’ level of engagement or interaction with learning resources that are part of your topic learning activities. Using this information, you can gauge student involvement and identify at-risk students based on participation and submission patterns.
Resources that can help
Canvas guide: New Analytics
Tip 3: Progress tracking
Use analytics to monitor and track students’ progress on assignments and quizzes and other tools within the FLO ecosystem. With this information, you can identify trends between engagement and performance.
Resources that can help
Staff FLO Support: Progress and reports
Supporting resources
Support for teachers
Self-paced workshop: Supporting retention and engagement through Learning Analytics
Video step by step guide Reaching out Using New Analytics
Articles on using “nudging” along with analytics to reengage students:
Brown, A., Lawrence, J., Basson, M., Axelsen, M., Redmond, P., Turner, J., ... & Galligan, L. (2022). The creation of a nudging protocol to support online student engagement in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 14697874211039077.
Alice Brown, Jill Lawrence, Megan Axelsen, Petrea Redmond, Joanna Turner, Suzanne Maloney & Linda Galligan (2024) The effectiveness of nudging key learning resources to support online engagement in higher education courses, Distance Education, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2024.2303491
Support for learners
Student support: Planning for academic success
Next steps
To find peers who are also interested in sharing FLO tips, join in the Flinders Canvas Community of Practice (CoP).
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