By Rob Sabo
The days of breezing through college without hardly creasing the bindings of required textbooks may be coming to an end.
Professors in today’s digital classrooms employ more educational technology tools than ever before, and a new wave of apps and digital course materials that offer real-time tracking of student engagement allow professors know if their students have been studying diligently or shirking the syllabus.
Currently, much of the work in tracking student engagement is in K-12 education. However, a three-college analytics pilot program, kicked off in November of 2012 by digital coursework provider CourseSmart of San Mateo, CA, was expanded to several other universities earlier this year, and CourseSmart sees much wider inception of the technology as education technology tools become the norm across college campuses.
Digital Technology and Learning Management Systems
In spring of 2013, nine schools —Texas A&M University at San Antonio, Central California Technical College, Clemson University, Rasmussen College, Career Point College, Ashworth College, Central Carolina Technical College, Algonquin College, and the University at Buffalo—all began using CourseSmart’s digital course materials.
A core aspect that’s proving popular with administrators and professors is CourseSmart Analytics and is its student engagement index, which provides professors with usage metrics that help them track:
- Page views on a given text
- Total time spent reading a textbook
- Student notes and passage highlights
Data is compiled into an overall assessment of student engagement, which allows professors and department deans to assess how well students are using the required coursework and which students may be falling behind. The note-taking aspect also lets instructors know which students grasp key passages and important themes in a given work. Results are presented on an easy-to-read dashboard that is part of the schools’ learning management systems.
“We are pleased to expand our program to encompass a wide variety of public and for-profit institutions,” says Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart. “We look forward to working with these schools to gather data and incorporate important feedback into our development process, with the ultimate goal of providing faculty and administrators with meaningful metrics to improve learning outcomes.”
In May, CourseSmart Analytics won the coveted “Best New Product” award at the IMS Global Learning Consortium.
A Roundup of Student Engagement Tracking Apps and Software
There are many different tools available for schools interested in tracking and monitoring student progress without the hefty fees of using a full suite of digital learning products.
Branson School Online, an online K-12 school in Colorado, uses GoToMeeting with HDFaces to enhance interaction among students, parents, and teachers. Since adding the GoToMeeting collaboration, school officials say they’ve seen noticeable improvements in students’ core learning areas, including reading and math.
Mutal Mobile of Austin, Texas and education leader Pearson developed iLit for the iPad. The app allows teachers to provide personal lesson plans based on students’ comprehension of course material, as well as track progress through the use of detailed analytics. Mutal Mobile says students in an urban school district in Texas gained an average of 3.22 years of reading comprehension using the iLit app.
Copia EDU, an online digital content platform, allows teachers and educators to present content from a variety of textbooks from a wide range of educational publishers. Teachers can interact with students and help increase understanding of the material, as well as use a range of assessment tools.
The wide use of digital smartboards in college classrooms has led to mobile apps that literally allow students to put their classrooms in their pocket. Students attending colleges that use Blackboard Technology Solutions can download Blackboard Mobile Learn for the iPhone and read course syllabi, participate in class discussions, and keep a close eye on their grades.
Other apps, such as inClass, can help students learn by recording their teachers’ lectures, which can be shared among friends and fellow students. Still others, such as Outliner, can help students organize homework, schedules, projects and notes. And Google Play and the Apple store are loaded with learning apps that provide instructors with learning assessment tracking features, though the vast majority of those apps are geared toward young learners.
As educational technology tools become more prevalent in college classrooms, the methods of tracking student learning and increasing retention are expected to become more refined and commonplace as well. The days of coasting through college potentially could be at an end for some students.
About the Author:
Rob Sabo writes about business and educational technology. He is a contributor to several print publications and websites, including OnlineSchools.com.