Monitoring, supporting, and engaging students based on the evidence generated by digital technologies

Moodle VLE allows teachers to retrieve multiple reports on the course and activity completion, logs and similar, which keep teachers informed on students’ engagement and learning progress.

To access the reports from the course page, the following instructions should be followed: Administration -> Course administration -> Reports -> Course completion OR Insights OR activity completion, etc. (fig. 4).

Figure 4. A list of course reports on Moodle

Reports generate visualisations that might be used to support SRL among learners. Number of logs, clicks, forum posts or connection time informs you with quantitative data about learners’ engagement and performance. It gives concrete numbers of access, however, to get a more in-depth understanding of the reasons that affect learners’ performance, teachers are recommended to collect more qualitative data in the form of open-ended surveys, interviews or focus groups.

Analysis and interpretations of these reports allow you to take informed actions to support SRL and students’ engagement. The main reports that can be used for this purpose are listed below:

a) Activity completion report

The Activity completion report aids both teachers and students to monitor learning progress in the given course (fig. 5). It helps the teacher observe and assess the extent to which individual students or groups of students are engaging with the single modules, and hence with the course. Activities that are completed are ticked while others remain unchecked. Some assignments, like quizzes, are ticked automatically after a passing grade is achieved.

Figure 5. An example of an activity completion report (Tamoliune, personal communication, 2022, BA study course “Open education policy”, Vytautas Magnus University)

Important. The activity completion report can only be accessed if “Completion tracking” has been enabled in the course and at least one assignment, activity, or learning resource is configured in a way to track completion (for more details please check Unit 1).

The activity completion tracker gives students a sense of purpose about their learning, how much they have already covered and how much is left. At the same time, by having the possibility to tick the tasks that are completed or the material that is analysed, students are expected to take responsibility for their own learning and learning success. After checking the completion of an activity or assignment as ‘done’, a completion progress bar is automatically updated. This allows learners to see which activities have not been completed yet and pushes them to complete their work (fig. 5). While learners can see their personal completion progress bar, you can overview the progress of all students, compare it and discuss it with them, ensuring data confidentiality.

Figure 6. An example of a completion progress overview (Tamoliune, personal communication, 2022, BA study course “Open education policy”, Vytautas Magnus University)

Research proves that even a small intervention implemented in the online course positively affects learners’ course completion (Jansen et al., 2020).

b) Course participation report

This report provides information about the students engaged with a particular learning resource or activity in a course. For example, you can analyse whether students have viewed the course resources (e.g., a course study guide), which helps students plan their learning by being aware of the course activities, assignments, deadlines, etc. (fig. 7). Even though students cannot access this report, you can decide to send a prompt email to students who are not fully engaged. In this way, instructional support may be provided based on learning analytics to support self-regulated learning among learners in online learning settings.

 

Figure 7. An example of a course participation report (Tamoliune, personal communication, 2022, BA study course “Open education policy”, Vytautas Magnus University)

Similarly, this report may inform teachers about learners’ engagement. For example, when students are asked to read some documents or watch a pre-recorded lecture or any other video before the class, you can check this report and see the students who have accessed the requested resources and those who have not.  Based on this data, you can understand if some students are not prepared for the in-class activities and, at the same time, reflect on the possible interventions for learners’ engagement. For example, you can decide to use the forum to send reminders to students on what needs to be done before the next class.

c) Logs reports

Logs reports can be analysed to see which activities have been accessed and viewed by which students and when. If you notice that a student is late with a deadline or a group of students is at risk of drop-out or failing, you can analyse a specific student’s activity in the course by selecting a specific date or the overall engagement (fig. 8).

Figure 8. An example of a logs report (Tamoliune, personal communication, 2022, BA study course “Open education policy”, Vytautas Magnus University)

Reports help you identify students who are disengaged with learning resources and/or activities, or who try to deceive the system. However, an activity completion report alone is not sufficient to explain the reasons why students are engaged or not. After you obtain this type of evidence, it is necessary that you discuss the situation with your students. In order to do this, you can use prompt emails, set up an anonymous discussion forum, or check the overall group atmosphere or learning experiences by creating a short survey using an easy-to-access tool (e.g., Moodle Feedback activity, MsTeams forms, GoogleDocs Form, Mentimeter, Kahoot, etc.).

Moreover, the aforementioned examples allow you to make informed decisions on the basis of the resources that the students access most. According to the data that provide information on learners’ behaviour, you can make consequent decisions. For example, if students do not watch or read compulsory learning material, you can start a new discussion topic regarding that particular reading and/or video. Students are invited to share their ideas or create an activity based on that resource that previously they did not access. You can also configure the system  in such a way that students are not able to skip to the next topic/unit until they have accessed that specific resource and completed the activity.

To conclude, it is up to a teacher to reflect on the data that is generated and think about how the data may inform teaching and learning.