How do you learn?

Are you effective? Strategic? Curiosity driven? Do you prefer to think deeply about a concept, or would you prefer to learn just enough to get by?  Your answers to these and other questions will very much drive your learning experience. 

Traditionally, we have had few ways of tailoring our teaching to the learning styles of our students.  However, Transform has the potential to change that.  Profoundly.

With the official release of the Experience API (xAPI), also known as Tin Can, we are entering the next age in data collection about learner behaviour.  The field of learning analytics is concerned with collecting, interpreting and reporting data about learners to help them and their teachers optimise learning experiences.   xAPI consists of statements about individual learners and sends these to a Learning Record Store (LRS).  You just need to work out what functionality you want, and then build it into your system.

I want to use the xAPI LRS to help learners build portfolios quickly and easily from a set of completed modules. This would make it easy for them to showcase work they are particularly proud of in LinkedIn or at their next job interview. How about a set of learning activities targeted to an individual learner and only sent to them when they are ready? We could even set up an automated assessment process, where modules unlock for learners as they complete well-specified requirements.

We usually only find out where our students have gone wrong after they’ve messed up an assignment, and the best we can do is tell the next class not to make the same mistakes.  Learning analytics give us the opportunity to help people learn how to learn, and direct their learning towards much more individualised goals and objectives. 

Dr Kirsty Kitto -- Transformational Teaching Fellow / Postdoctoral Research Fellow