Data driven teaching a shift in blended learning education

Photograph taken in Honduras, CA and contributed by Fernando Carranza

Looking Through Casement ELT Window Data-Driven Teaching: A Shift in Blended Learning Education

By Prof. Jonathan AcuĂąa-Solano, M. Ed. School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Saturday, October 15, 2016 Post 300

For several years now, blended teaching in language learning is an integral part of many programs in universities or at language schools around the world. That is, with the incorporation of learning management systems (LMSs) for language development and mastery, teachers are now in much control of what students are doing away from the classroom. Though the LMSs has come to substitute the traditional print workbook of yesteryear, data now coming from the platforms are not really being used to plan instruction and learning focused on the students. A

shift in blended learning education has not yet been accomplished, and it is a real need nowadays.

Let’s Understand Data-Driven Teaching (DDT) “Data analysis can provide a snapshot of what students know, what they should know, and what can be done to meet their academic needs. With appropriate analysis and interpretation of data, educators can make informed decisions that positively affect student outcomes” [ CITATION Lewnd \l 1033 ]. In terms of language teaching and learning, DDT must then be focused on relevant areas of instruction for learners; DDT does not focus on teacher-centered instruction, but quite the opposite. Its main reason to exist is to help educators to create activities that guarantee student-centeredness in language training. While using data to guide one’s teaching, planning is then targeted to strengthen student weak, developing areas and not to just cover course textbook content due to the suggested pacing for a course.

Instructor-Led Online Hours do Count in DDT Are language instructors really aiming at using DDT while teaching a course?

Based on my experience with LMS administration and usage mostly recorded in memoranda, this has not materialized yet in my language teaching contexts, at the university and the language school where I work. The LMS is being loosely used by instructors and colleagues to basically assign content on the platform to somehow practice what is covered in F2F class sessions. Somehow the LMSs continue being used as eWorkbooks rather than a system to collect data for the strengthening of one’s teaching to develop student performance weak areas. The effect of using the platform as an eWorkbook is that the time spent online is not consolidating student learning, which is meant to be the reason why LMSs exist. As a consequence,

planning needs to be connected to what data on the platform are telling instructors to guide them in class teaching in a blended learning scenario. The one single imperative that is being left out in this new educational scenario is the analysis of statistical reports to create a connection between the classroom, the platform, and back to the classroom. And part of this imperative is to use this blended learning instruction cycle to make instructor-led hours count for student language development.

Why LMS Work Instead of Paper-Based Homework If my typical, traditional student is like yours, print workbooks for homework are not exactly a priority for them. A typical learner of mine is that one that shows up for class with not homework on his/her workbook, either because they simply forgot or because s/he could not find the time to complete the assignment.

Consequently, learning consolidation may not be achieved when this kind of learner decides that homework is not important for him/her due to their other social or educational endeavors. Moreover, for the teacher –when the workbook’s exercises are checked orally, there is no way to know what areas are giving learners a hard time; something that can be easily done now with the statistical reports that an LMS can produce for instructors. To sum up, language teachers with no DDT orientation as part of their planning and teaching fail in LMS correct use. The right usage of the LMS explains why it is essential to use statistical information to use the platform instead of a print workbook due to the amount of information that can be derived from LMS’s reports.

The Need for Making LMS Instructor-Led Hours Count A mind shift is needed on how LMS work is perceived by students and orientation is needed from instructors. Student independent work is quite good for

self-regulated individuals, and many people take their language learning seriously, whether that is a language or something else they are interested in. For more traditional students, the LMS guided hours can be very fruitful if DDT is present. The idea that platform exercises just need to be completed to comply with work for a course is not exactly the expected behavior a real interested individual demonstrates in language learning. That is why it is necessary make the LMS instructor-led hours count for language mastery and performance. Online hours, as it can be seen, need to trigger data to drive the blended learning cycle to practice the areas that must be practiced, and not a random exercise a teacher arbitrarily decides is the right one to join class activities with platform tasks and then back to the classroom exercises.

Though the LMS work may good for some individuals, those students who already know the subject-matter by heart do not need to review what they have already mastered; the platform hours need to be guided in such a way that learners just work on the areas they need to continue developing.

The Blended Cycle and DDT To really make the LMS instructor-led hours count, the blended cycle needs to be based on data-driven teaching. At this point in language blended education, the instructor is practicing content in class to improve student performance in the four skills. Then, practice activities to continue building on class content is assigned as a consolidation task (group of exercises). Then, learners, guided by the teacher, retake the same content to demonstrate the mastery of it in class. Data produced by the LMS reports generated by the platform is analyzed prior the retaking of content for demonstration; this is done to create a lesson plan that is initially based on the LMS trouble with activities learners had and that the data show. Whatever is going to be (re)practiced in class is to help learners who show difficulty in their LMS work understand whatever they have not been able to grasp 100%.

Taken from https://www.cli.org/blog/what-is-data-driven-instruction/

Measurably Better “If teachers deploy blended learning ‘properly’, students’ results are measurably better” [ CITATION Bab13 \l 1033 ]. Why is it that we are still striving to get better results with students when we have information right at our fingertips by clicking here or there in the LMS? As Baber (2013) cleverly states it, “a key element of ‘proper’ deployment is that teachers regularly log into the learning management system, view students’ performance, and then adapt what they do in the classroom.” But based on my reflective journaling and personal memoranda, I can barely see any of this Baber is talking about actually happening in any of my two workplaces. Once again, LMSs are being used as eWorkbooks that will not yield the same kind of result similar to the one we could be getting by simply logging into the platform from time to time to see what the whole group as a whole is having trouble with, and from that point on continue building the language they need to develop, but with a more constructivist orientation in our planning process and blended teaching practices.

“If teachers plough on with their pre-determined curriculum regardless of the students’ strengths and weaknesses as visible from their performance date –they may as well go back to old-fashioned homework on paper” [ CITATION Bab13 \l 1033 ]. Yes, it is true that we have course outlines to follow as well as a coursebook that needs to be covered, but without understanding learners’ “strengths and weaknesses” we are just contemplating what really is happening outside through a casement window; while there are teaching professionals deploying blended learning practices properly and there are students learning a language proficiently, what are we waiting for to log into the system(s) we are currently using and learn from what our students are striving to learn to give them a hand and the correct kind of blended activities to guide them through their construction of the interlanguage to speak English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) as it is described in the CEFR. References Baber, E. (2013, May-June). Data-driven teaching: the next big thing? Voices, 232.

Lewis, D., Madison-Harris, R., & Times, C. (n.d.). Using Data to Guide Instruction and Improve Student Learning. Obtenido de SEDL.Org: http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v22n02/using-data.html