Title: Progress tracking and a little bit of learning analytics
Course: Digivisio - DEMO course template > Section: Activating learners

Both the teacher and the learners should know how the learners are progressing in the studies. There are various tools for this, and they can also be used from the viewpoint of learning analytics.

Progress bar

In many learning environments, such as Moodle, there a tool such as ”Completion progress,” which can be used to make the learner’s progress visible to themselves and to show them what they still need to do. The teacher decides what is being tracked and how the progress is being monitored: does the learner need to become familiar with all the materials in a course or might some items be more important than others? Is it enough to start a discussion, or should the learner also comment on somebody else’s message? Is it enough to submit a task, or do they need to get a grade as well?

PICTURE: Progress bar in Moodle. The green boxes indicate completed tasks, the blue ones are not yet done.

Completion progress is a powerful tool, but you should think carefully about which parts you will make mandatory. If the learner notices at the beginning of the course that there are 80 things to do, this may discourage them. On the other hand, some learners feel that is something is not “mandatory” in the progress, they do not have to study it at all. Usually, however, the learners do feel following their progress is a good tool, as it gives them a quick overview on what they still need to do in order to complete the course.

Learning analytics

Teaching and Learning Centre at Tampere Universities offers good advice on how to use learning analytics with different tools.