Student Learning: Putting the Pieces Together
by Cesar Ortega-Sanchez
Cesar is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Curtin Academy. He is currently the academic lead of the Engineering Foundation Year at Curtin University and is an associate professor in the School of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences. He is interested on how social and technological changes affect education, and what can be done to facilitate learning and teaching. He is a regular contributor in higher education conferences as presenter and keynote speaker. His favourite topics are curriculum and assessment design, first year experience, project-based learning and capstone projects.
Education has become a very complex activity. Students (and academics) have to learn how to navigate an ocean of information, technologies, social trends and personal preferences. On top of that, the Covid pandemic forced schools and universities to facilitate learning via online contents and activities. Some students are not coping well with all these challenges. In his talk Cesar will explain how some students seem to have lost the ability to learn, and will ask the question: Did they ever get it? He will present the facts that led him to this conclusion and some ideas that may help students to change the way they approach learning. He will explain how learning is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and how this simple analogy may change the way people learns and teaches.
Click here to access the slides of the keynote speech that Prof. Cesar Ortega-Sanchez delivered at HEAd’22.
Learning Analytics or how to improve the teaching & learning processes from data
by José V. Benlloch-Dualde and Lenin Lemus
José V. Benlloch-Dualde earned a MSc. in Physics from the Universitat de València, and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). He is currently Senior Lecturer with tenure at the School of Informatics in the UPV, where he teaches different courses related to Electronics and Educational Technology. His research interests relate to technology-enhanced learning and, more in particular, to learning analytics. He has leaded different innovative projects for over twenty years with a specific focus on technology-enhanced learning. He earned a Hewlett- Packard Technology for Teaching Grant Initiative, Transforming Teaching and Learning through Technology in 2008. He received the Excellence in Teaching Award from UPV in 2009. He is currently the Teaching Deputy Head of the Computer Engineering Department at the UPV.
Lenin-Guillermo Lemus Zúñiga earned a MSc. in Computer Engineering from the “Centro de Estudios Avanzados del Insituto Politécnico de México”, and he earned a PhD. in Computer Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). Dr Lemus is currently Senior Lecturer with tenure at the School of Informatics in the UPV. Dr. Lemus teaches courses related to Computer Architecture and Big Data infrastructure. Dr Lemus is head of the research group FAKTUMLAB of the ITACA Institute of the UPV. His research interest are related to data governance and crypto-currency Dapps. Dr Lemus has been author and coauthor of 27 journal articles and he has participated in 28 international and national research projects.
Nowadays, using digital platforms and tools is very common, regardless the educational approach. Thus, more and more data related to student activity can be gathered. Learning Analytics is about how processing these information sources to better understand and improve educational processes. In this talk, the different steps from data acquisition to dashboard creation will be presented.
Access here the slides used by Prof. Benlloch-Dualde during his keynote speech at HEAd’22.