This could seriously change the way teachers support students .
The right profile
UniSA develops new tool to more holistically track student progress .
By Wade Zaglas
Large class sizes and heavy workloads can make it challenging for teachers to track their students ’ performance at the best of times , but the pandemic and home-schooling has made this task even more of a struggle for many teachers .
But tracking students ’ progress may become easier due to “ world-first ’’ research by the University of South Australia ( UniSA ), leading to the development of individual learning profiles . The learning profiles will not only be able to present realtime information on a student ’ s learning progress against curriculum requirements , but also quickly provide teachers with other information relating to a student ’ s social and emotional wellbeing , study behaviours and extracurricular activities .
It ’ s hoped the detailed learner profiles and dashboard will give teachers a quick and easily accessible reference tool to support all students appropriately , particularly disadvantaged students . The researchers behind the new learner profiles and dashboard believe the new tech is timely given the declines in literacy and numeracy performance among Australian students over the past two decades .
Lead researchers Dr Rebecca Marrone and Dr Vitomir Kovanović , in collaboration with UniSA ’ s Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning ( C3L ), believe the learner profiles could significantly improve teaching and learning quality in the country .
“ Strategies to improve teaching quality are paramount in Australia , particularly given the overall decline in reading and mathematics ,” Kovanović says .
“ Yet , as many parents will attest , student success does not only rely upon academic achievement – it also embraces student interests , goals , and social and emotional wellbeing .
“ For teachers , the challenge is often time and resources – while they strive to deliver the best teaching , one-on-one support is near impossible ; this research makes it one step closer . By looking beyond static , traditional grade-based methods , and by using real-time student data across a range of measures , we ’ re able to create individual profiles for each student .
“ These profiles will show how a student is learning at any point in time , and when they ’ re plotted onto our dashboard , will help teachers quickly identify which children need additional support or interventions , and precisely when they need them .”
The researchers are working with several Australian schools in developing “ prototype learner profiles ”.
“ There ’ s no doubt that COVID-19 has imposed restrictions on so many aspects of our lives , and for a lot of schools , the response has been a quick shift to blended and online learning ,” Marrone says .
“ So , we now have far more data , collected in real time . But how many schools are leveraging this data ?
“ This project draws on all possible data sources to create a single place for collated student information .
“ This could seriously change the way teachers support students . And the added beauty of the tool is that it aims to alleviate teachers ’ workloads , not add to them .”
Speaking to Education Review , Marrone said that while a lot of research has been conducted on monitoring student progression and profiling students in recent times , this learner profile aims to provide far more granular data .
“ Some of the most advanced learner profiles include the Hong Kong national learner profile , ANU learner profile , or International Baccalaureate learner profile ,” she said .
“ However , most of such work focuses on collecting standardised data about ‘ what a student knows ’. That primarily means collecting highly standardised data that focus on students ’ cognitive development towards a predetermined achievement standard and set of competencies , often duplicating existing rubrics or existing measurement instruments .
“ The goal of our project is to allow schools to collect a much broader set of data that they care about and paint a holistic picture of students ’ learning and make inferences and informed decisions about their learning .
“ We hope to continue working closely with schools / teachers to design the profiles to suit their needs . We also hope to work with new schools across Australia ,” Marrone said . ■
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