INSIGHTS

This project, INstructor and Student Insights for Gains in Higher order Thinking Skills, INSIGHTS, Track 1: Engaged Student Learning project will develop and pilot complementary student and instructor facing learning analytics dashboards (LADs) intended to leverage student thinking to enhance online presences that promote higher order thinking skills (HOTS). HOTS are necessary for all students and specifically for STEM students due to the ever-changing nature of STEM fields (CITE). To encourage HOTS development, this project will use the instructor-facing LAD (ILAD) in two ways: 1) the provision of AI-supported, just in time, scaffolded questioning techniques for instructors to use during discussion board engagement to positively influence student cognitive presence; and 2) the provision of student network visualizations emerging from discussion board trends to help instructors monitor student engagement and provide whole class and sub-group HOTS level representation. The student-facing LAD (SLAD) will support student HOTS through self-regulated learning in two ways: 1) the provision of a visualization that allows the student to better understand their level of cognitive presence associated with HOTS and accompanying links to helpful discussion posts; and 2) the provision of a visualization that allows students to better understand their level of social presence associated with their discourse interactions. Social presence will be captured using Social Network Analysis (SNA) while cognitive presence will be captured using Blooms’ Taxonomy framework through AI supported processes. The social and cognitive presence insights will be paired with level-appropriate Bloom’s taxonomy informed actions for both instructors and students to leverage student thinking and use Zone of Proximal Development appropriate scaffolded recommendations, such as group or individual level AI generated question stems to improve HOTS.