This article describes a lesson in which high school biology, ecology, environmental science, anatomy, and physiology students can devise hypotheses and test them with scientific data, identify unanswered questions, and design an additional study to answer those questions. This module connects students with exciting research and current science…

The development of a student's ability to make data-driven decisions has become a focus in higher education (Schield 1999; Stephenson and Caravello 2007). Data literacy, the ability to understand and use data to effectively inform decisions, is a fundamental component of information competence (Mandinach and Gummer 2013; Stephenson and Caravello,…

This article discusses critical methodological design decisions for collecting, interpreting, and synthesizing empirical evidence during the design, deployment, and operational quality-control phases for automated scoring systems. The discussion is inspired by work on operational large-scale systems for automated essay scoring but many of the…

Learning about people from long ago and far away poses a challenge for students because such people seem so distant and different. The lack of easily comprehensible text-based primary sources compounds this problem. Using a built environment as a primary source makes people from the distant past more accessible, concrete and exciting. Broadly…

Effective strategic enrollment management (SEM) efforts require vast amounts of internal and external data to ensure that meaningful reporting and analysis systems can assist managers in decision making. A wide range of information is integral for leading effective and efficient student recruitment and retention programs. This article is designed…

It is an exhilarating and important time for conducting research on learning, with unprecedented quantities of data available. There is a danger, however, in thinking that with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves. In fact, with larger amounts of data, theory plays an ever-more critical role in analysis. In this introduction to the…

We present considerations for validity when a population outside of a normed sample is assessed and those data are interpreted. Using a career group counseling example exploring life satisfaction changes as evidenced by the Quality of Life Inventory (Frisch, 1994), we showcase qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore how normative data…

Heterogeneity in response styles can affect the conclusions drawn from rating scale data. In particular, biased estimates can be expected if one ignores a tendency to middle categories or to extreme categories. An adjacent categories model is proposed that simultaneously models the content-related effects and the heterogeneity in response styles.…

Guided by the principle "good data presentation is timeless," (Cressey, 2014, p.305), this unit project challenges students to engage an alternative means of sharing communication research and to realize the potential for their presentations to become "visual legacies" through the creation of infographics. Students encounter…

This paper identifies some of the main challenges of data governance modelling in the context of learning analytics for higher education institutions, and discusses the critical factors for designing data governance models for learning analytics. It identifies three fundamental common challenges that cut across any learning analytics data…

Many preschool classrooms explore plant growth. However, because many plants take a long time to grow, it is often hard to facilitate engagement in some practices (i.e., since change is typically not observable from one day to another, children often forget their prior predictions or cannot recall what plants looked like days or weeks earlier).…

My paper theorizes the possibilities of a qualitative method that engages with promiscuous aspects of human existence and difference foreclosed by established research methods and representations. I locate the not known of knowledge in the unconscious time of the maternal relation where the infant is put upon to wildly and without symbolic…

This paper shows how peer observation of learning and teaching (POLT) discussions can be augmented through the use of a dynamic visual notation that makes visible for interpretation, elements of teacher-learner and learner-earner nonverbal interactions. Making visible the nonverbal, physical, spatial and kinesics (eye-based) elements of…

School leaders are often drowning in data but are unsure which forms of data will help them create a portrait of student achievement that will motivate staff to look beyond simple trends and delve deeper into root causes. Teachers often wish for more guidance on the kinds of data analysis and teaching strategies that will help them move the needle…

In this article, "havruta," the dominant strategy for textual higher learning where pairs pour over texts slowly to decipher and argue about the meaning with each other, is explored as an appropriate pedagogy. The author describes how to facilitate interpersonal and textual skills in the middle school and high school classrooms. Texts…