Active Learning in Online Classes: Data and Tools to Boost Participation

The proliferation of AI in education has made active learning methods more important than ever. How can we boost engagement and participation, especially in online classes? How can we ensure that student involvement in learning is broad and equitable? What feedback can we give students to encourage them to be active and effective participants? How can we assess active learning performance? We have used hard and detailed data from dozens of synchronous online classes to analyze student participation in class discussions. The tools we developed are directly usable by anyone teaching with live, online methods. Our early insights from the data are relevant to other teaching modalities too. We focus on graduate- and professional-level education, but here too our work is relevant more broadly. An early version of our data analytics toolset was presented at EDUCAUSE last year; this year we will share new developments and analysis of a unique dataset. These findings have not yet been published. Come see for yourself, and let's think together about how to boost active learning in your classes.