Threading the Needle: Empowering Faculty-Reflective Teaching While Preserving Student Data Privacy

While higher education has a long history of using data to support administrative workflows, faculty often lack actionable data to guide course improvements. This presentation explores the use of student data, such as clickstream and contextual data, to empower faculty-reflective teaching practices. We delve into strategies for 1) preserving student privacy by utilizing aggregated, cohort-based data sets to protect student identities while gleaning valuable insights into learning patterns; 2) designing interactive dashboards that present data visualizations and key data trend highlights designed to support faculty in their reflective teaching practices and to guide course redesign efforts; and 3) mitigating bias by leveraging course data in a post-hoc manner, minimizing the influence of pre-existing biases on faculty interpretation and fostering more equitable learning environments. Learn how instructional technologists, faculty development professionals, and faculty from the University of Florida, Rutgers, Colorado State University, and The Ohio State University came together to design a reflective teaching application collaboratively. This presentation aims to spark a dialogue on harnessing the power of student data responsibly, and to ultimately foster continuous improvement in teaching and learning outcomes.