Learning Analytics meet Improvement Science
As the Carnegie Foundation Summit for Improvement in Education unfolds, I’ve revisited some personal reflections on 2 workshops and a lecture with Tony Bryk (President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching), hosted last May by Ruth Deakin Crick at University of Bristol. What follows after a brief introduction to the concept of NICs, are my thoughts on the intersection of NICs with Learning Analytics.
I made a number of connection points between the features of the DEED+NIC approach, and learning analytics, which I’ll highlight with a sidebar.
Introduction: NICs
If you know me then you know that the ideas of the human-centred computing pioneer Doug Engelbart (dougengelbart.org) run like DNA through my work, I find so much depth of insight [see his Afterword to my book]. Doug showed the world in the 1960s many of the features that we now take for granted in our personal computing: the mouse, windows, hyperlinks, videoconferencing, direct editing of text on screen.
However, his work on making computers more intuitive as personal tools for thought was just part of his bigger vision for improving what he called our Collective IQ — humanity’s capacity to tackle “the complex, urgent problems” we face by working more effectively together.
