COSC 419: Learning Analytics

A1: Personalized Learning [10 pts]

Due date: Jan 17, 2020, 2:00pm

What to submit:

Submit the following on Canvas:


Specific Instructions for Exercise 1 [4 pts]

Changing the world starts with seeing it differently.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to reflect on our in-class discussion of learning analytics tools and think about how technology can be used to improve your learning.

Go back to one of the tools we discussed, and think about how it can be better. Consider carefully what you need to have an ideal learning environment. Think about issues in your learning environment, such as exams, deadlines, lectures, participation, etc. Your ideal learning environment may include reminders for course related work, facilitation of group formations, scheduling, online collaboration, Q&A support with instructors and TAs, etc. It can have any feature that you think will optimize your learning. If you picked a tool whose target audience is a teach or an administrator, you will analogously need to think about what is important in accomplishing their teaching duties or their administration duties.

Be imaginative and creative. What would be your ideal learning environment? Remove all resource limitations (e.g., time, hardware, software, geography, etc.) and all technological limitations (e.g., "strong AI" exists and hardware power is awesome and cheap).

After careful consideration, explain how you would extend a particular learning analtyics tool to make it personalized to your needs. In particular, summarize what the tool is in a paragraph (so your TA understands it without looking up the tool). Then, use bullet points to list 3 features that can improve the tool. For each bullet point, explain how that feature makes your life better. Be sure the list is well described and the items make sense in the context of your descriptions.

Grading Criteria

Specific Instructions for Exercise 2 [6 pts]

At a later point in the course, we will talk about using data to model how people learn. In this question, we will be doing some data collection with your data and then later looking at how to use them to model simple learning tasks. For now, please work through the programs below to provide some data.

Given the programs below, run them either on your laptop or school computers, and complete the required tasks by following the instructions in the programs. Do the tasks as realistically as possible (otherwise the data won't make sense). You will want to make sure you complete these tasks in a non-distracted environment. If you get distracted during a task, re-do it.

  1. Easy arithmetic problem solving times: TestEasy.java
  2. Hard arithmetic problem solving times: TestHard.java
  3. Sentence reading speed: greatexpectations.txt, Sentences.java, TestSentences.java
Grading Criteria