Professor Sue McKnight, moderator

Panelists: Terri-Lynn Brown, Alfred Essa, Stephen Downes

We only exist because of the needs of students.

• Don't assume you know what the students needs, because unless you really try to find out, you don't.
• Survey found discrepency between what observers anticipated student response to be and actual student response (shocking!)

How do we know what students need (Terri-Lynn)

• Students need to have options
• Need to think beyond the box, old paradigms, the technology
  • Why do we assume a certain percentage of students failing is okay?
  • Allow students to shape their own learning, personalization

What do students need (Al)

• They want to be set free.
• Analytics are the means to that end.
• Cockpit metaphor: student as a pilot who needs a set of instruments to let them know where they are going, how to get there, and what obstacles are in the way.
• LEiA: Learning Environment powered by Intelligent Analytics
  • Seeks to measure predictive values for student problems (e.g. past and present student actions)
  • Faculty may have difficulty adapting courses per these analytics

Why we exist (Stephen)

• We don't only exist because of the needs of students, but also because of the other stakeholders influencing the academic system.
• How do you know what is good?
• Like never before, people are learning informally, outside the institution, and from many sources.
  • Formal academia is loosing marketshare in a person's total learning resources.
• We must keep adapting.

Q&A

• How do we balance what students think what they want vs. what they really need?  We look at what they think they need and assess it before letting them pursue it.
• A few others...

Backchannel chat: https://fusionchat.desire2learn.com/

Livestream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fusion2009