“Sitting at the Stern and Holding the Rudder” : Teachers’ Reflections on Action in Higher Education Based on Student Agency Analytics

Abstract

Digital technologies in teaching and learning in higher education have the potential to enhance student agency. Student agency is an essential resource to nurture, especially at times when students face challenges emerging from the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. In addition, contemporary policymaking has identified the importance of student agency. Student agency analytics is a process utilizing learning analytics, specifically psychometrics and machine learning to provide teachers insights about the agentic resources of their students. Four teachers in higher education were provided with student agency analytics results of their mathematics courses. The teachers participated in a semi-structured interview where they reflected on their pedagogical actions based on the analytics results. Points of pedagogical reflection-on-action were identified and analyzed using Burke’s pentadic analysis. The teachers made diverse reflections relating to their pedagogical actions in the courses. The results pointed out the need to provide teachers with information and research-based tools for reflection. The chapter contributes to the knowledge on how learning analytics can facilitate teachers’ pedagogical reflection in a practice-oriented manner.