Learning analytics has become a robust research area in the last decade, as innovative analytic models of learning data have been created with the goal of enhancing teaching and learning. However, barriers to large scale adoption of such technologies in higher education still exist. In recent years, a strand of research has begun to investigate stakeholders' expectations of learning analytics, hoping to find ways to integrate the innovations into everyday teaching practices. For instance, studies have investigated instructors' ideas about how learning analytics might be helpful, as well as concerns about student data privacy. However, most studies have taken a general approach rather than considering instructors' day-to-day experiences. Using survey methods, we presented instructors with hypothetical scenarios of learning analytics in use across disciplines, class sizes, teaching activities, and types of student data. We asked for ratings of both usefulness and privacy concerns for each proposed teaching situation. Our respondents considered scenarios involving learning outcomes-related data (e.g. grades) to be more useful than those that involve student interactions (e.g. language, social activity). In contrast, privacy concerns were lower for outcomes-oriented scenarios than interactions-focused scenarios. An interesting new finding was a negative correlation of usefulness and privacy; we discuss this in the context of instructors' possible cost-benefit reasoning. We reflect on our findings with respect to future efforts in developing and fielding learning analytics tools.

In this paper, we examine higher education instructor preferences for forms of address from students. We share qualitative and quantitative analysis of data from a large survey of higher education instructors, considered across a range of demographic and contextual factors. Through the lens of Positioning Theory, our work demonstrates the ways in which preferences—and the reasons for those preferences—tend to vary. Ultimately, we propose that these preferences for student forms of address are driven at least in part by the much larger social context in which we teach.

The main objective of the study was to understand specific ways in which a flexible, technology-enhanced space can create opportunities for student engagement. Despite a few studies that address classroom elements such as furniture, researchers argue for more-holistic attention to the materials of learning environments to better support the activities in which students engage. To address this gap, we designed this qualitative case study of the role of the physical structure of flexible classrooms on college students’ engagement. Findings from the analysis of the data can be classified into three areas: (a) flexible room layout and movable furniture enabled participants to create settings that could support students’ group interactions; (b) flexible room layout and movable tools enabled people to move around to enhance student–to–student and teacher–to–student interaction; and (c) through the movement of furniture and tools and movement of people, participants were able to easily transition between different activities. The easy movement of tools and furniture widens the range of available classroom configurations to optimize engagement opportunities. Similarly, the flexibility of the classroom allows for the relatively easy movement of people. Our data suggest that such flexibility can facilitate interaction and engagement among students and instructors to create opportunities to promote both cognitive and emotional engagement. Findings underscore the critical role of space, furniture, and tools in the creation of learning environments that support student engagement in higher-education settings.

As the amount and variety of student data captured by university systems increase, so do opportunities for learning analytics (LA) in support of teaching and learning. However, although the technical methods underpinning LA are developing rapidly (e.g., machine learning), researchers have paid less attention to the needs or concerns of human stakeholders. Existing studies that investigate stakeholders’ perspectives tend to focus on either the technology (Sun et al., 2019) or on specific stakeholders’ views of student data privacy (Alnald & Sclater, 2017; Ifenchaler & Shumacher, 2016; Slade et al., 2019; Tsai, et al., 2020). Existing studies have used both surveys (Kollom et al., 2021; Whitelock-Wainwrite et al., 2020) and interviews (Ifenchaler & Shumacher, 2016; Sun et al., 2019) to investigate stakeholders’ expectations about LA technologies. Our study contributes to the LA literature in two ways: we used a scenario-based approach (Rosson & Caroll, 2002) to engage participants in concrete LA-supported contexts, and we investigated multiple types of stakeholders’ perspectives within the same contexts. To implement our scenario-based approach, we presented hypothetical LA situations and interviewed four students and four faculty about the use and impacts of the envisioned LA. During the interviews, we first probed participants’ personal understanding of LA, then presented each hypothetical scenario, gathering reactions specific to the situation (e.g., a virtual assistant that draws on LA to provide personalized real-time assistance). Our qualitative analysis of participants’ comments uncovered insights regarding attitudes towards the use of a virtual assistant (VA) as well as a predictive LA model in support of teaching and learning. Students generally feel positive about having a VA in their classes, while faculty emphasized that VAs can assist but not teach. Students also voiced concerns about a predictive LA model that goes too far (e.g., discouraging a low-achieving student from taking a challenging class). Our interviewees provided interesting perspectives on student data ownership, appropriate uses, and protection of student data, as well as the potential for LA applications of these data. For example, students feel little control over their data even though they trust their institution to use it for the right purposes; faculty feel a personal responsibility for appropriate use and protection of student data in their teaching and learning. Students and faculty were in strong agreement that students should be involved in the decision-making process about new LA applications at the institution. In our discussion of the findings, we offer preliminary guidelines for the collection and storage of student data, as well as implications for the design of LA technology and applications. Example design implications include the appropriate use of VA, balancing between knowing the right amount of information, using the right LA for the right purpose with consideration of student data privacy, and transparency in the use of student data trumps all. In our future work, we plan to expand our investigation by involving more students, advisors, and administrators as stakeholders and by developing more specialized scenario probes that evoke more detailed reactions and concerns.

In ShortMeeting the digital education needs of faculty and students in the 21st century is a crucial aspect of the evolving landscape of higher education.Universities are currently preparing studen...

The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted universities around the world In the two weeks following a shelter-in-place order, all the actors of the educational system were forced to transition to remote education This shift required a new reliance upon technologies that these individuals might never have adopted at all, often with significant difficulties In this paper, we present a qualitative study on a university-wide survey dataset describing student and faculty experiences of abruptly transitioning to remote teaching and learning during the spring 2020 semester at the Pennsylvania State University We performed an inductive thematic analysis to identify the challenges and opportunities that arose during the transition Our findings contribute to building better tools, curriculum, and supports for remote education, particularly during an unexpected crisis

Postsecondary instructors routinely face novel and complex challenges in physical classrooms and informal learning spaces. Instructors often bring these challenges, along with creative and aspirational solutions, to the attention of centers for teaching and learning (CFTL). Issues span a wide range of topics including blogs, clickers, immersive experiences, active learning, learning analytics, and more. We embrace these challenges and seek to co-create solutions by providing a wide net of resources and support characterized by: (1) Instructional technologies (2) Instructional design, (3) Faculty development, and (4) Research. These elements emerge as a generalizable framework that represents a dynamic research-to-practice cycle. The cycle begins with a combination of problem definition and existing research. An approach is then planned and executed that includes instructional technologies, instructional design, faculty development, and original research. In accord with the cyclical nature of the framework, research findings inform development of future instructional design and faculty development opportunities. These, in turn, inform future practice, and the cycle continues. In our CFTL an educational research team collaborates with an instructional design and development team to support and facilitate this research-to-practice cycle. In this manuscript, we illustrate the practical implementation of this recursive and generalizable framework as we report on a case study of one technology-enhanced experimental classroom space. We conclude with a discussion of how the framework might inform larger efforts to integrate research with instructional technology implementation, instructional design, and faculty development.

Current STEM workforce issues and retention problems faced by postsecondary STEM education have renewed research efforts in this arena. A review of literature on STEM professors indicates that although this population reports difficulties integrating teaching and research responsibilities, there have not yet been any qualitative studies conducted to deeply investigate the complexities of managing teaching, research, and service. This work utilized a set of four phenomenological case studies conducted over a 10-month period to address the following research question: How do individuals in a sample of tenure-track science professors prioritize teaching among their other professional roles and responsibilities? Contrary to literature speculation, the results of this study indicate that the participants make decisions about the way they allocate limited time in an unlimited work environment based on their intrinsic, personal career goals and aspirations and appear to be only minimally affected by external pressures to "prioritize research over teaching." Furthermore, all of the participants in the study indicated that other than research training, they received little to no preparation for their jobs. These findings provide discipline-based education researchers with points of interest for further study and provide professional development stakeholders with data for the design of educational support programs. (C) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Current STEM workforce issues and retention problems faced by postsecondary STEM education have renewed research efforts in this arena. A review of literature on STEM professors indicates that although this population reports difficulties integrating teaching and research responsibilities, there have not yet been any qualitative studies conducted to deeply investigate the complexities of managing teaching, research, and service. This work utilized a set of four phenomenological case studies conducted over a 10-month period to address the following research question: How do individuals in a sample of tenure-track science professors prioritize teaching among their other professional roles and responsibilities? Contrary to literature speculation, the results of this study indicate that the participants make decisions about the way they allocate limited time in an unlimited work environment based on their intrinsic, personal career goals and aspirations and appear to be only minimally affected by external pressures to “prioritize research over teaching.” Furthermore, all of the participants in the study indicated that other than research training, they received little to no preparation for their jobs. These findings provide discipline-based education researchers with points of interest for further study and provide professional development stakeholders with data for the design of educational support programs. # 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 937–960, 2017

A well-established literature base identifies a portion of students enrolled in post-secondary General Chemistry as at-risk of failing the course based on incoming metrics. Learning about the experiences and factors that lead to this higher failure rate is essential toward improving retention in this course. This study examines the relationship between study habits and academic performance for at-risk students in General Chemistry. Students who were in the bottom quartile of SAT math scores were identified as at-risk students. The study habits of General Chemistry students, both those identified as at-risk and those not identified were measured by text message inquiries. The text message asked ''Have you studied for General Chemistry I in the past 48 hours? If so, how did you study?'' twice a week throughout a semester. Student responses to the messages were used to calculate the frequency of studying throughout the term. The results from a multiple regression analysis showed that high frequency of studying could mitigate the difference between at-risk and non-at-risk students on final exam scores. Additionally, the quality of studying for six at-risk students was analyzed by student interviews in concert with their text message responses. The results indicated that the quality of studying is not necessarily linked to frequency of studying and both quality and frequency can play a role in at-risk students' academic performance. The results presented offer a path for at-risk students to succeed in General Chemistry and the methodology presented offers a potential avenue for evaluating future efforts to improve student success.

The research-based pedagogical strategy of flipped classes has been shown to be effective for increasing student achievement and retention in postsecondary chemistry classes. The purpose of flipped classes is to move content delivery (e.g., lecture) outside of the classroom, freeing more face-to-face time for active learning strategies. The opportunity to engage in active learning with students can be a challenge for instructors of large classes (more than 100 students). Furthermore, there has been little discussion in the chemical education literature to provide instructors with detailed descriptions of successful implementations of flipped classes combined with active learning in large classes. To this end, this report provides a comprehensive description and evaluation of a coordinated implementation of flipped classes with peer-led team learning (PLTL) for second-semester general chemistry with class sizes greater than 200 students. This approach is described as "Flipped PLTL". This report includes details about creation of videos for flipped instruction, class structure, and the recruiting and training of peer leaders. The purpose of this paper is to provide an example of flipped classes with PLTL that can guide other instructors who wish to implement these pedagogies in large classes.

S-Ribosylhomocysteinase (LuxS) catalyzes the cleavage of the thioether bond of S-ribosylhomocysteine (SRH) to produce homocysteine and 4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentanedione (DPD), which is the precursor of type 2 autoinducer for bacterial cell-cell communication. In this work, we have synthesized several SRH analogues modi. ed at the ribose C3 position as potential inhibitors of LuxS. While removal or methylation of the C3-OH resulted in simple competitive inhibitors of moderate potency, inversion of the C3 stereochemistry or substitution of. uorine for C3-OH resulted in slow-binding inhibitors of improved potency. The most potent inhibitor showed a K*(I) value of 0.43 mu M. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Treatment of the protected ribose or xylose 5-aldehyde with sulfonyl-stabilized fluorophosphonate gave (fluoro)vinyl sulfones. Stannyldesulfonylation followed by iododestannylation afforded 5,6-dideoxy-6-fluoro-6-iodo-d-ribo or xylo-hex-5-enofuranoses. Coupling of the hexenofuranoses with alkylzinc bromides gave 10-carbon ribosyl- and xylosylhomocysteine analogues incorporating a fluoroalkene. The fluoroalkenyl and alkenyl analogues were evaluated for inhibition of Bacillus subtilis S-ribosylhomocysteinase (LuxS). One of the compounds, 3,5,6-trideoxy-6-fluoro-d-erythro-hex-5-enofuranose, acted as a competitive inhibitor of moderate potency (KI = 96 μM).

Selective cross-coupling of the protected 6-fluoro-6-iodo-alpha-D-ribo-hex-5-enofuranose with 2 equivalents of 4-ethoxy-4-oxobutylzinc bromide in the presence of Pd[P(Ph)(3)](4) followed by deprotections gave methyl 5,6,7,8,9-pentadeoxy-6-fluoro-alpha/beta-D-ribo-dec-5(Z)-enofuranuronate, a S-ribosylhomocysteine analogue with the sulfur and carbon-5 atoms replaced by the fluoro(vinyl) unit.