Student success vs. Success as a student

First, let's look at being a successful student (success as a student).

If you do web searches on being a successful student, you will find numerous sites that will give advice on the topic. Many say that students must focus, prioritize, sleep and participate. (http://www.scholarshipexperts.com/college-life/good-student.jsp) Some go into more detail, explaining that successful students attend all of their classes, get to class on time, are respectful of other students, don't chat with their friends during class, come to class prepared, take advantage of extra-credit opportunities, make sure their assignments are in on time and are neat and professional looking. (http://www.santarosa.edu/lifesciences2/success.htm) Some sites emphasize skills that are necessary to be a good student. These skills include self-discipline, study skills, time management, keeping to deadlines, learn what the instructor wants, and basically comply with the instructor. (http://courseware.ee.calpoly.edu/~jbreiten/htbas.html)

Now, all of the above skills are great--TO BE A GOOD STUDENT. But, do we want our students to be good students at the expense of LEARNING, UNDERSTANDING, PROBLEM SOLVING, BEING CREATIVE, AND THINKING? These are different priorities.

Student success is not the same thing as success as a student. There was a student quote:
"I have no clue about what I want to do with my life: I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared." _-"Here I Stand", Erica Goldson, June 25, 2010
http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/2010/07/coxsackie-athens-valedicatorian-speech.html

I have been a lifelong educator, teaching at all levels from primary through graduate school. In all cases, I've talked with students about school as a game. This game has rules, and if you don't play by the rules (get assignments in on time, pass exams, complete the assignments that the teacher deems necessary), you do not succeed. If you do these things, you can get good grades on your report cards and good teacher recommendations. However, you don't necessarily learn or understand. In fact, I feel it is entirely possible to go through school with good grades and yet not really THINK about what you are learning, not question, not engage in dialogue with others, including your peers about the topics you are studying, or really think critically in any way about the subject of study. Do teachers think of the persons in their classes as students or learners? Isn't there a different model for learners to learn? What would learners do differently than learn time management, neatness, and compliance with teachers' wishes?

Now that we've looked at the difference between students and learners, we need to consider what learning analytics really is. Note the first definition:


"Learning analytics in the academic domain is focused on the learner, gathering data from course management and student information systems in order to manage student success, including early warning processes where a need for interventions may be warranted."
--Analytics in Higher Education: Establishing a Common Language, Angela van Barnevald, Kimberly E. Arnold, and John P. Campbell, ELI Paper 1:2012, January 2012

This definition from an ELI paper in 2012 seems reductive, stifling, and more interested in using analytics to check on students and student skills such as getting assignments in on time and passing exams. Are these not important in a class? Of course they are. BUT, are they the thing we want to measure and assist? Or do we want to look at students contributions to discussion and dialogue, their ability to ask good questions, their wanting to collaborate rather than compete (which is what traditional school structures encourage.)

David Warwick has contributed a useful chart that defines Student and Learner Qualities. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2762
Warwick contrast student relationship to educators as a employee, who obediently follows directions to learners who are actually citizens of the learning society. He defines motivation of students as obligatory, whereas learners feel responsibility for the value of their work. The why is interesting: students are compelled and learners are curious. Isn't curiosity a more valuable character trait to assess and to encourage than compliance?
Warwick on assessment:
"For the student, assessment is king, in very much the same way that quality control is such a critical part of the manufacturing processes. But assessment, for learners, is much less obvious, and at the same time, it is much more integral to the learning. Assessment for classrooms of learners is the enormous amounts of qualitative data that is collected by the teacher (and other students) on a minute-by-minute bases."
This is another important difference. We look to see what learners actually do with what they have learned, not that they can simply recapitulate it all on a test by bubbling in the correct A, B, C, or D.

So, what do we want learning analytics to measure and encourage? What we measure should be what is important; the very act of measuring placing priority on that quslity and has the effect of incentivizing, encouraging, and celebrating success for that quality.
Let's not let learning analytics be confined to helping students learn to be students, let's work on refining analytics design so that analytics is part of the teaching learning process that helps students become learners, lifelong learners, learners who know how to learn whatever they need to know when they need it (just in time learning), and learners that think critically, are curious, know how to find out about things they want to know, are and become passionate about the things they want to know, engage in intellectual discourse with peers, teachers, and experts in the field they are learning about.