Your personal learning environment

Contents

Introduction to CLANED® 4

Claned Analytics 8

How are your students spending their time? 10

Study time 11

Accumulated study time 12

Which topics are the students engaged in? 14

Topic Group 15

What is the challenge level of learning materials? 18

Content Challenge Group 19

Competence and challenge rating 20

Content recommendations 20

How are the students interacting? 22

Interactions & Commenting 23

Sampling experiences to enhance learning process 24

Claned is an online and mobile learning

tool that creates a learning space for each

student. Within that space they study,

collaborate and find material matching their

individual needs.

Claned applies artificial intelligence and

theories of educational psychology,

revealing what factors impact individual

learning. The product concept is based on

years of academic research, and has been

developed in collaboration with leading

educational institutions.

Claned is designed to capture data on

every interaction students make with the

system. Interactions occur when students

read, write, collaborate, organize and plan –

everything that students do. This results in

a comprehensive insight that demonstrates

the student’s study performance and

learning orientation, but also motivation,

emotion and stress levels. Claned helps

students to learn how they learn.

Claned returns the data back to teachers

and education providers through Analytics

by means of an easy to understand form

in real-time. Teachers thus receive the

necessary tools to intervene before failure

or drop-outs occur, as well as assistance in

recognizing students needing support or

lacking challenge.

Claned provides educators insight into

the factors influencing learning and the

power to modify these factors by revealing

how students learn in their institutions.

Educators can act upon the real time

knowledge and continuously produce

better and more adaptive courses for their

students.

Introduction to CLANED®

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CLANED® is an open platform - no proprietary formats or

standards. The Claned learning space makes it possible to

use all kinds of study material whether free, self-generated

or paid, thus fully supporting adaptive curriculums.

Life-long learning

Collaborative knowledge creation

Personalized learning

Social learning

Students sign-in to Claned by using their own

individual login. They can continue using them

after they finish with one education provider.

The system will engage and encourage

students to keep on learning. Students can

upload material and publish from websites on

their own, or create content themselves and

store it all for as long as they want.

Claned enables the creation of personalized

learning paths for each student. Based

on the data from studies, collaboration

and sharing, Claned identifies individual

learning characteristics and matches that

knowledge with the most suitable content

and peers. Students continuously receive

recommendations from Claned and can build

their personalized learning path based on

those.

Claned enables collaborative knowledge

creation and publishing. Users do not need

to use any separate authoring tools for this

but can utilize the standard tools available

that allow saving into PDF format. In Claned

users can also publish and organize learning

content from different sources - publishers,

professors and other students. This content is

recommended to students based on multiple

identified factors including skill-levels and

learning orientation.

Claned also allows students to share and sell

their own notes, papers and projects to other

students. This complementary content might

be crucially important to clarify any difficult

points in the official study material. Other

students can rate the content and the provider

and these ratings help learners connect with

each other and find study buddies and groups

for peer support.

In Claned we apply the best principles of

social media and collaboration. We make

studying and collaboration flexible and

location independent. Students can study

where they want and still receive support

from their friends and peers. By making

the content interactive and social, Claned

naturally engages the users in discussions and

cooperation for solving problems with their

network. Additionally it encourages creating

and sharing content with their Claned friends.

Benefits of

Claned Analytics

Claned -applications collect as they study,

collaborate and share, but also through

content related questionnaires and ratings.

It continuously captures data from students’

interaction with the application, content and

other users.

Claned is the world’s first solution to

combine both educational data mining

and learning analytics to understand how

learning takes place. Through its unique

set of algorithms Claned tracks and learns

how students learn. Based on this data

it builds an understanding of students’

learning orientation and strengths, as well

as identifies where they can improve.

Claned returns learning data back to

the student in the form of content

recommendations and tips on adopting

superior learning strategies that better suit

their individual learning orientation.

Based on these personalized

recommendations students can optimize their

study efforts, follow their progress in real time

and remain constantly motivated.

The Claned mobile application works as the

student’s personal learning tracker and shows

them, for example, how much time they

spend on their studies. Allowing a view into a

peer group’s average performance and other

valuable information, students are assured

they are on the right track. The Claned

learning tracker also returns useful insight to

the students on their motivation levels. The

application helps students understand why

they sometimes get stuck with their studies

and how to avoid such circumstances in the

future!

We gather data We give back

We analyse data

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Claned recommendations are based

on data collected continuously from

all active user traffic and interactions.

We also encourage students to

rate the content from multiple

different perspectives. This results

in recommendations for alternative

content as well as study friends that

would best support learning and

motivation. By finding an optimized

balance between challenge and skill-

level Claned helps students maintain

their study motivation. We believe

this encourages learners to take more

responsibility for their studies and to

find life-long learning an opportunity.

We recommend

Claned learns tounderstand how individuals learn thus optimizing

their study motivation and improving

learning results.

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How are your students spending their time?

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Regular and continuous studying gives the best learning results

and helps in advancing skills. However, many of us have a tendency

of starting studies at the last possible moment. We believe that

making the learning process visible helps achieving a more

meaningful way of using time.

Study time

Claned tracks the time students spend studying different materials. In addition, each

uploaded document is automatically given appropriate keywords. This makes it possible

to give users analytics about topics under study in a more broad level than just individual

materials.

Is the time evenly distributed or do your students rush in their studies just before an exam?

Should your students be reminded to spend enough time on studying early on?

The time distribution looks quite evenly distributed, although there are some peaks of more active studying. In-depth information and specifics about time spent on each learning material can be viewed by clicking individual observations.

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Accumulated study time

Are some students spending very little time studying or have some of them not viewed the

materials at all? How many students are using less than minimum effort to pass the course?

Maybe they could be reminded about the course work.

Most of the students seem to be up-to speed, but few have not yet begun their studies at full speed.

Although online materials offer a nearly unlimited resources for

learning, online courses do not come without problems. Students

with difficulties in time management are the most likely to drop out

in an eLearning course.

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Topic Group

Claned breaks the students up to clusters (groups of learners) with similar behavioral patterns. The characteristics of each cluster can be viewed in terms of individual learning materials. Another option is to view how the used time is divided according to topics, which the Claned algorithm automatically and reliably assigns to each article. This gives a view into engagement on a broader level than just concerning individual articles.

What are your students focusing on?

What topics or materials engages the students?

Is a particular group neglecting a part of the course altogether?

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Which topics are the students engaged in?

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The teachers view into what are the central topics may differ from

what the students are actually engaged in. It would be helpful to

know in real-time if a certain topic is overlooked by the students.

This is naturally apparent after the final test, but at that point,

there is no time to react and advise the students.

Of the totality of the course, 87% (n=236) of students have been grouped according to similar activity pattern.

In this group of students, materials concerning Business ethics and Social responsibility have

been viewed viewed most often whereas Environmental economics and Social enterprise

have received less attention.

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Exhaustive, undemanding or just right When students are given tasks, are they confident that their skills are up to the challenge? Or

do they find it too hard to grasp? If some find it easy and others demanding, who are the ones

in need of support?

Students are given short queries regarding experiences of competence and challenge relating

to the learning materials. Claned analyses the data and displays which students are either

struggling on a particular topic or finding a specific set of materials easy. The results of the

evaluations of the challenge of each material can be evaluated according to articles or topics.

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What is the challenge level of learning materials?

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An optimal learning situation would be one in which the learner is

properly challenged. If challenges exceed skills, one first becomes

alert and then anxious. If skills exceed challenge, one first relaxes

and eventually becomes bored. As students master challenges in an

activity, they develop greater levels of competence and the activity

ceases to be as involving as before. To engage students with different

skill levels in continued enjoyment as their expertise grows, the

teacher should have an idea about what the students are going

through. possible moment. We believe that making the learning

process visible helps achieving a more meaningful way of using time.

Is the challenge level of the learning materials matching the skills of the learners?

Content Challenge Group

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Competence and challenge rating Content recommendations

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Interactions & Commenting

Do you want to engage your students in a discussion concerning the course topics? Claned

enables commenting of any learning material in any part of a document or video. The

involved students and teachers get a notification, which takes them right to the place where

discussion is taking place. As the comments and questions are inserted in the exact place in a

video, document or other material, other participants can view what the comments relate to.

This makes participating in discussion effortless and natural.

How is the discussion flowing?

Which students are presenting powerful ideas?

There seems to be some lively discussion concerning the learning materials.

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How are the students interacting?

Although many of us have active discussions in social media,

building a lively discussion in eLearning may be difficult. Most

learning platforms separate discussion to a separate forum making

interaction difficult. We believe in using ways of interacting that our

students are already familiar.

Research has demonstrated that engaging students in the learning process makes learning

more effective. Engagement increases students’ attention and focus, motivates them to

practice higher-level critical thinking skills, and promotes meaningful learning. Nonetheless,

the high level of drop out rates in online courses indicate that this is not often easily

accomplished. Especially now that more and more learning is taking place on the web, the

problem of engagement is eagerly waiting to be solved.

Learning was for a long time perceived as a purely cognitive activity. Focus on emotional

experiences is a rather recent development in educational research [1]. The experience of the

student may not even seem important. However, the way a student experiences a course is

likely to have consequences for commitment to studying and on the results of the learning

process. Optimal experiences feed optimal performance.

The most intensive learning experiences are usually reported while working in small groups

or alone, for example in a library, while traditional lectures are often experienced as tedious

and undemanding [2, 3]. The active role of the learner is important. In addition, teachers

rarely have access to data about how students experience courses or particular learning

materials. Once the students are given a task are they confident that their skills are up to the

challenge? Or do they find it too hard to grasp? If some find it easy and others demanding,

who are the ones in need of support?

In traditional face to face courses the teacher can, to some degree, perceive the students’

engagement directly. Do they look eager to hear more, are they taking notes or are they

even awake? When students don’t understand a particular part of a lecture, they can raise

their hands and ask. On online courses the role of the teacher is different. These can be

challenging for many students. The bar for admitting ignorance or asking a stupid question in

public is high. In the worst case, the material is deemed unintelligible, but the teacher has no

information about this. By including tools for following students’ experiences in Claned, we

can offer both the teacher and the students ways to improve the learning process based on

real time data.

Sampling experiences to enhance learning processINTRODUCTION

Optimal experiences feed optimal performance.

The best experiences in learning include a complete absorption in the present moment.

Sudden clearness in the midst of a challenging process, when everything runs smoothly.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this kind of mental stage as flow [4], an activity during

which, a person single mindedly works towards a goal. These optimal experiences represent

times at which the main reason for pursuing an activity is the sheer enjoyment of the activity

itself. How could we make learning in online courses be more like this?

The conditions for entering flow include: (1) perceived challenges of the task at hand that

are relatively high and in balance with one’s perceived skills; (2) clear proximal goals that are

regarded as important; (3) immediate feedback indicating one’s success at meeting these

goals; and (4) highly focused, rather than divided or scattered, attention. Although it is not

possible for students to experience flow constantly, it is possible to adjust the course setting

to promote the student’s experience favorably for optimal learning.

Figure 1. Flow as the balance between skills and challenges. After Csikszentmihalyi [5].

FLOW AND LEARNING

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges

are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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An effective learning environment as described by Biggs and Tang [8] is one in which “Students should be required to build on what they already know, to be relevantly active, to receive formative feedback and to be engaged in monitoring and reflecting on their own learning”. In other words, students should be engaged, challenged and given adequate support to use high level processing of the learning material. This definition emphasizes the importance of meeting the needs of various learners with different amounts of prior knowledge and different self-regulation skills.

Online courses may be problematic for both the students and the teachers. A recent review of massive open online courses (MOOCs) [9] found out that nearly 90 % of students starting MOOCs drop out due to lack of motivation or engagement, having insufficient prior knowledge about the topic or experiencing the assignments and materials as ambiguous. Fortunately the situation is probably less complicated in an online course, which is part of a degree program in higher education. The students are a predetermined group, with a more homogenous background and similar levels of prior knowledge. A review by Hart [10] revealed the reasons for withdrawing from online courses as difficulties in assessing

THE TEACHER AND STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES

As a teacher on an online course, it is hard to grasp:

• Is a particular theme or an article too hard or self-evident?

• Do some students need scaffolding on a particular subject?

• Would a group of students benefit from extra curricular activities?

When in flow, the individual operates at full capacity. Intense and focused concentration

helps to use mental resources at maximal level. Entering flow depends on establishing a

balance between the challenge and experienced competence. As shown in Figure 1, the

problem lies on the fragility of this balance. If challenges exceed skills, one first becomes alert

and then anxious. If skills exceed challenge, one first relaxes and eventually becomes bored.

Although optimal balance between skills and challenge is favorable, it seems that difficult

tasks are more advantageous than undemanding ones [6]. Situations in which the challenge is

slightly too high, are better for concentration.

The flow state is intrinsically rewarding and leads the individual to seek to replicate these experiences. And although the actual flow experiences might be scarce, they are likely to increase long term engagement [7]. As students master challenges in an activity, they develop greater levels of competence and the activity ceases to be as involving as before. To continue experiencing flow, they must engage in more complex challenges. To engage students with different skill levels in continued enjoyment as their expertise grows, the teacher should have an idea about what the students are going through.

resources and little or no prior knowledge about a topic. These reviews point out that in an online environment, the optimal way of supporting the learning process has yet to be found.

The relationship between the learner and the learning environment should be constructive. That is, learning materials and tasks should encourage the student to work at the upper limits of his or her skills, and to use resources effectively to achieve tasks. This can be achieved by giving the student adequate support at the right times. The determining factor is to balance the level of support to the needs of the learner [11]. A high level of support is suitable for a student who is unfamiliar with a particular theme. On the other hand, a student with more prior knowledge can prosper in a more open setting. Optimally structured and balanced support keeps the interaction of the student and the learning environment constructive, and thus helps the student to engage in a meaningful learning process.

On an online course, following discussion boards may not give a full picture of the needs and difficulties students face. Those active in writing produce a lot of messages and thus set the tone for the discussion. For example, if a particular theme is experienced as hard by only a few students, but those have active discussions about it, the experiences of the majority get muffled as they are discussed more rarely.

In Claned, the students are asked how they experienced particular learning materials, such as an article, video or exercise. This is done using effortless and straightforward queries. When we combine this data with the information of how much time students spend on learning materials, we can offer the teacher real-time information about which themes in the course have been easy and which themes have been experienced as difficult. This information can be presented concerning specific materials, partitions of the course and divided into student subgroups. Different learning materials are automatically and reliably combined to themes using algorithms in Claned. As a consequence, it is easy for the teacher to perceive which group of students would benefit from support on a particular theme. Therefore the given support is more likely to meet the needs of the students.

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Claned measures students’ experiences and activities in three different ways: (1) learning orientations are measured with validated questionnaires; (2) students’ experiences of learning activities are measured by short queries regarding the challenge and competence related to each learning material; and (3) students’ activities, such as time use and themes of the learning materials are recorded and analyzed while working in the learning environment.

As explained in the previous chapter, all data is used to help the teacher and the students enhance the learning process. The data is collected solely for this purpose and is not used for marketing purposes.

Validated learning orientation measurements are used to give the learner feedback about his or her learning habits [13-15]. These are offered when the student is not focusing on a specific material. Feedback for the student is offered after the questionnaire.

Although we want to ask the student how he or she experiences learning, we also want to minimize interruptions while focusing on learning. Short queries concerning the learning activities are placed at the end of each section, and include two Likert-scale items, which range from 1 to 7: “Challenges of the activity” and “Skills in the activity”. These two questions have been discovered to expose important information about the learning process [6, 7]. This kind of experience sampling takes only a few seconds and does not disrupt learning unnecessarily. It also reduces the time between the experience and answering a question, and allows to sample a broad range of variables relating to different learning settings [16].

Developing and implementing the used measurements is an iterative process. Claned uses instruments based on the best available research information. Measurements and their usability are improved continuously.

MEASURING ACTIVITIES AND EXPERIENCES

• CLANED® uses validated measurement tools to enhance the learning process.

• All data being collected is used to help teachers and learners.

• Measurements and visualizations are based on the best available research evidence.

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In addition to showing data about the students’ experiences to the teacher, Claned will also offer feedback to the learner. This is similar to the quantified self movement, which has been possible due to the development of activity sensors and other self-tracking measurements. Getting to 10,000 steps every day, monitoring sleep quality or receiving reminders to stand up between long sessions of sitting may help to improve life quality. Seeing one’s own data visualized on a screen can be a powerful motivator.

Using self-measurements to make the learning process more effective must be done carefully. Feeding data about activity and experiences to the learner can benefit the learner and help to surpass earlier habits and conventions. However, merely showing the data to the learner without carefully considering what and how should be presented could decrease the learner’s motivation if not done correctly. We do not want to discourage someone into thinking they are a second-class learner. Instead, the goal is to encourage students to use successful strategies.

An effective learner is a self-regulated one. According to Pintrich [12], self-regulated learners: (1) set goals and plan learning activities; (2) monitor and control time use, awareness and the needed effort; (3) adapt the learning process and use appropriate strategies; and (4) reflect and evaluate the process when it is done. Data visualisations in Claned are designed to help the students accomplish more effective learning practices.

Our goal in Claned is to scaffold and enhance the learning process. We strive to help the student adopt learning habits, which make learning more effective. We use validated learning orientation measurements [13-15] to give the students feedback about their learning profiles, i.e. how they usually act in learning situations. Based on these we can give individualised suggestions and study tips for learners. For example a student with a strong, deep motivation, in other words a habit of trying to understand the subject extensively, might sometimes benefit from being more strategic and focusing on accomplishing a task instead of trying to grasp the foundations fully.

Secondly, we use data collected while working at the learning environment to give the student a picture of what is happening. In order to do this, three kinds of data is collected: the student’s responses to how challenging particular learning materials are, time spent at Claned and what themes the student is focusing on. The goal is to give the student an idea of when and how she could use the learning materials more effectively based on his or her current goals and past activities.

LEARNING AND QUANTIFIED SELF

Measuring activities and experiences enables feedback to the student:

• What are my strengths and weaknesses as a learner?

• How am I spending my study time at CLANED®?

• How could I use my time more effectively?

In addition to feeding the actual data back to the learner, we strive to help the student plan his or her studies better. We develop components, which include short- and long-term goal setting, as well as time management planning and evaluation. The idea is that instead of trying to spend as much time as possible trying to memorize content, it is more effective to use focused learning intervals in order to accomplish pre-set goals. In terms of flow-theory, well-defined bursts with clear goals and a possibility to get immediate feedback are essential for optimal learning experiences.

The data is not only used for individual feedback, but also to give suggestions for collabora-tion and to bring learners together. The data will help to bring together students with similar interests, but different strengths. This enables stimulating group work for every participant.

[1] R. Pekrun, T. Goetz, W. Titz and R. P. Perry, “Academic Emotions in Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and Achievement: A Program of Qualitative and Quantitative Research,” Educational Psychologist, vol. 37, pp. 91-105, 2002.

[2] D. Shernoff J., M. Csikszentmihalyi, B. Schneider and E. Shernoff Steele, “Student Engagement in High School Classrooms from the Perspective of Flow Theory.” School Psychology Quarterly, vol. 18, pp. 158-176, 2003.

[3] S. E. Peterson and J. A. Miller, “Comparing the quality of students’ experiences during cooperative learning and large-group instruction,” The Journal of Educational Research, vol. 97, pp. 123-134, 2004.

[4] M. Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

[5] M. Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

[6] G. B. Moneta and M. Csikszentmihalyi, “Models of concentration in natural environments: A comparative approach based on streams of experiential data,” Social Behavior and Personality, vol. 27, pp. 603-638, 1999.

[7] J. Nakamura and M. Csikszentmihalyi, “Flow theory and research,” in Handbook of Positive Psychology, C. Snyder R. and S. J. Lopez, Eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 89-105.

[8] J. B. Biggs and C. S. Tang, Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2011.

[9] K. F. Hew and W. S. Cheung, “Students’ and instructors’ use of massive open online courses (MOOCs): Motivations and challenges,” Educational Research Review, vol. 12, pp. 45-58, 2014.

[10] C. Hart, “Factors associated with student persistence in an online program of study: a review of the literature,” Journal of Interactive Online Learning, vol. 11, pp. 19-42, 2012.

[11] J. D. Vermunt, J. Elen and R. E. Clark, “Balancing support for student learning,” in Handling Complexity in Learning Environments, J. Elen and R. E. Clark, Eds. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2006, pp. 167-184.

[12] P. R. Pintrich, “A conceptual framework for assessing motivation and self-regulated learning in college students,” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 16, pp. 385-407, 2004.

[13] K. Lonka, P. Sharafi, K. Karlgren, I. Masiello, J. Nieminen, G. Birgegard and A. Josephson, “MED NORD--A tool for measuring medical students’ well-being and study orientations,” Med. Teach., vol. 30, pp. 72-79, 2008.

[14] N. Entwistle, V. McCune and J. Hounsell, “Investigating ways of enhancing university teaching-learning environments: Measuring students’ approaches to studying and perceptions of teaching,” Powerful Learning Environments: Unravelling Basic Components and Dimensions, pp. 89-107, 2003.

[15] A. Parpala and S. Lindblom-Ylänne, “Using a research instrument for developing quality at the university,” Quality in Higher Education, vol. 18, pp. 313-328, 2012.

[16] L. F. Barrett and D. J. Barrett, “An introduction to computerized experience sampling in psychology,” Social Sciences Computer Review., vol. 19, pp. 175-185, 2001.

REFERENCES

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Claned uses validated measurement tools to enhance the learning process.

Data is used to help the teacher design effective settings for learning.

Measuring activities and experiences enables feedback to the student.

SUMMARY

info@claned.com @claned_ clanedgroup clanedworld www.claned.com