On the first day of a typical class, students are like a room full of black boxes for faculty: what’s inside is a mystery. There’s no way to know how much or little each one knows about the course subject.
Without this understanding, most faculty are left with one approach: teach to the middle. There aren't many other options.
Throughout the course, the instructor gets glimpses inside those black boxes through assignments, quizzes and tests, but those clues can come few and far between. Too often, by the time the instructor can put the clues together and see who's really struggling, it's too late to help.
What if faculty could really see inside those black boxes? What if they could understand exactly where on the learning curve every student is – and how they’re progressing – from day one? With Realizeit’s personalized learning and analytics system, these insights are available at a glance, with real-time updates, so faculty can see at each step how to best help every student succeed.
Below, find a selection of the most common questions Realizeit analytics can answer.
- Are students engaged? Are they doing the work?
Students often tell faculty they’re doing all they can to learn but still can’t grasp the concepts. In Realizeit, the instructor can see exactly what assignments students have completed – as well as how much time they spent working. With this data, they can see whether to advise the student to put in more effort or if they truly require additional help. They can also see which students might need a reminder to get started.
- What’s the best use of my teaching time this week?
The answer to this question starts with two others: Have students completed this week’s assignment, and how well have they done? With Realizeit, instructors can see exactly how many students completed the work and how well they’ve mastered each concept. Armed with this information, instructors can decide whether they need to review the basics or if they can get into a deeper discussion or activity. They can also see areas where the class may be struggling and choose to focus extra time there.
- If a student isn't getting it, why not?
If a student is doing all the work, spending the appropriate time and still not understanding a concept, they’ll need more resources and assistance – but with what specifically? Because Realizeit breaks down each topic within a concept into its own individual lesson, faculty can see exactly what elements the student is struggling with and assist accordingly.
- Who’s falling behind? Who needs help?
A first assignment, quiz or exam often won't be graded until weeks into the semester – and if that grade is the only clue that a student is having trouble, it could already be too late for them to recover. Realizeit continuously measures students’ performance and participation, so faculty can see as early as the first week or two of a class who may be in danger of falling behind or failing.
- This student is asking for help. How can I know what they really need?
In typical classes, faculty have no way to really know how each student is doing and what they need, especially when working with classes of hundreds. Yet when an individual comes in for office hours or stops by after class, they expect – and deserve – personalized attention. With Realizeit, faculty can quickly look up each student and see at a glance where they’re doing well, where they may need assistance and even how they compare to the rest of the class. These insights help them then provide truly targeted, relevant guidance and resources.
- Are students really learning? How much?
Test grades may capture students’ knowledge level of a topic at a particular moment in time, but they don’t reflect how much knowledge students have actually gained and retained by the end of the course. Realizeit measures how much students know about a topic at the start of each unit and then continuously re-measures their learning throughout the course, making it easy to see both actual knowledge growth and where specifically it has increased.
These questions illustrate just a fraction of the insights faculty can glean from Realizeit’s real-time learning analytics. Post-course data and insights are available for faculty, administrators and course developers as well. Interested in learning more about how Realizeit analytics work and what they can reveal? Let's talk.
