Using Teacher Dashboards to Assess Group Collaboration in Problem-based Learning

Abstract

Assessing group collaboration is a critical element in Problem-based Learning (PBL). In asynchronous online PBL settings, facilitators encounter challenges to assess group collaboration because of delayed responses, lack of social cues, and the orchestration load. Teacher dashboards have the potential to support facilitators to assess collaboration by providing synthesized and visualized information about student learning. Previous studies have explored facilitators’ user experience of teacher dashboards. However, little is known about how facilitators with different levels of PBL expertise interpret dashboard information differently. In this study, we analyzed ten PBL facilitators’ utterance moves while interacting with an online teacher dashboard to examine the difference between expert and novice facilitators as they used each visualization. This study can inform the design of teacher dashboards on collaboration assessment.