Introduction
I have been able to do a lot of reading in the last few weeks as part of a research project with Teaching and Learning at the University of Canberra.
I am exploring the learning analytics literature to investigate how teachers might use augmented information to support students’ and their own learning journeys.
This has included literature that might inform my re-view of qualitative approaches to analytics.
George Polya
One of my delightful finds has been George Ploya’s How to Solve it (originally published in 1945).
In his discussion of how to understand a problem, George asks “Can you think of a picture or a diagram that might help you understand the problem?”.
This led me to think about visualisations as heuristics and as ways to explore one’s own cognitive maps.
Two Examples
In the last few days I have found two examples of visualisations of the analysis process.
The first is from Thomas Davenport, Jeannie Harris and Robert Morison’s Analytics at Work (2010:7).
The second is from a Gartner glossary:
I do feel much more comfortable with a matrix rather than a 45 degree line. I include the Gartner example here to help me to work through how I might visualise an analysis process.
The use of visualisation as a heuristic device is occupying my thoughts at the moment too as I contemplate how we might induct learners into performance analysis and performance analytics.
A video from FiveThirtyEight about choosing a visualisation has taken me further in thinking about the narrative that can develop as we discuss process issues.
I wonder if you have some ways to represent the analysis process that might add to my heuristics.
Photo Credit
Dawn on Elrington (Keith Lyons, CC BY 4.0)