Blackboard’s data science team conducts analysis of the relationship between the use of academic technologies and student outcomes, in order to inform our understanding of how students and faculty use educational technologies and infer relationships with effective pedagogical practices that can be incorporated at scale. The scale of Blackboard’s use enables research into both broad trends and very specific practices that are being incorporated in various ways. In this presentation, John Whitmer, Director of Analytics & Research, will discuss recent findings — some findings challenge our conventional knowledge, while others confirm what we believed to be true.
Dr. John Whitmer is the Analytics and Research Director at Blackboard. In this position, he leads the data science efforts conducting research into the use of Blackboard’s teaching and learning solutions. He also manages the integration of these results into analytics features within existing applications and creation of dedicated analytics solutions. His research focuses on interactions of students and faculty with educational technology applications, the fit/gap between product design and use, and the educational outcomes resulting from those interactions. John holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from UC Davis and a Master’s Degree in Sociocultural Anthropology from UC Davis. Prior to joining Blackboard in 2014, John managed large-scale distributed educational technology projects for the California State University, California Community Colleges, and NEES, Inc., a 15-university NSF-sponsored research consortium. John is an applied researcher with published studies in Learning Analytics and MOOC effectiveness research. He currently co-Chairs the IMS Privacy Task Force and is an active member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research.