Teachers’ Use of Education Dashboards and Professional Growth

Abstract

Education dashboards are a means to present various stakeholders with information about learners, most commonly regarding the learners’ activity in online learning environments. Typically, an education dashboard for teachers will include some type of visual aids that encourage teachers to reflect upon learner behavior patterns and to act in accordance to it. In practice, this tool can assist teachers to make data-driven decisions, thus supporting their professional growth, however, so far, the use of education dashboards by teachers has been greatly understudied. In this research we report on two studies related to the associations between the use of education dashboards by elementary school teachers and the teachers’ professional growth. We used the framework defined by the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) Standards for Educators. In the first study, we took a quantitative approach (N=52 teachers), using an online self-report questionnaire, and found that the use of dashboards is positively associated with professional growth in the dimensions of facilitator, analyst, designer, and citizen. In the second study, we took a qualitative approach (N=9 teachers), using semi-structured interviews, to shed light on the mechanisms through which teachers benefit from the use of education dashboards.

Keywords

• teachers
• education dashboard
• professional development
• data-driven decision-making
• elementary school