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Abstract This study fills a gap in knowledge regarding experienced instructors’ use of learning analytics, focusing on differences in their approach, the knowledge and skills they activate, and the development of these knowledge and skills. Through a qualitative analysis of think-aloud interviews with 13 analytics-experienced instructors, two distinct profiles of analytics use emerged. Instructors in the first profile prioritized monitoring student engagement and performance to foster desirable behaviors, using analytics to align students with course expectations. Instructors in the second profile focused on understanding student perceptions of learning, aligning the course design with diverse learning behaviors and needs. To arrive at such use, instructors went beyond mere acquisition of technical knowledge to also integrate pedagogical knowledge into their analytics practices. Lastly, the study uncovered specific learning analytics supports, such as ongoing individual consultations, invaluable for developing the needed technical and pedagogical knowledge. Together, the results of this study reveal the pivotal role of pedagogy in analytics use, calling for refinement of conceptual models and tailoring of practical support for instructors. 

With the rapid growth of online learning at community colleges and the low course completion and performance associated with it, there has been increasing need to identify effective ways to address the challenges in online teaching and learning at this setting. Based on open-ended survey responses from 105 instructors and 365 students from multiple community colleges in a state, this study examined instructors’ and students’ perceptions of effective and ineffective instructional practices and changes needed in online coursework. By combining structural topic modelling techniques with human coding, we identified instructional practices that were perceived by both instructors and students as effective in supporting online learning as well as ineffective and needing improvement. Moreover, we identified a handful of misalignments between instructors and students in their perceptions of online teaching, including course workload and effective ways to communicate. 

This online course quality rubric was developed to provide a systematic and descriptive benchmark for researchers and practitioners who are striving to develop a culture of high-quality college-level online courses. This rubric differentiates itself from others as it identifies the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment and provides concrete details of how to optimize the design features and instructional practices to ease the challenges. Practitioners and researchers increasingly acknowledge two critical challenges to successful online teaching and learning: the need for stronger self-directed learning skills and greater difficulties in enabling effective interpersonal interactions. These challenges call for the importance of better scaffolding the self-directed learning skills necessary for online success as well as providing clear guidance to navigate the learning process, promoting student agency to engage students actively throughout their learning, and improving presence & interactivity intentionally and visibly. Recognizing the critical role of these three concepts in addressing the unique challenges of online learning, this rubric intends to explain how a particular course component (e.g., learning objective) can be designed to address these concepts.