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Faculty professional development is known to be a key factor contributing to the effective implementation of evidence-based teaching in STEM classrooms. In this research, we developed TEACHActive, an innovative classroom analytics-driven professional development model that supports the reflective practices of engineering instructors in higher education. TEACHActive uses machine learning techniques within a camera-based classroom sensing system that tracks behavioral features of interest in classrooms. Following design-based implementation research, we rapidly enacted, tested, and revised the TEACHActive model with engineering instructors. This study reports the results of the first iteration completed in the spring semester of 2021. Specifically, we examined the TEACHActive implementation and deployment in engineering classrooms with the analysis of instructors’ perceived successes and challenges. The paper presents implications for using the classroom analytics-driven professional development with educators in higher education. 

The ultimate goal of using learning analytics dashboards is to improve teaching and learning processes. Instructors that use an analytics dashboard are presented with data about their students and/or about their teaching practices. Despite growing research in analytics dashboards, little is known about how instructors make sense of the data they receive and reflect on it. Moreover, there is limited evidence on how instructors who use these dashboards take further actions and improve their pedagogical practices. My dissertation work addresses these issues by examining instructors’ sense making, reflective practice and subsequent actions taken from classroom analytics in three phases: (a) problem analysis from systematic literature review (current), (b) implementation and examination of instructors’ sense-making and reflective practice (current) and (c) human-centered approaches to co-designing instructors’ dashboards with stakeholders (current). The findings will contribute to the conceptual basis of instructors’ change of their pedagogical practices and practical implications of human-centered principles in designing effective dashboards.