Erwin van Vliet on stage

Erwin van Vliet speaks at SURF Education Days 2021

The SURF Education Days (SURF Onderwijsdagen) are the place to be when it comes to educational innovation with ICT in higher education. This year Erwin van Vliet talked about the use of IguideME, a dashboard that is used to give personalised feedback to students and lecturers.

This inspiring two-day conference was organised for the 23rd time. Last year because of corona online, this year physically in Den Bosch. It is the largest national event in the field of educational innovation for research universities, universities of applied sciences and secondary vocational education. An inspiring central programme is supplemented with no fewer than 40 sessions in which all different aspects of educational innovation are discussed.

The use of IguideME

Erwin van Vliet (SILS) was invited to give a presentation in the session Guiding students by the use of data. He talked about the use of IguideME (I Guide My Education), a dashboard that was developed at the Faculty of Science and is used to give personalised feedback to (a large group of) students and the lecturers in the course. Students receive a personal dashboard to provide insight into their own learning process. Students sets their own goal: do I go for a 6 or a 9 in this course? IguideME makes a prediction of the final grade based on the learning outcomes and provides feedback taking into account the ambition of the student. By making a comparison with a role model that is slightly better students are encouraged to improve themselves. Lecturers can see at a glance on the IguideME dashboard which students are at risk of dropping out, how digital learning resources are being used and how formative and summative assessments are related, and use that information to optimise their course design.

There are hardly any studies in which data from the learning process, the learning environment and the learning outcomes are brought together. The research on IguideME is still in full swing, but the first results are very promising! Students were positive. It was found that those who used IGuideME became more motivated, studied more efficiently and achieved better results during the course. A personal message from the lecturer to students who were in danger of dropping out was highly valued by students prevented some from dropping out. Furthermore, the digital tool Perusall could also be used more effectively by optimising the course design.

This educational innovation and IguideME are the result of two projects of which Erwin van Vliet is project leader: the Comenius Teaching fellow and the SURF project FeedbackGO in which three Dutch universities work together: the UvA, the VU Amsterdam and the University of Groningen. All projects and activities are supported by the Teaching and Learning Centre of the Faculty of Science.

Natasa Brouwer (TLC), Gerrit Oomens (ESC), Hans Breeuwer (SILS) and Sylvia Witteveen (TLC) are also involved in these projects. The research is being conducted in collaboration with Bert Bredeweg (HvA/UvA) and Damien Fleur (UvA).