Module 5 • Data activism in Higher Education

In this module, we explore how learning analytics (LA), a recent phenomenon of data extraction and usage in higher education, is becoming entangled with university discourses and practices, affecting and shaping academic work. As learning analytics becomes more popular and some experimental and commercial applications circulate, teachers need to pay attention to how technologies enter their educational experiences and what values and imaginaries are assigned to data in teaching and learning. More specifically, it seems relevant to uncover the several weaknesses and pitfalls behind many of the technological solutions proposed as a panacea for improving the facilitation and accuracy of teaching activities.

Thus, the first lesson will start by exploring the concept and the applications of learning analytics and its alleged objective of supporting more effective cognitive, social and behavioural patterns in teachers and students. We reflect on how educators can have a balanced view of technology instead of pivoting from techno-enthusiasm to techno-disillusionment. In so doing, we aim at re-imagining data in education through a complex, interdisciplinary and participatory lens. We finish the module by making a proposal: the technological advance that leads to the use of data-driven technologies should not be passively experienced by teachers. Instead, we encourage an activist mindset to enable educators to claim the readability of data and its infrastructures and to embody proactive participation in negotiating surveillance practices and the constant infringement of privacy

The ultimate goal of HE educators is to get involved and commit to putting themselves at stake concerning data-driven technologies and infrastructures. Hence, we encourage the teacher to engage in a pedagogical journey alongside technological development, not afterwards, in its passive acceptance. In short, we want to foster how to approach technology as doers, not as a subordinate trying to play catch-up. Therefore, we will speak of ‘data activism’ as an enactment of agency that leads to proactive practices. Data activism is indeed a mindset and an attitude that implies a critical and transformative perspective toward the evolving techno-structure, which generates all kinds of efforts to make the data infrastructures in education negotiable and legible to build fair data cultures in higher education and towards society.

The entire module can be downloaded in PDF by clicking on the DOI button below

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