Stepping Stones Curriculum

Published January 21, 2025

Unizin’s Learning Analytics Curriculum Now Available via Canvas Commons

Unizin, the member-led consortium of higher-ed institutions, has now made its robust learning analytics curriculum, Stepping Stones, available to all higher-ed institutions through Canvas Commons.

Stepping Stones development began in 2021. Initially conceived as an exercise to audit learning data and analytics workshop materials from across Unizin member institutions and consolidate them into a baseline curriculum, the project evolved into a more comprehensive undertaking. Few instructional materials existed, revealing a wide knowledge gap in understanding and applying even basic learning data among faculty and learning designers. “For years now, we’ve been saying ‘the data is coming.’ Now it’s here, and it’s exciting. But we’ve got to prepare our faculty,” explains Dr. Lauren Marsh, Academic Technologist, University of Minnesota and co-leader of the initial Stepping Stones Curriculum development team. 

Data is a Doorway to Conversation

Before Stepping Stones was developed, a series of structured conversations with key stakeholders across institutions revealed surprising insights that shaped its evolution. A knowledge gap existed within the faculty community concerning the data and tools already available through Canvas. While the answers to many basic questions could be provided through existing Canvas analytics and reports, there were also misperceptions and misunderstandings of the limitations of data and the ethical considerations of using certain data to gauge certain student behaviors.

“These conversations went a long way to identify the gaps that the curriculum should address,” explains Dr. Christina Bifulco, Associate Director for Teaching and Learning Analytics, Rutgers University. “The initial conversations gave rise to the fact that we needed to establish some guiding principles, which, thankfully, had already been addressed by another Unizin working group.  These baseline principles established a solid foundation upon which to build the curriculum.”

A working group was established to identify the common areas of need across institutions and to design a curriculum that would provide a working knowledge of the rapidly evolving landscape of learning data and analytics to better identify specific areas of focus and action and to apply data equitably, ethically, and effectively. This became known as the Stepping Stones curriculum for learning analytics. 

We discovered that, while there was a very mature understanding of how to work with faculty on instructional design, it was unclear whether that same level of understanding existed around how to apply learning data,” explains Marsh.

Modular Topics For Flexible Implementation

Materials were designed to accommodate a variety of audiences, goals, modalities, workshop structures, and outcomes. Every institution has a unique culture, infrastructure, and policies so a one-size-fits-all solution was impossible. The Stepping Stones Curriculum encompasses five modules and uses a “Blueprint” document to provide a structured process for reflection question prompts, guidance on student indicators from analytics data & dashboards, and actions to take in response to data. 

Modules:

1. Getting Started with Learning Analytics covers the definition and ethical use of learning analytics data.

2. Beginning of the Term focuses on using learning analytics to assess student readiness for a course and to create a strategy for using analytics in the first four weeks.

3. Assessment helps faculty review course assessment data, create plans to improve courses, understand quiz statistics, and determine whether quiz questions accurately measure student learning. 

4. Engagement explores how Canvas data portrays student engagement, and helps faculty identify patterns in engagement data.

5. Learning Analytics in Context guides instructors in using learning analytics holistically throughout the lifespan of a course.

The curriculum was piloted across seven Unizin member campuses – Rutgers University, University of Florida, University of Iowa, Indiana University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 and evaluated in Summer 2023. Several institutions in the pilot chose to start with shorter programs, utilizing only the first two modules and highlighting the flexibility that the curriculum provides.

Instructional Design Holds the Key

“The Stepping Stones pilot and subsequent evaluation revealed a hidden audience that we hadn’t fully considered at the outset,” said Dr. Heather Maness, Assistant Director, Learning Analytics and Assessment, University of Florida.  “Many instructional designers and other staff members provided feedback that they needed to first understand the tools and how to apply them in order to guide their faculty during consultations.”

“The pilot revealed that our first audience was faculty development professionals and facilitators. We had to entrust them to review the curriculum content, establish their workshop goals, and then develop and adapt the materials to meet their needs and reflect the specific University environment and culture in which they operate,” added Minnesota’s Marsh. “While the materials are drafted to speak directly to faculty, we’re relying on our colleagues and other professionals to mediate that experience with faculty.”

The evaluation process provided direction for the working group to develop new content and update existing material for version 2 of the curriculum. Recognizing the critical role of educational developers and instructional designers in using evidence-based practices – including learning data – to help faculty support students, change curricula and optimize courses was central to the development of Stepping Stones 2.0. The updated curriculum is designed to provide a solid foundation across all institutions, while also enabling any institution to tailor content delivery. This includes a new asynchronous module to enable faculty to engage and consider content at their own pace. 

Stepping Stones 2.0 features a more comprehensive overview of the analytics and dashboards already available in Canvas.  Instructors can already access real time data for their students including grade performance, activity, and message history. Stepping Stones orients instructors to these datasets as a starting point that an institution can augment based on its own data prowess. 

“While we haven’t seen many of the basic Canvas datasets utilized at scale, Stepping Stones is designed to build comfort with the data and start conversations,” said Maness. “Not only is every single institution different, but every course within an institution is different. We need to establish a certain level of data literacy, comfort and interest to enable the next phase of data customization and application.”

Update Version Now Available to All

Stepping Stones was initially available only to Unizin member institutions.  Now, Stepping Stones 2.0 is publicly available on Canvas Commons to any institution in the United States (search “Stepping Stones” through your institution’s Canvas Commons access portal) or as a direct download to institutions worldwide. What’s more, a new Stepping Stones Google Group has been established to enable educators worldwide to connect, collaborate, and share resources related to the Stepping Stones learning analytics curriculum.  To learn more about the Stepping Stones materials and version 2 enhancements from the development team, watch this Unizin Summit presentation.  

Enabling more institutions and individuals to engage with, expand and improve the Stepping Stones materials, supports Unizin’s goal to effective, ethical, and equitable learning analytics practices in higher education.