Light Bulb Moments in the Classroom: Probing Design Opportunities for Ambient LA Displays in Higher Education

Teachers in higher education are tasked with the demanding job of providing
support tailored to each individual student’s need. To provide tailored support,
teachers need to accurately monitor students’ activities and decide on
appropriate support interventions. Learning analytics applications have the
potential to aid teachers to maintain an overview of their students’ activities.
However, those applications are often designed as centralized graphical
displays, taking teachers’ attention away from the classroom and sometimes
overburdening teachers. Therefore, we investigate whether ambient Learning
Analytics (LA) displays offer a solution to complement traditional LA
applications, as these systems are designed as objects that integrate seamlessly
into the classroom context. We conducted an exploratory study in Higher
Education to investigate teachers’ needs for information and their perception
of ambient LA displays in relation to their teaching practice. We formulate
three key findings and a set of design opportunities to inform future work of
supporting the HE context with ambient LA displays.