Is Chad your friend? If not, he really should be. Not only is he a gentleman and a scholar, but those of us on the Instructional Design team also deemed Chad our collective best friend long ago. This holds for both his previous incarnation as Manager of Learning Management Systems and in his shiny new role as Manager of Learning Analytics. Wait, had you not heard?!? The ever-popular Chad Marchong has a new position in the CETL. Here’s the scoop on Chad’s new position and how he can partner with you to help meet your teaching and research needs.
Wait, so what is Chad doing now?
Chad is now the Manager of Learning Analytics. This means that he’s interested in using quantitative and qualitative data from iCollege and other GSU technology tools to help increase student success at both the micro and macro levels. In other words, Chad has a passion for marrying pedagogy and analytics to improve the lives of current and future students.
Why should I care?
Ok, so the preceding might sound a bit lofty, but data analytics are intimately tied up with educational design and implementation. Thus, Chad can help you out with a wide variety of planning and analysis tasks at the course, program, and project level, including:
- Co-designing a comprehensive data-management plan
- Tracking down appropriate data sources
- Developing data visualization standards
- Creating best practices for data analysis
- Running a variety of analyses
- Discussing approaches to data storage
When, specifically, might I want to use Chad’s services?
Chad’s team is always growing and evolving, but is currently focused on partnering with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the Course and Program Design teams here in the CETL. Here are a couple of ways that he might assist you:
- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL): The SOTL team here focuses on helping you develop, carry out, and publish research related to teaching and learning. Are you looking to publish a SOTL piece this year? If so, contact Chad! Before you receive IRB approval, he can assist you in coming up with a data collection and analysis approach. After approval, Chad can assist in implementing your approach.
- Course and Program Design (CPD): The CPD team is responsible for helping reimagine courses/programs from initial ideas to design to implementation and evaluation. Are you working with CPD to create a new program or course? Have you considered how you might design a holistic data analytics plan into your design? Chad can help you out here as well.
How do I get in touch with Chad?
Chad can be most easily reached via email at cmarchong@gsu.edu. And, don’t feel that you need to reach out to him with only the scenarios above! Do you have another idea of how you’d like to use data analytics to better your little part of the world at GSU? Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
If you are a researcher interested in attending a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) session about using Learning Analytics to assess student engagement, there will be a session hosted at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning on April 11th. You can register through here.
