Learning Catalytics: Features, Benefits, and Implementation Strategies
Learning Catalytics is a web-based interactive student response tool designed to foster team-based learning and real-time feedback in educational settings. Originally developed by the Mazur Group at Harvard and now owned by Pearson, it leverages students’ smartphones, tablets, or laptops to engage them in interactive tasks and critical thinking. This article explores the features of Learning Catalytics, its benefits, and practical implementation strategies.
Introduction to Learning Catalytics
Learning Catalytics is designed to augment traditional lectures, drive active learning in flipped classrooms, and bring the benefits of in-person interactions to asynchronous online courses. It supports the peer instruction method of teaching, providing a platform to get real-time feedback during class. Faculty can engage students with questions about the material - with numerical, algebraic, textual, or graphical responses - and the platform can help group students for follow-up discussions and track their responses.
Key Features of Learning Catalytics
Learning Catalytics boasts a range of features that make it a versatile tool for educators.
Diverse Question Types
Learning Catalytics features open-ended, multiple-choice, and image upload questions that encourage collaboration among students for team-based and group learning. Instructors can submit questions that require numerical, algebraic, textual, graphical, or multiple-choice responses.
- Open-ended questions: These questions require students to provide their own answer before the correct response is shared by the instructor, encouraging higher-level thinking and providing a clearer view into what students are really thinking.
- Multiple-choice questions: These questions allow for quick assessments and can be efficiently integrated into lectures to gauge student understanding.
- Image upload questions: This feature allows students to upload images as part of their responses, enabling visual problem-solving and creative expression.
Grouping and Collaboration Tools
Learning Catalytics includes tools to automatically group students for discussion of a question based on their responses and location, regardless of class size. This is particularly useful for courses where many of the students are reluctant to engage enthusiastically with the peer discussion part of the Peer Instruction cycle; the group tool functionality can make a large improvement in that level of engagement.
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Real-Time Analytics and Feedback
As an instructor, you can pose a variety of open-ended questions that help your students develop critical thinking skills, while monitoring responses with real-time analytics to find out where they’re struggling. With this information, you can adjust your instructional strategy in real time and try additional ways of engaging your students during class. Learning Catalytics helps identify misconceptions and monitor responses to find out where students are struggling.
Integration with Other Platforms
Instructors can take advantage of questions built specifically for Learning Catalytics and gradebook integration with a Mastering or selected MyLab product.
Benefits of Using Learning Catalytics
The implementation of Learning Catalytics in educational settings offers several notable advantages.
Enhanced Student Engagement
Learning Catalytics is an interactive student response tool that encourages team-based learning by using students’ smartphones, tablets, or laptops to engage them in interactive tasks and thinking. For courses where many of the students are reluctant to engage enthusiastically with the peer discussion part of the Peer Instruction cycle, the group tool functionality can make a large improvement in that level of engagement.
Promotion of Critical Thinking
Open-ended questions require students to provide their own answer before the correct response is shared by the instructor, encouraging higher-level thinking and providing a clearer view into what students are really thinking.
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Real-Time Feedback and Adaptive Teaching
By monitoring responses with real-time analytics, instructors can identify misconceptions and adjust their instructional strategy in real time. This immediate feedback loop allows for a more responsive and effective teaching approach.
Support for Peer Instruction
Learning Catalytics is specifically designed for peer instruction and allows the instructor to deliver questions multiple times. Furthermore, during the team discussion, students can see on their screens (through the Learning Catalytics interface) what the other students have answered in the individual round.
Versatility Across Learning Environments
Learning Catalytics is versatile and can augment a traditional lecture, drive active learning in a flipped classroom, or bring the benefits of in-person interactions to completely asynchronous online courses.
Implementation Strategies and Best Practices
To effectively use Learning Catalytics, instructors should consider the following strategies and best practices.
Preparation and Integration
Preparing for class also has additional overhead. Instructors have been preparing the lecture slides in the same way as usual and then porting any questions we are using from the slides into Learning Catalytics. An instructor needs to be willing to take on a lot of overhead, inside the class and out, if they want to use Learning Catalytics.
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Device Management
Use of Learning Catalytics demands that everybody has a sufficiently charged device or ability to plug their device in, including the instructor.
Question Design
Design questions that promote discussion and critical thinking. Use a mix of question types to cater to different learning styles and assessment goals.
Facilitation of Group Discussions
Encourage students to actively participate in group discussions. The instructor version of Learning Catalytics pops up a student view and this is what is used here (so technically I am logged in as an instructor on two devices at once).
Time Management
Overall, running a typical Learning Catalytics question feels less time-efficient than a clicker question. It takes slightly longer to start the question, for them to answer and then to display the results. This becomes amplified slightly because many of the questions we are using require the students to have more complicated interactions with the question than just picking one of five answers.
Addressing Limitations
Be aware of the limitations of Learning Catalytics, such as the lack of direct integration with presentation software like PowerPoint and certain LMS platforms. Plan accordingly to mitigate these issues.
Case Studies and Examples
Enhancing Group Collaboration in Biology
Learning Catalytics incentivizes group work by allowing students to discuss questions with peers, leading to a greater understanding of biology as they clarify concepts together. This collaborative approach enhances the learning experience and promotes deeper understanding.
Transforming Online Teaching
One year ago, in August 2020, I was fortunate enough to secure a slot in a webinar by Harvard physicist and pedagogist Eric Mazur (Mazur, 2020). The experience fundamentally changed my view of online teaching and made me realise how exciting Zoom lectures can be.
I used to consider online teaching inherently less engaging than teaching in person. However, this perception changed when I experienced peer instruction as a “student” being placed into a Zoom breakout room and discussing problems with peers. In peer instruction (Zhang et al., 2017), students are challenged with problem-based questions, which they first try to answer individually. Subsequently, they join together in groups, discuss their answer choices from the individual round and try to come up with a joint answer, which they then submit. This works really well in an online setting, largely thanks to a web-based learning platform called Learning Catalytics.
In the webinar, we attendees first answered a set of questions individually in the web-based Learning Catalytics platform. I then joined a breakout room with three other lecturers from different parts of the world. Being able to see what everyone else had answered in the individual round on the Learning Catalytics interface, we started discussing immediately. When we submitted our joint answer and it turned out to be correct, we immediately felt connected. This activity felt so different from many breakout room discussions that I previously experienced where students are not really motivated to participate and engage.
The workshop demonstrated to me the importance of having first thought about a problem on our own before discussing with our peers. As a result of the prior engagement with the problem, I was more motivated to discuss my reasoning with others and be better prepared to defend my choice of answer.
After attending the workshop, I was determined to use Learning Catalytics in my Year 2 undergraduate course LSM2233 “Cell Biology”. I was lucky that my Department sponsored the purchase of licenses1 and I made full use of it, by literally conducting Learning Catalytics-based team activities in every lecture.
In one of my two lecture slots, I used individual questions, which were delivered twice. The students first answered the question on their own before being placed into breakout rooms, in which they discussed the question with their peers and submitted an answer again.
In my other lecture slot, I performed in class team-based assessments in the format described above. I found the team-based assessments especially useful, because these types of assessments are much less stressful compared to normal assessments. Furthermore, the students really learned while doing the assessment, as immediate feedback was provided.
Comparing Learning Catalytics with Traditional Methods
While traditional learning methods often involve lectures and standardized testing, Learning Catalytics focuses on interaction and immediate feedback, helping students understand biology more thoroughly and effectively.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Pros
- Learning Catalytics enables a lot of types of questions that are not practical to implement using clickers.
- The Learning Catalytics group tool engages reluctant participants in a way that no amount of buy-in or running around the classroom trying to get students to talk to each other seems to be able to do.
- Learning Catalytics tells the students exactly who to talk to (talk to Jane Doe, sitting your your right) and matches them up with somebody that answered differently than them.
Cons
- Learning Catalytics is clunky.
- Given the small amount of of time that we typically have between gaining access to a room and the time at which we start a class, each extra step in this process introduces another possible delay in starting class on time.
- There are many more choices with the Learning Catalytics software, and with that a loss of simplicity.
- Overall, running a typical Learning Catalytics question feels less time-efficient than a clicker question.
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