 | David Williamson Shaffer
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Homepage URL
Talk: The Importance of Meaning: Going Beyond Mixed Methods to Turn Big Data into Real Understanding |
| David Williamson Shaffer is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Educational Psychology and a Game Scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Before coming to the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Shaffer taught grades 4-12 in the United States and abroad, including two years working with the Asian Development Bank and US Peace Corps in Nepal. His M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he taught in the Technology and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Shaffer was a 2008-2009 European Union Marie Curie Fellow. He studies how new technologies change the way people think and learn. |
| Talk Abstract |
| In the age of Big Data, we have more information than ever about how students solve complex problems in collaborative settings. However, the sheer volume of data available can overwhelm traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods, and there are fundamental issues with making attributions about individual students in the context of collaborative work. The science of quantitative ethnography addresses these concerns by connecting the study of culture with statistical tools to model complex, collaborative work. The tools of quantitative ethnography take a critical step in the new field of learning analytics: constructing models of individual participation in collaborative work, and doing so in a way that goes beyond looking for patterns in mountains of data by modeling close analysis of student work at scale. |
| PPT: |
 CCNU Final.pdf |
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