Abdou Ndoye

Keeping our teachers! Investigating mentoring practices to support and retain novice educators

For this study the researchers used data from the 2006 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions survey to investigate the possible relationship between mentoring and intentionality with respect to beginning teachers’ intentions to remain in the profession. The sample consists of 8838 teachers who were mentored during their first two years of teaching. To determine whether the quality of mentoring is related to teachers’ intentions to stay or leave the profession, mentor matching, degree of support, and frequency of interactions were variables examined. Beginning teachers who were matched by grade level, who received assistance with the supports investigated, and who met with mentors at least once monthly for the specified activities were more likely to commit to remaining in the profession than their peers who had received less support.

Using Learning Analytics to Enhance Student Learning in Online Courses Based on Quality Matters Standards

Quality Matters is recognized as a rigorous set of standards that guide the designer or instructor to design quality online courses. We explore how Quality Matters standards guide the identification and analysis of learning analytics data to monitor and improve online learning. Descriptive data were collected for frequency of use, time spent, and performance and analyzed to identify patterns and trends on how students interact with online course components based on the Quality Matters standards. Major findings of this article provide a framework and guidance for instructors on how data might be collected and analyzed to improve online learning effectiveness.