Cases when the use of clusters is advised
The use of clustering can be beneficial in various situations.
It is a common problem in many cases that some students dispose of knowledge above the class average level in a certain subject, while some others are well below.
There are diverse situations when it is beneficial to break down the class into smaller groups of students struggling with the same challenges, and address their problems separately.
If there are several classes learning the same materials, these clusters can be formed across the classes.
Specific cases when clustering can be very beneficial include:
- Preparation for exams
- Correpetation
- After-school work with students risking early school leaving
Goal of Clustering
The EDUBOT methodology’s main goal is to keep students on a learning track we call “Flow channel” between boredom and anxiety assuring that every student is faced with challenging, but not overwhelmingly difficult learning tasks.
Our digital learning routes adapt to the learning habits of the students. Those who excel in a certain field, will go on and get more complex tasks, while those who struggle will get supporting questions, knowledge elements and explanations to help them overcome their problems.
However, EDUBOT is not to create a digital system that takes over the complete learning process.
We believe that adaptive digital routes can be the most efficient if the learning process is supervised by teachers, and the students regularly get personal support in form of small group tutoring. The results of our pilot sessions also show that this is the way how the best result can be achieved in preparation for exams.
EDUBOT supports you to differentiate the learning process in your class(es) by offering the possibility to create performance clusters from the students of one-or several class(es).
This is the way we connect digital learning and personal tutoring.
For example, iIn our pilot sessions in Hungary we used performance clusters across the participating classes, and the clusters were tutored by the teachers of the classes who distributed the clusters among them each week. As we used the same number of clusters an classes, all teachers had 1 cluster to work with.
How to create performance clusters?
One way to create the clusters is to analyse the results and create the classes manually.
However, as this process can be time -consuming, especially if you have several classes to cluster, you might need a helping hand.
EBUBOT Assistant will do the clustering for you.
Steps to be taken:
- Go to Teachers/Groups
- Select Cluster manager
- Select “Create new cluster”
- Select the group you want to work with, then select the route the results of which you want to be taken into account in the process. You can also select several routes if you want.
- If you want to include another group in the clustering process, select “Add students from another group”, and repeat the process above. Please note that the best matching clusters will result if you select the same route in all groups. The Assistant will perform the clustering at any selection, but obviously, the most matching dataset of student performance will be provided by results of a single route.
- Check under the “Selected” line, if the selection is correct.
- Push “Initiate clustering”
You will receive a message that clustering has been initiated.
This process can take a few seconds or minutes depending on the quantity of the data to be analyzed by the AI.
When the process is completed, you will get a notification on the platform and also in e-mail.
You can also check yourself if the completed processes in the “Cluster manager”. If your process is marked “Comleted” in the list of “Active clustering processes”, you can open the result by clicking on “Open”.
You will see the clusters proposed by the Assistant listed(see the image below).
You can now manually move students from one cluster to another (1), add new clusters (2) and delete emptied ones (3). We recommended to rename (4) the clusters you want to work with, so that you can easily identify them later.
When you are ready with the modifications, you can press “Save clusters as groups” (5). The clusters will now be saved as groups, and listed as groups in the “my Groups” menu. From now on, you can work with them as with any other learning group.
Yours clusters will appear in the “Group” menu, “My groups” list.
You can use the created cluster groups to offer them learning routes tailored to their needs, or you can offer them personal tutoring.