Towards a teacher dashboard design for interactive simulations

Abstract The use of interactive simulations (sims) in physics education is increasing. Aside from direct observation, teachers currently lack options for gaining useful insights into how their students are using these sims. A teacher dashboard to analyze and visualize student interaction with sims holds promise for responding to teacher needs and providing opportunities for improved classroom implementation of such sims. In this work we present progress in the design and development of a teacher dashboard that analyzes and visualizes student interaction with sims. A survey of over 800 teachers was conducted to identify the types of information teachers’ perceive as useful and how they would use that information to guide instruction. Teacher report valuing information that helps them to review student performance, to improve the design of sim-centered activities, and to plan lessons. A prototype dashboard design informed by this survey is also presented, including data collected from student sim use during a college homework activity. Finally, we describe how this dashboard design can address teacher needs related to insights around sim-based activities. Future work will evaluate teacher opinions regarding their interpretation of the data visualizations and the dashboard design in general.