James Folkestad

James Folkestad is a Professor and Director of the Center for the Analytics of Learning and Teaching (C-ALT) at Colorado State University (CSU), where he holds the title of University Distinguished Teaching Scholar. His research focuses on blended learning, learning analytics, and serious games for educational purposes. He leads C-ALT, which develops data-driven tools to improve teaching and learning practices, adhering to ethical principles aligned with CSU's land-grant mission. Folkestad has secured significant grants, including an $11.5M project from the Intelligence Advanced Research Program Activity (IARPA) for crowdsourcing analytic methods. He collaborates across disciplines at CSU's College of Health and Human Sciences and maintains external partnerships to advance learning analytics. His work emphasizes student-centered designs, such as the U-Behavior method for retrieval practice and the OnDiscuss tool for analyzing online discussions. Folkestad's contributions include over 50 publications on topics ranging from cognitive bias mitigation in games to epistemic network analysis.

Education:

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Education

Research Interests:

• Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL)
• Serious games for skill development
• Design of analytics-driven educational tools
• Visual-form learning analytics for self-regulation
• Ethical implementation of learning analytics

Grants & Collaborations:

• TRACE Project: $11.5M (2017–2021) for crowdsourcing evidence analysis
• $8.7M SIRIUS Program grant (2012–2016) for decision-making training games
• Mentor for graduate students across disciplines

C-ALT Initiatives:

• U-Behavior method improving microbiology grades via Canvas analytics
• Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) tools for discussion board insights
• Development of the OnDiscuss visualization platform