Classroom Engagement Analytics for Educators
Per-minute aggregate engagement heatmaps from any recorded lecture, seminar, or live class — A/B test instructional changes against the same objective measure.
Engagement scores from clicks and time-on-task miss the real signal
Click-rate, video-completion percentage, and time-on-task are easy to measure but poor proxies for genuine learning engagement. A student can watch a 10-minute video to the end while emotionally checked out — and instructional teams have no way to see it.
Manual classroom observation is expensive, infrequent, and produces data that's hard to compare across cohorts.
Continuous, anonymous engagement signal from any recorded session
Mental Edge analyzes recorded lectures, seminars, and live-class sessions and produces per-minute aggregate engagement scores: attention, positive affect, concentration (AU4), confusion signals, and overall expressivity.
Outputs are aggregated by default to protect individual privacy. Instructional designers see exactly when engagement dropped, allowing them to redesign the segments that lost the room.
Capabilities
- Aggregate-by-default analytics — Engagement is reported at the cohort level, never per-student, unless the institution explicitly opts in with informed consent and a clear lawful basis.
- Per-minute lecture heatmaps — See exactly which 90 seconds of a 50-minute lecture lost the room. Use the heatmap to target redesign instead of guessing.
- Compare cohorts and revisions — A/B test instructional changes with the same objective measure. Did the new opening hook improve engagement in the first 5 minutes? You'll know in one session.
- Works with existing video — No new hardware in the classroom. Ingests recorded sessions from Panopto, Zoom, Canvas Studio, and the like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this surveillance of students?
No. The default mode reports aggregate engagement signals across a cohort, not per-student tracking. Per-student analysis requires explicit institutional and student opt-in with appropriate consent language.
What does 'engagement' actually measure?
A weighted blend of facial-attention indicators, positive-affect signals (AU6, AU12), concentration markers (AU4), and overall expressivity — not a single emotion label. The result is reported on a 0–100 scale relative to the cohort's baseline.
Will the system work with younger students?
Mental Edge's core models are validated on adolescent and adult faces. For pediatric research, the underlying FACS framework has a Baby FACS variant; contact us about pilot use cases.
How does it handle students who turn cameras off?
The system processes only visible faces. Students who opt out by disabling their camera are simply excluded from that session's analytics — there is no penalty or flagging.
Can we use this for online courses?
Yes. Mental Edge works with any recorded video source, including async course recordings, live webinars, and synchronous online classes.
What does it cost for a department or institution?
Pro + Analytics is $129.99/month per seat. Departmental and institutional licensing is available — contact info@mentaledge.ai.
Recommended tier: Pro + Analytics ($129.99/mo) — Cohort dashboards, per-minute heatmaps, and revision-comparison reports live in the Pro + Analytics tier.
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