Adaptive Learning: Are We There Yet?

Source: Waters, J. K. (2014). Adaptive Learning: Are We There Yet? (Cover story). T H E Journal, 41(4), 12-16.

Summary:

After watching the TED Talk in class, I was more interested in the topic of self-paced learning. I found this article, from 2014, three years after the TED talk that right off the bat explains how what they call adaptive learning has been "heating up" because of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They argue that adaptive learning and personalized learning, while normally used interchangeably, are actually different things. According to the article, personalized learning is something teachers have always been doing and includes adaptive learning, differentiated instruction, etc whereas adaptive learning is data driven and not always linear.

The article then goes on to explain that there are two different types of adaptive learning, those that the teacher looks at data and makes changes or reteaches as needed and assessment driven models where a program makes its own adjustments without the teacher.

The next section describes that there were many different companies that were teaming up with Microsoft or creating their own web based programs for adaptive learning. Examples: CogBooks, CCKF, Knewton,Triumph Learning, and ALEKS. A few programs are looked at in more detail next. Knewton's infrastructures allows 3rd party vendors to make their products more adaptive and generates data to create learning paths. Another platform maker, Smart Sparrow, uses content created by teachers to give adaptive feedback.

Up next is the explanation of data and how it is used. Because students are in school for a long time, you have the potential to track them throughout their education to create a "learner profile." Due to the amount of information that can be learned, the more a student uses adaptive learning, the more personalized it becomes.

Finally, the article goes on to explain how adaptive software has varying levels of adaptivity to it and can help to really personalize a student's learning experience. The tools can pinpoint specific areas of challenge to students instead of just the broad topic they struggle with. The article ends with the notion that adaptive learning can help teachers to become more outcomes-oriented and can be very powerful as well.

Reflection:
I went to the First Educational Resources conference that was held in my district last week, and the idea of flipped classrooms, personalized learning, standards based learning, and learning for mastery were all things that were mentioned or hinted at a lot, so I found it really interesting that some of these topics were touched upon in class this morning with the TEDTalk video from 2011. I wanted to look more into what I thought were the main ideas of the TEDTalk and came across this article. I enjoyed reading it, even though it is a few years old, especially because I looked up some of the tools that were mentioned to see if they were still around. Many of them seemed to be in their infancy in 2014, of the 6 that I looked up, they were all still in business. I plan to spend more time looking through their websites to see which of them, if any, might be feasible to use in my classroom as I plant to move towards a more blended, mastery based, student-paced classroom. It is exciting to see when ideas are brought up in many different ways in different contexts. It helps to solidify my vision for my classroom.

Links to the 6 Platforms
Triumph
Smart Sparrow
ALEKS
CogBooks
Knewton
Realizeit