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. var gIntersitial = 22000 ; ... Transforming Education Through Technology Contact Subscribe Advertise Editorial Calendar THE Journal Campus Technology Advanced Search Login | Register What is your e-mail address? My e-mail address is: Do you have a password? I don't have a password. (Sign up now!) I have a password Forgot your password? Click here close Menu K-12 News Features Opinion Resources Webcasts Whitepapers Microsites Research Tutorials Reviews Newsletters Common Core Admin Tools K-12 Grants Special Needs Professional Development STEM IT Collaboration Related Articles New Educational App Review Site Pairs Apps With Instructional Ideas Shmoop Launches Test Prep for PARCC Assessments Share this Page LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Google Digg del.icio.us Technorati Slashdot Newsvine Reddit Fark Yahoo! Printable Format E-Mail this page Adaptive Learning | Feature Adaptive Learning: Are We There Yet? Partnerships between tech companies and publishers are turning an ed tech buzzword into a reality, but, as one expert says, "It's going to take some time to get it right." By John K. Waters 05/14/14 For more than a decade, K-12 educators have been hearing about the potential of adaptive learning, an approach to instruction and remediation that uses technology and accumulated data to provide customized program adjustments based on an individual student's level of demonstrated mastery. But interest in adaptive learning has been heating up in the last couple of years, thanks to new attention from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, new partnerships among education publishers and adaptive platform providers, and a growing list of product vendors. Along with that increasing interest and expanding vendor landscape has come a fair bit of confusion about exactly what the term "adaptive learning" means. In conversation, it's almost synonymous with "personalized learning," but in practice, these are different concepts, and K-12 districts investigating systems that promise to deliver adaptive learning should understand that difference. What Is Adaptive Learning, Exactly? According to Adam Newman, founding partner of Education Growth Advisors (EGA), a strategic advisory and consulting firm and investment bank focused exclusively on the education sector, "'Personalized learning' is really an umbrella term." In two recently published white papers commissioned by the Gates Foundation ("Learning to Adapt: Understanding the Adaptive Learning Supplier Landscape" and "Learning to Adapt: A Case for Accelerating Adaptive Learning in Higher Education"), EGA researchers — Newman among them — defined "personalized learning" as a "pedagogical method or process that draws on observation to inform tailored student educational interventions designed to increase the likelihood of learner success." As Newman said, technology isn't actually required for personalization, but the tech makes it possible to personalize at scale. K-12 educators have been personalizing learning in their classrooms for decades without technology: If Jesse is having trouble reading, the teacher assigns her some extra reading in Chapter Two, for example. Personalized learning covers a range of approaches and models, Newman said, including competency-based learning, differentiated instruction and tutorial models — as well as adaptive learning. "So you can think of adaptive learning models as one approach along a spectrum that enables personalization," he said. In "Learning to Adapt," EGA researchers went on to define "adaptive learning" as an approach to creating a personalized learning experience for students that employs "a sophisticated, data-driven, and in some cases, nonlinear approach to instruction and remediation, adjusting to a learner's interactions and demonstrated performance level, and subsequently anticipating what types of content and resources learners need at a specific point in time to make progress." Types of Adaptive Learning The EGA researchers concluded that technology vendors offering truly "rigorous adaptive learning solutions" leverage numerous areas of academic research, including intelligent tutoring systems, machine learning, knowledge space theory, memory and cognitive load theory. They also divide adaptive approaches into two categories: "facilitator-driven," which refers to products that provide instructors with actionable student and cohort profiles — essentially dashboards. This approach is content-driven, which means that the dashboard output links a specific course's content inventory "within a system of standards or learning sequences." The other approach — the one most people are talking about when the conversation turns to adaptive learning — the researchers call "assessment-driven." In this approach, the system provides close-to-real-time (sometimes called "dynamic") adjustments of the instructional content. Facilitator-driven systems provide instructors with information they can act on; assessment-driven systems make their own adjustments. In order to provide these adjustments, the researchers said, assessment-driven systems must be correlated dynamically with assets, items and learning objects to standards, outcomes or other frameworks. Another essential difference: the assessment-driven model allows students to move the course individually or in a group, without instructor interaction. Newman added that the two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and both might be found in a single product or system offering. « previous 1 2 3 4 next » /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */ var disqus_shortname = 'the-journal'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname var yoink = document.title; var disqus_identifier = ' ' + yoink; /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */ (function() { var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true; dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js'; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq); })(); Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus Most Popular Articles Most Emailed Articles 3 Reasons Chromebooks Are Shining in Education LAUSD 'Extremely Dissatisfied' with Pearson and Apple, Demands Refund Report: Schools Should Focus More on Soft Skills 5 Tech Tools That Support Common Core State Standards PARCC Selects Open Source Platform for Non-Summative Assessments 3 Reasons Chromebooks Are Shining in Education LAUSD 'Extremely Dissatisfied' with Pearson and Apple, Demands Refund Colleges in Six States Will Now Use Smarter Balanced Scores as Part of Placement Report: Schools Should Focus More on Soft Skills PARCC Selects Open Source Platform for Non-Summative Assessments Trending Administrative & Business Common Core State Standards Professional Development Special Needs THE Magazine Download the April/May 2015 digital edition of THE Journal Subscribe Now Issue Archive

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. Webcasts Teaching with digital portfolios – real-world examples to get you started Upper Grand School District Turns to Android Tablets and Google Play for Education to Teach Students Anytime Anywhere A Personalized Roadmap for 1-to-1 Success All Webcasts Whitepapers Case Study: St. Andrew's College St. Andrew’s has embraced technology as a critical tool in enhancing the learning experience. Interactive projectors, HD TV screens in the classroom, a campus-wide wireless network, and other elements help make lessons more engaging; however, there is one vital device which plays a more important role. Download this case study to learn how St. Andrew's partnered with Fujitsu to equip all students and faculty members with LIFEBOOK T5010 tablets. 1 Read more... All Whitepapers Site K12 News Opinion Magazine Newsletters Subscribe Resources RSS Feeds Events Events Calendar Upcoming Events FETC FETC Virtual Conference Help About Us Contact Us Advertise Press Releases Press Release Guidelines Media Kit Editorial Board Sitemap Licensing/Reprints Content - editorial@thejournal.com | Website - dnagel@1105media.com Subscriptions - THEJournal@1105service.com | Contact the webmaster: [+] Site Feedback [+] ©1994-2015 1105 Media Inc, Ed-Tech Group. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use 9201 Oakdale Ave., Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311 Phone: (818) 814-5277 Fax: (818) 734-1522 //