BREAKOUT SESSION #3: ADAPTIVE LEARNING: EARLY IMPLEMENTATION MODELS AND SUCCESSES Rebecca Orr, Ph.D. Professor of Biology, Collin College

Background Information Professor of Biology at Collin College in Plano, Texas Two year public college, three campuses serving approximately 27,000 credit students Total enrollment in Biology 1406 is ≈2000/year Most of my students’ goals: Nursing/Dental Hygiene/Surgery Technology/etc. Transfer to a university

No two students are identical — they learn and forget at different rates, come from different educational backgrounds, and have different intellectual capabilities, attention spans, and modes of learning. As a result, designing a real-time recommendation engine that is sensitive to the characteristics of each student is an immensely complex task.

My Implementation of Adaptive Follow-Up: Summer 2013 No Adaptive Follow-Up was offered during first two exam periods. Exam 1 & 2 scores were averaged and utilized to compare student ability of Spring and Summer student cohorts. Adaptive Follow-Up was offered for second two exam periods and was made “optional.” Two sets of items were selected for Follow-Up. Follow-Up was due two days after parent assignment. Test-out option was allowed and set at 95%. Value was set as “extra credit” and added to homework component of the lecture grade.

Adaptive Follow-up in Mastering “Parent” Assignment created Item selection, difficulty, and estimated time for completion is instructor directed Adaptive Follow-Up is enabled for selected “parent” assignments Time spent in follow-up and number of problem sets issued is instructor directed Knewton engine creates Adaptive Follow-Up sets for the student using IRT based engine Items selected are individual to the student, based on: Demonstrated proficiencies and lack of proficiencies in current and previous assignments Content prerequisites necessary for future, scheduled assignments

Does Adding Adaptive Follow-Up Increase Student Success on Exams?

Student Participation in Adaptive Follow-Up: Summer 2013 Almost 92% of students either tested out of or actively worked on the first Adaptive Follow-Up assignment. Average participation rates observed over the course of Adaptive Follow-Up offerings were: 16.7% tested out of Adaptive Follow-Up by scoring 95% or better on the parent assignment. 58.1% chose to actively work on the Adaptive Follow-Up sets after completing the parent assignment. 25.2% did not participate in Adaptive Follow-up.

Addition of Adaptive Follow-up Increased Exam Averages: Summer 2013 (error bars- standard error)

Student Feedback on Adaptive Follow-Up “I really like how it [Adaptive Follow-Up] takes me back to the basics so I know where I need to study to build my strengths.” “I originally thought that the Adaptive Follow-Up assignments were going to be a waste of time, but it actually is more of a benefit.” “It was helpful, plus I felt confident when taking the test.”

Interesting Effect of Adaptive Follow-Up Students reported putting more effort into the Mastering parent homework: “…Adaptive Follow-Up questions served as motivation to learn the material better…I really think it's just the idea of "testing out" of something that makes me feel smarter and encourages me to get a better grade on the [Mastering parent] homework.

Conclusions Adaptive Follow-Up provides individualized recommendations to increase student proficiency in content. Adaptive Follow-Up is based on demonstrated understanding of topics as well as the content graphed as prerequisite for success of future assignments. Adaptive Follow-Up may increase student success. Effect of Adaptive Follow-up on student success is being examined this semester implementing required completion of Adaptive Follow-ups and using a larger sample size.

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