1. Personalized Learning and Adaptive Learning are not the Same
An adventure in language at
23rd ABED
18 September 2017

2. Language is Tricky ”Active learning:” What would “passive learning”be?
We often fail to distinguish between the actions of the teacher and the actions of the students in our language.
Now we also have the actions of the software to think about.
If we are not clear, we will not learn to teach better.
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3. About Me A teacher from a family of teachers
Co-publisher of the e-Literate educational technology analysis web site:
Partner in MindWires LLC, a company that consults with universities and vendors about how to improve education with the help of technology.
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4. Personalized Learning: A Big US Trend
Many textbook publishers use this term for their digital products.
Many articles are being written about it.
Nobody agrees on exactly what it means.
It is a marketing term.
Let us try to make sense of it together.
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5. Mastery Learning
Mastery learning is an approach developed by Benjamin Bloom.
Courses are divided into small learning objectives that are sequenced carefully.
The student does not move on to the next learning objective until she has mastered the previous objective.
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6. The Two Sigma Problem
Bloom found that students who were taught using the mastery learning technique improved by one “sigma,” or “standard deviation,” from the control group.
Students that were taught using mastery learning with individual tutors improved by two sigma over the control group.
Textbook publishers like this result very much.
BUT Bloom was never able to figure out exactly WHY students with tutor improved by two sigma.
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7. Differentiated Instruction
Every student has different needs and masters content at a different rate.
Differentiated instruction is the simple idea that teachers should teach students based on their individual needs.
It is a simple idea but hard to implement.
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8. Adaptive Learning
Adaptive learning products are based on the idea of differentiated instruction, but with mastery learning hiding in the background.
The products “adapt” by responding to each student’s performance on questions linked to learning objectives.
They can show students their progress, and provide more practice or different explanations. Sometimes they have sophisticated algorithms to test the students’ mastery. (But not always.)
Adaptive learning is really a kind of computer-mediated differentiated instruction.
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9. Adaptive vs. Personalized Learning
In the United States, the terms “adaptive learning” and “personalized learning” are sometimes used interchangeably.
But adaptive learning does not require active learning and does not require teachers to teach differently.
It can be assigned as conventional homework. Students can use it like rats learning to hit a button to get a food pellet.
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10. Real “Personalized Learning” is Active Teaching
Adaptive learning can help us provide true differentiated instruction if we use it correctly.
The analytics can show teachers as well as students how the students are doing and where they are struggling.
The adaptive learning software can act as a limited tutor.
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11. Self-Regulated Learning
Bloom’s mastery learning pedagogy and many adaptive learning programs focus on content.
Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) pedagogy focuses on learners.
What do I want to learn and how will learning it make my life different? (Goal-setting)
How can I learn what I want to learn? (Goal-oriented behavior)
With SRL, students can set goals for actually learning from adaptive learning products.
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12. Problem-Based Learning
In problem-based learning, the course is organized around a difficult real-world problem that students might actually care about.
The emphasis on a real problem helps encourage self-regulation.
Adaptive learning software can help students learn skills that they need in order to solve the problem of the course.
This creates an opportunity for you to encourage goal-oriented learning behaviors.
You become the students’ coach and colleague.
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13. You are the second sigma.
Conclusion
If somebody tries to sell you a “personalized learning” product, they probably mean adaptive learning.
Adaptive learning is useful, but it is not magic. It isn’t necessarily even active learning.
You are the second sigma.
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