Slides from a workshop with Continuing Education colleagues - looking at ideas for making online learning powerful and effective.

1. Personalizing Learning
Stephen Murgatroyd, PhD FBPsS FRSA

2. WhatareWe
TalkingAbout?
 What does “personalized learning” mean?
1. Learner determines their own route to completion by
choosing modules suited to their interests / needs /
capabilities and build their own program.
2. Learner is able to take a varied route through a pre-
planned course / program so as to secure credit.
3. Supports are geared to individual learners based on
their progress through a designed course / program.

3. TheBigIdea
Garrison,AndersonandArcher
(2000)

4. Toolsfor
Personalization
Learner
Analytics
Adaptive
Learning
Engine
AI
Assessment
Based on
Competency
/ Capability
Learner
Engagement
Challenge
Based
Design /
Project
Work

5. Analytics
 Analytics are being used in some universities / colleges
to:
 Secure targeted recruitment of students
 Predict learner outcomes and support active early
intervention
 Enable assessments for learning to be used to trigger
adaptive learning responses
 Support continuous improvement in course design and
development
 Support student advising and career guidance services

6. Adaptive
LearningEngine
 Brightspace is an adaptive learning engine within D2L
which permits the (relatively) easy creation of
personalized learning routes.
 A setup wizard helps you build new courses—or make
existing ones adaptive—using content you already have
or new material from external sources.
 Access to 700,000+ learning objectives via
the Achievement Standards Network
 Ability to import content from open educational
resources (OERs) and publishers
 Integration with Brightspace Learning Environment and
support for other LMS options via LTI

7. Artificial
Intelligence
 Already:
 developed intelligent tutoring systems that use student
test responses to personalize how they navigate through
material and assessments, targeting the skills they need
to develop;
 investigated automatic detection of affect – including
whether students are bored or confused – and used that
to adapt materials they use; and
 built conversational agents or “chatbots” that can engage
in discussions with students, even to support student-to-
student collaboration.
 student advising and support services
 Coming:
 Linking analytics to learning styles and automated
content / learning resource finding - IBM Watson’s
Teacher Advisor launched Sept 13th 2017

8. Assessment
 Assessment is the key to personalized learning:
 Competency / capability based assessment enables
learners to capture and store their achievements
 Video based assessment (Valid8), simulation and game
based assessment, capability reviews are all forms of
emerging assessment practice.
 AI engines being used to generate assessment items
(Varafy) and automated marking of complex assessment
resources (TAO).
 E-Portolio’s capture learning and enable learners to
showcase their abilities - UK requires all PSE’s to
provide an e-portfolio
 RIIPEN is a fast-growing resource to support “paired”
assessment and e-portfolio’s

9. Engagement
 National Study of Student Engagement looks at these
design dimensions:
 Level of Academic Challenge
 Active and Collaborative Learning
 Student-Faculty Interaction
 Enriching Educational Experiences
 Supportive Campus Environment

10. 1st Yearat
McMaster
(2015)

11. SeniorYearat
McMaster
(2015)

12. ChallengeBased
Design
 Less is more! Challenge students to solve problems,
preferably real world problems:
 Weekly challenge as the core design
 Content light, idea rich
 Peer to peer team based work + personal assignment
 Driven by a competency / capability map and assessment
 Create publishable resources – blogs, social media
campaigns, journalistic pieces, academic articles
 Build e-portfolios
 Flip the “classroom”!

13. Flipped
Design

14. Suggestions
 Short (1-2 week) modules focused on specific and
assessable learning outcomes.
 Modules are stackable and can be pursued in a variety
of different ways (in class, online, flipped…)
 Modules are stackable..
 Assessment of competency, capability and
understanding is key - can replace teaching / learning
 Engagement and challenge are key design challenges
 Engage students in the work of design..
 Less is more…