Some brainstorming, unedited thoughts on the breakthrough of adaptive learning, and a bit about course design in the post adaptive learning world
Motivation is a real biggie. Adaptive Learning is too.
To go McCluhan-esque, infrastructure is a big deal when it’s not there. Once it is there, then the big deal is what we are going to DO with it. We no longer care about the means, we care about the potential. Online learning is actually about infrastructure. Once it is there, then the exciting thing is how Learning itself can be done differently.
Adaptive learning is one of those potentials that is given the means to exist by online learning…and it is really the big story: because it’s a means to get better and better and better at providing the learning activities “students/ employers/ citizens/ members/ people” need to learn the way humans are “set up” genetically to learn.
Humans are natural learning “machines” if you will, but there’s nothing very machine like about it. Adaptive learning creates the means for the “natural learning style” of humans to come to the fore, and sort of “structure itself”.
If success in learning is the extent to which new information is incorporated holistically into the person, adaptive learning is then our new powerful tool to mimic that process better and better.
nmkris on 20 Aug 12
I found that your thoughts about motivation and adaptive learning brought back some of my past experience with William Glasser training for Quality Schools (see the pdf I placed).
I agree that adaptive learning works well with online learning to meet basic intrinsic needs that drive us all as outlined by Glasser: to survive, to belong, to gain power (respect), to be free, and to have fun (learning).