{"id":3845,"date":"2021-11-08T09:15:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T15:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ele.local\/?p=3845"},"modified":"2023-06-08T13:57:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:57:18","slug":"what-is-adaptive-learning-and-how-does-it-work-to-promote-equity-in-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/what-is-adaptive-learning-and-how-does-it-work-to-promote-equity-in-higher-education\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Adaptive Learning and How Does It Work to Promote Equity In Higher Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adaptive learning is a methodology for teaching and learning that strives to personalize lessons, readings, practice activities, and assessments for individual students based on their current skills and performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Adaptive learning software personalizes learning by using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to \u201cadapt\u201d the learning path offered to an individual student in real time. Later, the data captured by adaptive learning software can be analyzed by faculty and administrators to review the needs of individual students or groups of students in a course. They can then adapt instruction to those needs during a term, and they can revise a course between terms. Similarly, students can use data about their skills and performance to adapt their learning practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adaptive learning software<\/span><\/i> often refers to the underlying technology or to a platform that multiple courses can be built on. <\/span>Adaptive courseware<\/span><\/i> often refers to a set of lessons and practice activities in a digital format for a single course using an underlying adaptive learning technology. Publishers of adaptive courseware on a given subject often develop a library of material, lessons, practice activities, and assessments that instructors can select, sequence, and customize for their particular course.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every Learner Everywhere\u00ae and its network partners believe adaptive learning has the potential to promote equity in higher education by improving course outcomes and lowering the cost of course materials, particularly for Black, Latino, Indigenous, and poverty-affected students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That potential, however, comes with a number of caveats. As we discuss below, educators are being offered \u201c<\/span>faux<\/span><\/i> adaptive\u201d software that doesn\u2019t live up to the promise, and algorithmic bias can make software a tool to reinforce equity gaps rather than reduce them. Even with good software products, positive results with adaptive learning depend on many factors such as student-centered and equity-focused instructional design and a research-driven <\/span>implementation<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does adaptive learning work?<\/h2>\n

At the most basic level, adaptive learning software assesses a student\u2019s mastery of a concept or skill in real time and then dynamically adjusts the next lesson or practice activity presented to that student, resulting in improved learning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, imagine a unit of a college course that presents 10 new concepts, concluding with a quiz before the class moves on to the next unit. Suppose this class has 100 students and the average grade historically on that quiz is 70 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Experienced educators know that while there is an average score, there is no average reason that 30 percent of the quiz questions are missed. It may be that:<\/span><\/p>\n