What is Adaptive Learning?
Continuing our discussion from my previous post regarding Artificial Intelligence in eLearning, I want to reiterate the point of customizing the training (or in this case, eLearning) to meet the specific needs of the learner, taking into account their initial skills.
Here is where Adaptive Learning comes into play, which basically tailors the learner’s experience depending on their performance in different areas of the eLearning module, by using data that has been gathered from quizzes or activities.
With this option of gathering and analyzing data, Adaptive Learning readjusts the content that is being served to the learner in one eLearning module, or if it’s a learning path, it readjusts the different modules that are being presented to the learner. This helps the trainers and learners, improve in the areas of deficiency while also boosting those in which they are proficient.
There are different ways of doing this customization or readjustment of training using Adaptive Learning:
By having an algorithm doing it all, that means a program is put in place to analyze the data gathered and automatically adjust the training material to the learner’s needs
By manually adjusting the material, where trainers modify curriculums based on the performance of previous years or current performance of learner’s in the training curriculum
To better understand this, picture a branching scenario in which the development of facts changes depending on your answers or decisions taken in specific situations. Well, the same happens with Adaptive Learning, in which you learner’s pathway is defined by their decisions (ultimately, their performance) in specific activities, for example knowledge checks.
Unfortunately, this might be a bit costly for some companies, since we would need to have a very detailed mapping of the content and the different “branches” that the learners can go through, however, in situations like the one we are currently experiencing around the world where remote working is becoming the norm (for the time being at least), Adaptive Learning can provide a “stress” relief when we are serving eLearning courses to a big number of learners and we don’t have the capacity to attend to all their training needs immediately.
