Knewton's Adaptive Learning Platform

via SingularityHub
A large proportion of college-bound students are unprepared for the level of math, writing, and study intensity required by college level work. Several for-profit companies compete to provide remedial and review materials for the college-bound. Knewton's materials attempt to fulfill the promise of automated tutorials: to adapt the presentation of material to the individual student's specific needs.

Knewton’s Adaptive Learning Platform takes the material in textbooks and reorganizes it in a way that best suits the students’ learning style. Mastered material is skipped, which makes for a less boring study time. And material that used to be just pages in a textbook are combined with multimedia for maximum engagement. But the truly remarkable aspect of the technology is its iterative aspect. Through exercises and quizzes the program learns what the student’s strengths and weaknesses are, and adjusts the material in real time. Instead of subjecting all students to the same curriculum, Knewton’s technology shapes the material so that each student receives a personalized education that meets their unique needs.

For example, after tracking the strengths and weaknesses of a student, the program determines whether to present the next concept with text, a video clip, an interactive exercise, or even a video game. It can give a short summary or a longer, detailed explanation. Instead of handing out the same questions to the entire class, the student can now set the difficulty level for practice questions. Knewton can also suggest study partners in the class who have similar studying styles but have a better grasp of concepts than a particular student is struggling with. With customized learning, Knewton keeps the students engaged by giving them material suited to their level of knowledge.

More and more students are using notebooks and tablets to access their homework and even classes online. Even kindergarten students aregetting iPads. And Knewton isn’t the only technology out there trying to use the Internet to improve education. The Khan Academy has 2,000 videos that cover diverse topics such as math, history, and finance. As with Knewton, teachers using Khan can track their students’ progress and help them when needed. But Khan doesn’t offer the automated and realtime adjustments that Knewton’s software does._SingularityHub

Teachers using Khan Academy materials must do just a bit more work to monitor and customise each student's progress and work. But over time, Khan Academy is likely to provide improved automated monitoring and customising tools -- thanks to contributions from its many admirers.

Going beyond college level remediation, Knewton is also specialising in college preparation and test prep for SAT, GMAT, and LSAT. The test prep industry is very lucrative -- and very competitive. If Knewton can make significant inroads here, they will be planting a salient flag for adaptive learning software.

Of course, we all know that learning does not stop after high school, college, or university. Wise persons never stop their intentional learning activities. And so we can likely expect a veritable explosion of adaptive learning tools to enter the adult learning and lifelong learning areas. Perhaps with just a few milliamps of DC current, to your taste. All in a virtual reality, total immersion environment.

Thanks to the Idiocratic governments of the world, things are beginning to get interesting again, after a short "break from history." We will soon need to be on our best learning and innovating behaviour.