More than anything else, SRI’s meta-analysis of adaptive learning studies shows that we won’t be able to prove what works until we start designing better and more consistent studies.
Outcomes
"Outcomes" covers impact—including the measurement of it—for technology-enabled education initiatives.
SRI’s Study on Gates Personalized Learning Grants Is Out
This is almost old news now, but we just haven’t been able to dig into it yet. As part of its Adaptive Learning Market Acceleration Program (ALMAP) program, the Gates Foundation funded SRI to do a study of the results of the grants after two years. I hope to finally clear some time to parse through […]
Student Course Evaluations and Impact on Active Learning
The Chronicle has an article out today, “Can the Student Course Evaluation Be Redeemed?”, that rightly points out how student course evaluations are often counter-productive to improving teaching and learning. The article refers to a Stanford professor’s call for an instructor completed “inventory of the research-based teaching practices they use”, but most of the article centers […]
Asking What Students Spend On Textbooks Is Very Important, But Insufficient
It is important to look at both types of data – textbook list prices and student expenditures – to see some of the important market dynamics at play. All in all, students are exercising their market power to keep their expenditures down – buying used, renting, borrowing, obtaining illegally, delaying purchase, or just not using at all.
College Scorecard Article Published In Washington Post
I have written several posts looking at the new College Scorecard and its inherent flaws in the data, often starting with observations from Russ Poulin at WCET. Today Susan Svrluga, education reporter at the Washington Post, posted a new article co-written by me and Russ and titled “Hundreds of colleges missing from Obama’s College Scorecard?”. The […]
Personalized Learning is Hard
As Phil and I have been saying all along—most recently in my last post, which mentioned ECC’s use of adaptive learning—the software is, at best, an enabler. It’s the work that the students and teachers do around the software that makes the difference. Or not. In ECC’s case, they are trying to implement a pretty radical change in pedagogy with an at-risk population. It’s worth digging into the details.
ED and CBE: Example of higher ed “structural barrier to change” that is out of institutions’ control
There has been a great conversation going on in the comments to my recent post “Universities As Innovators That Have Difficulty Adopting Their Own Changes” on too many relevant issues to summarize (really, go read the ongoing comment thread). They mostly center on the institution and faculty reward system, yet those are not the only sources of […]