The challenge of understanding, evaluating and providing feedback on regulation during group learning

Learning in groups is commonly used in academic and clinical health professions education (HPE). There is growing recognition that regulation during learning is essential for both the individual learner and group learning. The authors in this article propose a practical approach for understanding, evaluating and providing feedback on regulation during group learning. The approach is informed by previous studies conducted in other areas of education. Three varieties of regulation during group learning are discussed: individual, co-regulation and shared regulation. Each variety of regulation has a focus on three essential activities during group learning: task, social and motivation. Illustrative scenarios are presented to describe how the approach can be practically used in HPE. The specific and additional focus on regulation can enhance current approaches for providing feedback on group learning and the authors discuss recommendations for practical implementation and future research.

Alleviating the Cold Start Problem in Adaptive Learning using Data-Driven Difficulty Estimates

An adaptive learning system offers a digital learning environment that adjusts itself to the individual learner and learning material. By refining its internal model of the learner and material over time, such a system continually improves its ability to present appropriate exercises that maximise learning gains. In many cases, there is an initial mismatch between the internal model and the learner’s actual performance on the presented items, causing a “cold start” during which the system is poorly adjusted to the situation. In this study, we implemented several strategies for mitigating this cold start problem in an adaptive fact learning system and experimentally tested their effect on learning performance. The strategies included predicting difficulty for individual learner-fact pairs, individual learners, individual facts, and the set of facts as a whole. We found that cold start mitigation improved learning outcomes, provided that there was sufficient variability in the difficulty of the study material. Informed individualised predictions allowed the system to schedule learners’ study time more effectively, leading to an increase in response accuracy during the learning session as well as improved retention of the studied items afterwards. Our findings show that addressing the cold start problem in adaptive learning systems can have a real impact on learning outcomes. We expect this to be particularly valuable in real-world educational settings with large individual differences between learners and highly diverse materials.

A Survey on the Use of Adaptive Learning Techniques Towards Learning Personalization

E-learning has a great impact on learners today. E-learning supports enhancing learner knowledge anytime, anywhere with lesser efforts than traditional models. In these situations, nonlinear approaches often modify teaching and learning strategies according to students' needs, and hence, automated machine-guided approaches seem useful in the name of adaptive learning. It identifies individual learner styles and provides the most suitable strategy that fits each learner as a case of personalization. Adaptive learning uses personalization for continuously improving student outcomes. Personalized learning takes place when e-learning systems use educational experience supporting desires, objectives, endowments, and curiosities of each individual learner. This work has reviewed the recent developments in the problem area of learning personalization through adaptive learning. Then the solution domain methods are compared to identify the knowledge and technology gap from their limitations. These analyses help to identify research potentials in learning technology for future works.

A Vision for Deeper Agency and Personalization in Micro-Credentials

Current systems of education, both K12 and postsecondary, are leaving learners unprepared for the future of work. Standardized, compliance-oriented approaches to teaching and learning are inequitable and are not responsive enough to meet individual learner needs. A learner-centered educational paradigm has emerged which seeks to disrupt traditional models of education by centering the individual needs of learners in all learning experiences. At the same time, the alternative educational model of micro-credentialing holds great promise to improve workforce readiness. While the fields of learner-centered education and micro-credentials are simultaneously gaining traction, their possible intersections have yet to be fully explored. Micro-credentials have the potential to ready learners for the future of work while providing a deeply relevant, learner-centered experience. This chapter lays out a vision for exactly what this might look like and why it matters for learners.

nr="237"Dezentralisierung und Disziplinierung im Unterricht als Praktiken der Diskriminierung und Securitization am Beispiel des ,,Trainingsraums“. : Ein Essay

Zusammenfassung: In dem Beitrag wird diskutiert, inwiefern der Trainingsraum bzw. das Responsible Thinking Concept (RTC) Praktiken der Dezentralisierung und Diskriminierung bewirken, um im Kontext einer neoliberalen, individualistischen Logik eine auf den/die einzelnen Lernende*n gerichtete Idee von Schule und Unterricht umzusetzen, die anschlussfähig an reformpädagogische und sich als inklusiv verstehende Unterrichtskonzepte ist. Mithilfe des Konzepts der Securitization, welches an Foucaults Studien zu Gouvernementalität anschließt, kann Dezentralisierung als Diskriminierung im Sinne der inneren Sicherheit der pädagogischen Schulpraxis verstanden werden, die anhand zweier empirischer Beispiele exemplarisch dargestellt wird.Abstract: The paper discusses the extent to which the timeout-room or the Rational Thinking Concept (RTC) simultaneously work as practices of decentralization and discrimination in order to secure the status quo in view of the call for inclusion in the context of a neoliberal, individualistic logic. This status quo is a concrete term for a type of schooling and teaching that is directed towards the individual learner. With the help of the concept of Securitization, which follows on from Foucault’s studies on governmentality, decentralization can be understood as discrimination in the sense of the internal security of educational school practice, which has been reconstructed using two empirical examples.

Variety, Volatility, Intensity: Understanding Key Characteristics of Individual Learner Differences

Individual Learner Differences (ILDs), such as motivation, anxiety, and willingness to communicate, account for varying rates and extents of successful L2 learning. Traditional quantitative approaches to studying ILDs render constructs to a one-size-fits-all explanation of factors and relationships that affect learning outcomes. A Complex Dynamic Systems Theory approach to studying ILDs rectifies this situation and supports teachers by investigating the interrelated, variable, and situated aspects of ILDs. In this study, students selected ILDs that most impacted their partner’s classroom participation. They then used idiodynamic methodology, a relatively new research method, to elicit factors that influenced changes to their partner’s ILDs in class. Unexpected constructs, such as concentration, happiness, and anger, were chosen. Within those ILDs, a wide range of volatility and intensity of change was reported. Internal-, linguistic-, topic-, social-, and stage-of-the task-factors initiated chains-of-events leading to variations in ILD constructs. Implications for pedagogy and further research are discussed. 第二言語学習者の学習速度や到達レベルの違いは、モチベーション、不安感、話をしたいという意欲の様な「学習者の個人差」に起因する。従来の個人差を研究する定量的アプローチでは、学習結果に影響を与える要因や関連性について画一的な説明であったが「複雑ダイナミックシステム理論」の導入によって、複雑な相互関係や変動性、直面している要素等を複合的に調査できる様になった。本研究において、学生は、活動相手の従業参加に最も影響を与えた個人差の要素を自身で選択した後、その要因を導き出す為に、新しい研究法である「イディオダイナミック法」を使用した。その結果、集中力、幸福感、怒りの様な想定外の要素が選択され、変化の頻度や起伏の浮き沈みが広範囲に及ぶ事も判明した。内面的、言語的、トピックや社会的な要素、タスクの進度状況等の要素が一連の出来事に起因し、学習者の様々な個人差の構成に影響を与えた。本論文では教授法や更なる研究結果も述べる。