In my experience with online/mobile learning, two major issues seem to arise most:
- Disengagement
- Too generic
To increase engagement and create an immersive learning environment, I have created a “Choose your own Learning” style course. The term “choose your own adventure” was created first to popularize interactive fiction. In “interactive fiction the reader assumes the role of the protagonist and plays an active part in shaping the story’s evolution” (Vicary & Fraley 2007 p.1279). In this way, I wanted to create an interactive adventure for my “future of learning” project. To solve generic training, I wanted to create a course that was specific to an individual student’s needs. Where are they struggling? Where do they need to spend more time? Using learning analytics available, we can solve these problems and personalize training courses that meet individual student’s needs.
Pindera Academy
“The future of learning is personalized, on-demand, and gamified.”
– Pindera Academy
Pillars of Learning
According to 62 Public Charter schools using personalized learning, student achievement growth in mathematics and reading over two years exceeded that of a comparison group, overall and in a majority of schools (Pane et al 2015).
Academic leaders at all types of institutions report increased demand for face-to-face and online courses, with those at public institutions seeing the largest impact. In all cases the demand for online offerings is greater than that for the corresponding face-to-face offerings.
Allen & Seaman
For gamification to be successful, it must successfully alter an intermediary learner behavior or learner attitude. That behavior or attitude must then itself cause changes in learning directly (as a mediating process), or it must strengthen the effectiveness of existing instructional content (as a moderating process).
Landers
Review my fictitious Pindera Academy, to see “the future of learning” in action. On the academics page, you can access an example “day in the life” for student, Ethan Brown.
We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.
Marshall McLuhan
Academic Resources and Activities:
- Pindera Academy – A fictitious school, striving to create interactive and personalized learning environments.
- Choose your own Adventure – Virtual lessons and activities for a fictitious student, Ethan Brown. Ethan has his own avatar to personalize his experience and must complete all his class activities, in any order and however, he chooses.
- European Immersion – Augmented Reality Adventure for Ethan’s Geography class. Download the metaverse app and scan the QR code to access it.
References:
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2010). Learning on demand: Online education in the United States, 2009. Sloan Consortium. PO Box 1238, Newburyport, MA 01950.
Landers, R. N. (2014). Developing a theory of gamified learning: Linking serious games and gamification of learning. Simulation & gaming, 45(6), 752-768.
Pane, J. F., Steiner, E. D., Baird, M. D., & Hamilton, L. S. (2015). Continued Progress: Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning. Rand Corporation.
Vicary, A. M., & Fraley, R. C. (2007). Choose your own adventure: Attachment dynamics in a simulated relationship. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(9), 1279-1291.
Hello Emma,
Thank you for creating Pindera Academy. I also believe that choosing your own academic adventures would be a fantastic learning experience for k12. My fondest reading memory is reading “The Give Yourself Goosebumps” a choose your own adventure book series.” I loved making the choice of where I wanted to go as you pointed out in your research that personalized learning is the future. When a student can choose where and when to go improve in an area in weakness I think this is very valuable for student improvement. They can tackle that area of weakness when they are ready, not when the teacher goes over it in a classroom with no time to review at their own pace- which sometimes leads to fear of failure in a subject.
I was just thinking about interactive textbooks where you can choose your own adventure in the books. I feel there may still be a need for textbooks to provide background info. but it needs to be more interactive. This may be a solution to bringing textbooks to life. I wonder why most are heavily reliant one when It’s not personalized at all?
I also believe that AI will play a huge role in this by personalizing experiences with no need for teacher intervention at all. The data will just be there for teachers to use to guide their learning. What do you think the role of the teacher in this world would be? What would the classroom look like?
Hello Emma,
I just loved your Pindera Academy. I would say that is tailored and dynamic learning. And how kind seems to be Ethan Brown. My concerns are about teacher presence and how to connect this wonderful tool with the schools today? However, for young students, personalized, on-demand, and gamified learning are a necessity. It is up to us to add value and education to these new models. Congratulations on Pindera Academy!
Hi Emma,
Providing personalized learning opportunities and accommodations/support for students to meet their specific learning needs are essential pedagogical methods but also difficult. In a classroom with 30 students and 1 teacher, how is the teacher going to support every single student? How does the teacher assess and analyze what students need?
I think your idea of personalized training courses has the potential to help students receive the support they need. However, I’m not sure how the current learning analytics can be used to create these courses (how do learning analytics connect to the ideas of design frameworks?). Would these courses act as a “tutoring” service for acquiring the necessary support or would it replace our current online learning environments?