Since 2017, eight universities with the support of grant funding scaled the use of adaptive courseware. The grant work has yielded best practices and some interesting data that shows impact measured through effect sizes. Implementation and process matter as not all instantiations of adaptive courseware achieve the same results.
Since 2017, eight universities with the support of generous funding scaled the use of adaptive courseware since 2017. The grant work has yielded best practices and some interesting data that shows impact measured through effect sizes. Implementation and process matter as not all instantiations of adaptive courseware achieve the same results. The eight institutions are all large public universities serving diverse students and belong to the Association of Public & Land Grant Universities.
Starting in 2017, these universities identified courses, technology, and staff that would support improved teaching and course redesign. Faculty were partners along with program managers. Course choices were impacted by data on student success and the likelihood of using the same course model across all sections. The hypothesis was that by adding adaptive courseware, students would spend more time learning fundamental concepts before coming to class. Thus students would be better prepared. Faculty were expected to use data from courseware not just as homework, but also to inform how activities in the classroom might change once more is known about student learning.
Using the lessons learned from over 150 courses, working with more than 1000 faculty, fifteen different adaptive products, and 150,000 enrollments, both best practices and data were collected. In 2018, APLU along with Every Learner Everywhere published: A guide for implementing adaptive courseware: From planning through scaling.
Most of the institutions have collected at least two years of student outcome data. The data is mixed but promising. It shows both that result vary by institutions, discipline, and amount of iterative practice. During the panel session, the data will be shared.