以学习者为中心的自适应学习系统的设计与评估

Designing and Evaluating A Learner-First Adaptive Learning System

个性化、定制化、自适应已经成为教育领域的流行语。为适应不同学习者的特点、优化学习者体验,应研发跨学科领域的个性化自适应学习系统,并开展全方面评估。基于此,讨论自适应学习系统涉及的专业领域和各项评估,分析设计评估时需要考虑的重要因素,并提出评估自适应学习系统功效的框架,包括用户属性界定、用户属性评估、内容代表性、用户交互设计、用户交互效果等。应用本框架能够高效而准确地评估,并提供可行有效的反馈信息,以保障学习者最优的学习体验。

Individualization,customization and adaptivity have become the catchwords in education.However,learner-first adaptive learning solutions,where a learner's needs and wants are prioritized every step of the way when he/she interacts with the assessments and learning content,are rare.This is because developing such solutions requires interdisciplinary talents in assessment,learning,cognitive and noncognitive science,AI,and many more,which,in reality,is a luxury for most development teams.How do we ensure a learner-first assessment and learning experience?In designing various types of assessments in adaptive learning,we want the assessments to be efficient yet precise,provide actionable information,and support a positive assessment taking experience.A learning experience optimized for an individual learner must meet his/her unique learning needs,and be tailored to his/her level,dynamic knowledge and skill profiles,cognitive and learning styles,and constantly changing affective states to facilitate the most speedy and effective learning.This article discusses the four areas of science behind an adaptive learning system and some of the challenges we are facing in developing the science.It provides an overview of different types of assessment used in adaptive learning and an analysis of the assessment approach,priorities,and design considerations of each to optimize its use in adaptive learning.It then proposes a framework for evaluating the efficacy of an adaptive learning system.Through decomposing the architecture of an adaptive learning system,it analyzes the chain of inferences and key questions to answer to support its overall efficacy,including user property representation,user property estimation,content representation,user interaction representation,and user interaction impact.It concludes with thoughts on high-priority research and development to provide learnerfirst systems to fully empower our learners.