Futurist are always funny. Great ideas for which they have no working concept. Sound cool, don’t work in the real classroom. It is fun to listen to futurists and watch the crowd. All the prospective teachers that have never taught are taking notes like mad. All the experienced teachers are sitting there with funny grins thinking “Put this guy in a classroom and watch the fun.””

Nice analogy. It might be bigger than that, though. It might be an iPad with only a music app, which only plays Neil Diamond songs.

Timely post. I wouldn’t normally plug this here, but I’m actually kicking off an Adaptive Math Learning community next week with a webinar about separating edtech fact from fiction with adaptive learning (http://www.edweb.net/adaptivelearning). I think this is a critically important conversation because it helps focus the discussion on pedagogy and outcomes.

It’s important to distinguish between (1) buzzwords used by non-educator futurists and (2) learning principles validated by educational research. I was at a talk given by Hugh Burkhardt last year where he discussed how teachers need to have an “adaptive expertise.” So the idea that classrooms and software should both be adaptive is a reasonable expectation and a promising opportunity to improve the understanding of all students. It’s not just a “nice to have.” It’s hard to imagine how classrooms, apps or software could truly be effective for learning if they don’t have elements of adaptivity in which students get useful feedback on their thinking, strategies, and solutions. That feedback might come from teachers, peers, or technology.

Certainly what teachers or software are adapting to is what’s critical. The key in classrooms and in software is engaging students with meaningful tasks and problems to think critically about and work toward making sense of and solving. Adaptivity by people or computers doesn’t mean much if the tasks are narrow and shallow or if the problems don’t invite students to use their own ideas in ways that surface misconceptions and deepen conceptual understanding. But as you rightly point out, too often adaptive learning programs just use lectures and drill practice.

Software can’t (and shouldn’t try) to do everything; students should be collaborating on rich tasks with each other. And well-designed software can support student learning and complement these classroom experiences in ways that weren’t possible without digital technology. In 2012, I wrote about how pedagogy must drive the design of adaptive learning platforms (http://bit.ly/10IEAKu), and I went into more depth about IPI and other adaptive learning concerns. That post also explains why I’d suggest this post be titled “Some” adaptive learning is like an infinite Neil Diamond iPod.

Michael – I’m convinced that we can.

Computers can already identify facial expressions. At some point, they’ll be able to measure your confusion and stress through blood pressure readings and cameras.

Computers can already interpret the spoken word (hi, “Siri”). At some point, you’ll be able to talk your computer through a given problem – and it will notice when you’re excited or unsure.

When we’ve reached that stage, a carefully chosen algorithm could press the student, offer help – or simply signal for the teacher. All these issues could be placed in a web, and eventually the computers will be spot patterns the teachers could never see – like did you know that Johnny in class 2S and Kate in class 2B have trouble with exactly the same problems?

It won’t be tomorrow, it won’t be easy, and it shouldn’t replace the human teacher (though it might mean different class structures – imagine a class of 100 students with 4 teachers leading tailored workshops, while the other students work with their computers). But the price really is enormous.

To me, the potential for transformed learning is all the more reason that Dan should challenge the limited vision of so many futurists today.

Agree that technology doesn’t replace these social and interactive processes. The trouble is, (a) I don’t think anyone is seriously saying it does, (b) there are contexts where students _want_ to pursue self-study, and thus where something adaptive is better than something that isn’t.

If you think of adaptive learning tools more in terms of materials than lectures, the conversation becomes more about what happens outside the classroom — during homework, during study hall, etc. Students spend a lot of time with a book, or with the digital equivalent. Those materials can do more than just sit there.

In addition, talking about “adaptive learning” in the abstract while pinning it to a subject and grade level doesn’t do the discussion any justice. It’s necessary to be specific about where dynamic materials and better insight for teachers/parents/tutors can and can’t help. Every use case involves a specific subject, grade level, product manifestation, and the implementation that surrounds it (faculty, company support, etc.). You’ll see stark differences in how companies implement it with, for example, adult ELT environments vs. higher ed biology vs. middle school math vs K-3 anything.

Any kind of instruction can be done well or badly, and adaptive learning is no exception. But adaptive learning, when done well, utilizes constructivist techniques, such as active learning, guided discovery, modeling, scaffolding, etc. (Sure, they have different terms, but functionally the methods are the same.) Well done adaptive learning also allows for not just training of defined skills, but also for the extension and generalization of those skills to novel situations….”improvisation,” if you will. But in order to be capable of improvisation, a learner needs to be accurate and fast (i.e., fluent) with the component skills.

I completely agree that there are numerous examples of adaptive learning done badly. Just because someone understands algorithms doesn’t mean they understand what learning questions need to be asked, and vice versa. The challenge for edtech companies who are doing adaptive learning is finding team members who understand both. For a very well done example, I suggest checking out the Headsprout online reading programs: http://www.headsprout.com.

If I get to talk with futurists who are excited about adaptive learning, I might ask them to bring it, and create an adaptive learning system that produces skilled futurists. If this challenge seems unfair, then let’s examine why. How is it that becoming a futurist (and I am not at all certain what that is) is really different from becoming a mathematician? Maybe those aspects of my proposed futurist development system that would seem difficult to program are analogous to areas where adaptive learning currently fails so miserably in mathematics instruction.

I confess to being cranky on this subject, because the adaptive learning systems that I have seen have done quite a disservice to mathematics learning. These systems are surprisingly successful at producing students who can get correct answers on standardized tests, but in my experience they are a disaster in producing understanding of math. I often teach students who have been taught via adaptive learning software, and the lack of correlation between their test scores and their mathematical sophistication can be very surprising. These systems serve to promote students into classrooms where they are at a significant disadvantage, because their knowledge is situational and their understanding thin.

Perhaps there are better days ahead for adaptive learning of mathematics. Thus far the strategy of collecting a detailed list of math skills and then structuring the system around progress through those skills has managed to fundamentally miss the fabric of mathematics. I’d suggest that the futurists pay careful attention to the unintended effects of the current systems before they extrapolate.

BTW, I love the analogy. I suspect that there was some amusing thought leading to the choice of Neil Diamond over other musicians.

@Dan — In that particular talk, I don’t recall Burkhardt referencing Hatano. Three slides after mentioning ‘adaptive expertise,’ he discussed design tactics for several teaching challenges, the very first one being that “1 teacher has to adapt teaching to 25 students.” It’s this classroom reality that I was referring to in my first comment and that I think is most relevant to this iPod conversation. It’s good to have a thorough definition of ‘adaptive expertise,’ and I think we need to better define what ‘adaptive learning’ means. I don’t think there’s agreement on the key term under discussion.

Many print and digital learning resources — adaptive or otherwise — are designed so that lessons basically involve students being shown how to execute a particular skill that they then practice. It sounds like Scott has seen the negative impact of this design in one adaptive technology program — where if a student gets a practice problem wrong, the only prescription available for support is more of the same direct explanation repeated again. More cowbell. More Neil Diamond.

We need to evaluate new technology in light of learning principles and student performance just like we do with print resources. And we can’t lump all adaptive learning together just like we can’t overgeneralize about all classrooms, all worksheets, or all schools.