Self-paced learning: Through the adaptive platforms, students report that they are able to go through content at their own pace, get feedback in real-time, and continuously practice concepts for understanding and mastery.

Platform navigation and depth: Students report that the adaptive platforms provide helpful resources, robust knowledge checks, and visual tracking of their progress through engaging weekly modules.

Classroom and adaptive learning alignment: Students report that blended learning provides an opportunity to work through the course material provided within the adaptive platforms at their own pace and solidify concepts through active learning in the classroom. 

Student-Centered Design

User experience (UX) design relies on visual design and behavioral psychology such as highlighting a student’s (user’s) motivations, goals, needs. In higher education this process is applied to solving problems which might reference retention, engagement, and persistence within learning environments.

At OAI we embed UX design throughout our process of integrating and teaching with personalized learning software. Student voice is an intentional part of this process. We capture formative and summative feedback from students throughout the curriculum design process using a variety of engagement and research methods such as surveys, one-on-one interviews and engagement sessions. Student feedback is highly valued and changes to this design process are integrated and used to iterate and inform our work from term to term.

Student Support Pilot

Analytics from adaptive courseware can provide instructors additional data points to initiate student interventions. Faculty often focus on students’ academic success within their course but don’t have the bandwidth and tools to address individual students’ personal barriers to learning that come up during the course. For this reason, we launched a two-term pilot to coordinate the efforts of a student advisor with an instructor of an adaptive Statistics course. The objective of the pilot was to boost proactive student outreach, especially in the early stages of the course, and to offer coaching or support in a timely manner.

Objectives of the Pilot:

• Accelerating early alert interventions based on adaptive system analytics
• Coordination and communication between instructor & advisor
• Different intervention strategies to engage students
• Impact on student grades vs. DFW rate

Peer Assistance Pilot

This pilot will build on the lessons learned from the student support pilot, with the goal to improve learning and academic support for students enrolled in one section of Algebra-based General Physics through the use of a Peer Assistant, Academic Coach, adaptive courseware and enthusiastic faculty.

Objectives of the Pilot:

• Identify an effective system to notate student outreach and interactions
• Describe a preferred method of communication between the Academic Coach and Instructor in the early stages of the course 
• Define the time required by an Academic Coach to support one section of a course
• Define what training is required for Peer Assistants to contribute to student outreach
• Define how many review sessions by Peer Assistant are optimal

Objectives for Students in the Pilot Course:

• Increase in A’s, B’s, and C’s in course
• Reduction in W, D’s, and F’s in course
• Students report feeling supported throughout the course
• Increase student engagement through the use of adaptive courseware & participation in class activities & review sessions