Supporting Learner Self-Directedness and Persistence in a Competency-Based Curriculum Through Automated Tools

Presented by Stephen Beers & Nathan Ewings - Instructional Designers, University of Wisconsin

http://flex.wisconsin.edu/

Attended by Anne

Big ideas:

How do you make a course work without an instructor?

Why do some learners get lost along the way?

How soon should learners start and how late is too late?

How do we help learners persist?

Next steps: add suggested timelines to all self-paced courses; use My Awards tool

Wish list

Personalised calendars - pre-populated with events by course developer; calculate events based on relative dates from time of enrolment; allow learner to personalise the due dates for events

Te Kura takeouts:

Analyse progress through course against time for successful and unsuccessful students - establish patterns of who started when, where in course they came to a halt, which assessments were more challenging, which more manageable.  As a result of analysis, apply conditionally released News items, intelligent agent emails to learner and LA to motivate learner, scaffold and develop persistence

Need for real-time feedback to keep students on track; including messages such as “How are you doing?  Many students need to spend more time on this activity than others.. “

Staged planning for success messages with a competency/learning to learn focus could be something for us to consider

My takeouts: Self-paced doesn’t mean the student doesn’t need structure; getting the balance right so student is not overwhelmed is critical