What is adaptive learning?

Adaptive learning is a personalised, customizable and smart learning method that makes use of artificial intelligence and smart platforms to individualise learning according to each student's preferences, pace and abilities. It provides provides with personalised content, assessment and curriculum. For decades, educators and IT specialists have tried to come up with ways to personalise education with the use of technology.

Finally, we are equipped with a technology that has made adaptive learning possible, and it is helping humanity reach a new milestone in terms of education and progress. The system uses AI; the same technology that tech giants like Facebook, Amazon and Netflix use to determine user's likes, interests, and needs and feeds them with them with advertisements, news and content relevant to that information. Adaptive learning is utilizing AI technology to personalise education and achieve the best results among learners.

How does it work?

So how does adaptive learning really work? To put as briefly as possible, it is like having a single teacher for each individual student, moreover a teacher who deeply understands the learning style of a student. Traditionally the role of a teacher was to provide content in relevant chunks, to monitor progress, and to assess performance. All of these three functions have been transferred to an intelligent platform that is arguably better than having a teacher who may never objectively perceive the capabilities and needs of a student. This is because teachers often have to deal with multiple students, they are required to teach the same curriculum to several students who have varying learning paces and interests. With use of AI, it eliminates the barriers to education caused by teachers. The adaptive learning system teaches is a one-on-one model that is able to make several adjustments to the teaching style depending on the student.

Research has shown that allowing students to work at their own optimal pace is an effective learning strategy. For this reason the platform does not compel the student to move too fast or too slow, it waits till the student has mastered a topic before introducing the next challenge. It also has the capability to target a student's starting point based on previous knowledge, and help that student make steady academic progress towards their desired learning goals. This strategy prevents students who are struggling from becoming frustrated, and students who are gifted from becoming bored.

Additionally, with the AI constantly collecting insights and data about the student, it is able to change the sequencing of the curriculum in a way that it makes learning interactive. Most importantly, the system is designed to be fun and interesting for learners, it applies theory of "Gamification" and game design to make the learning process engaging and the reward system makes learning challenging and gratifies their effort. The system also provides feedback and analysis based on student performance by interacting with students as they solve problems, explore new concepts and make decisions, and analyzes the data in real-time to change the approach to teaching.

To summarize, the adaptive system is a live tutor, that is purely focused on one particular student at a time, provides the best teaching approach suitable to the learner and analyzes data about them constantly and objectively.

Who is it for?

Adaptive learning was a much needed approach to get the best out of all learners, but in particular this system is offering massive educational support to the children with special needs. Children with learning disabilities like ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism, face constant difficulties learning in a traditional classroom. They are often looked down upon, or negatively affected because of poor performance, inability to comprehend or concentrate on the lesson. Even in special schools, they face a certain isolation from regular society, and often feel excluded. An adaptive learning system is the best possible solution for kids of different abilities. The system recognizes their interests and their pace and customizes their learning experience accordingly.

How it can help your child succeed?

The same feedback that improves student learning success is also good for teachers. The ability to see current data allows teachers to understand each student's performance. So the role of a teacher is adjusted as they become mentors and trainers instead of disciplinary instructors. They become responsible for providing motivation and guidance for students and that's a much better role for teachers instead of being authoritative figures who children don't connect with. Armed with true understanding, teachers can provide interventions appropriate to the student's level of need and responsiveness.

Since the industrial revolution, learning has generally fit the lecture-based, one-size-fits-all model. As a result of this trend only a few learners excel but many students only attain average grades without having mastered important concepts.This reality has simply been accepted for most of history without acknowledging the need to teach effectively. A lot of other factors of traditional learning have also gone on for too long: the idea of grouping learners together based on their age rather than their skill level; the lack integration for practical learning; and nerve-wracking examinations instead of quick-checks for understandings, these concepts are outdated and cannot work in this age of information revolution.

The Kidocode Model of Learning

Keeping everything in consideration, Kidocode has capitalized on the opportunities provided by today's technology. The researchers at Kidocode have worked tirelessly to create an AI software that is based on the concept of adaptive learning. We have now developed the technology to make these ideas achievable and scalable and we have time and time again delivered significantly greater academic success among our students who come from all sorts of ages, backgrounds, and learning abilities. Additionally we have also understood that 1-on-1 mentorship with a teacher who communicates with and understands a student is really important, so we have a team of highly qualified trainers who coach rather teach our students here at kidocode and this is what typically leads to the greater success. As opposed to traditional schools that follow a linear curve of learning, we enforce the spiral model of learning which means our curriculum is designed to provide different topics at different frequencies at the same time.