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GOR 2001 - contentThis is the http://kiwi.uni-psych.gwdg.de/congress/gor-2001/contrib/contrib/silberer-guenter/contrib/osipova-elena/osipova-elena Document. Main Author: Osipova, Elena M. Co-Authors: ; Institution: Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Professional Education, Saint-Petersburg State University Contribution Title: Individualization of distance education through adaption. Adaptive assessment Authors Email: elena@icape.nw.ru URLs:
Abstract German (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 0) English: The main advantage of distance education is the possibility to provide individual approach to learners. Individualization may be realized through individual work with instructor or through adaptation of educational materials, computer programs and learning technology systems in general. We can adapt courseware in time (to evolving technologies), interfaces, content, educational process. It is possible to adapt various educational components to individual psychological, physiological and physical characteristics of learners, as well as to individual needs of learners, appearance of new knowledge and information, etc. All of the distance education system components are interconnected and most of them may be adapted: curriculum, course schedule, learning modules/units, tests, examples, etc. Adaptive assessment may be used for the following purposes: for distance learners to provide self-control, for educators to assess distantly the knowledge acquired by learners, and also to manage educational process. To manage means here 1) to determine the basic level of learner‘s knowledge and assist in composing an individual course schedule; 2) to determine the degree of knowledge perception and work out recommendations on repeating some materials if necessary. This approach has it‘s advantages especially in the case of continuous learning when we face the problems of difference in levels of basic knowledge of learners, lack of time to study the whole course. The paper examines the experience in adaptive assessment on the basis of the distance learning course on parallel computing. The recently started project on studies of psycho-social aspects of modern information technologies applications in higher and continuous education is described, together with possible applications of it‘s results to development of adaptive distance learning systems. Article (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 14464) Individualization of distance education through adaption. Adaptive assessment.
Development of distance education systems (DES) requires thorough analysis, design and maintenance, as development of any information system does. When developing DES, it should be taken into account that DES has typical for information systems features, as well as it's peculiar characteristics, and has higher level of organization than an "ordinary" DE course or program. Most of DES peculiarities are connected with significant influence of human components on DE system. DES specific functions include, among others, comprehensive and consequent support of educational process and support of DES component's compatibility (software, logical, etc.). It is important to mention that development of adaptive systems and integration of national DE systems within international ones are possible only when applying system's approach to development of distance education systems. A short overview of the above mentioned aspects of DES development is given below. Comprehensive and consequent support of educational process. Distance education system is to be built on the basis of some educational structure - chair, faculty, university, consortium, etc. - to provide consistency on organizational, administrative, educational, technical and information levels. All educational functions within a structure should be supported. In such a system three main subsystems are usually identified. They are learner-oriented, instructor-oriented and administrator-oriented DES subsystems. These subsystems interchange with information on educational process and add information to learner records (ideally, learner records should be life-long and transferred between educational institutions, which learner attend during his/her life). Compatibility of distance education system components. Compatibility is used mainly in the sense of a software term here, as distance education systems undoubtedly should be based on information technologies and Internet. Although, when designing a system, we should consider also compatibility of educational content in the context of national educational standards (not technological) and educational policy of organization. The following compatibility tasks could be mentioned:
International learning technology standards. There exists a number of international projects on development of standards for educational information systems, the most advanced are the following:
These organizations are the most active participants in the development of international learning technology standards within IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (http://grouper.ieee.org/p1484/). Within this committee the following main directions for standardization exist:
Architecture serves the technological skeleton for building distance education system. Thus, the design tasks for DES architecture development determine the features, which the resulting DE system will have. Let us cite the architecture standard (which is not yet finalized), developed by IEEE LTSC: "In general, the purpose of developing systems architectures is to discover high-level frameworks for understanding certain kinds of systems, their subsystems, and their interactions with related systems. An architecture … is a framework for designing a range of systems over time, and for the analysis and comparison of these systems. … An architecture promotes the design and implementation of components and subsystems that are reusable, cost-effective and adaptable." As you see, adaptivity is included in the main characteristics of learning technology systems. Here it has the meaning of "adaptation to technology changes because the adaptation is only incremental change when viewed at the right of level of abstraction, i.e., helps manage change and reduce technical risk". Later in this paper we will consider other aspects of adaptivity, applied to distance education systems. Another confirmation of importance of this feature can be found in ADL requirements, formulated for educational software. There are six requirements, that are considered to be of vital importance when developing educational information systems. Educational information systems and their components should be:
Now we come to the fourth aspect of DE system's development: development of adaptive systems. The main advantage of distance education is the possibility to provide individual approach to learners. Individualization is considered to be an advantage in most educational cases, but in distance learning it is the only way to compensate the lack of personal communication, emotional contact and feedback from instructor. Individualization may be realized through individual work with instructor or through adaptation of educational materials, computer programs and learning technology systems in general. Individualization can be realized through adaptation of educational materials, computer programs, and learning technology systems in general. The key tasks in providing individualization of distance education are the ones of development of adaptive technologies and dynamic modular courseware building. The term "adaptivity" of learning technology systems is being used in at least five meanings:
It is possible to adapt various educational components to individual psychological, physiological and physical characteristics of learners, as well as to individual needs of learners, appearance of new knowledge and information, etc. All of the distance education system components are interconnected and most of them may be adapted: curriculum, course schedule, learning modules/units, tests, examples, etc. In distance learning environment various components could possess adaptive quality, e.g. learning schedule, course plan, learning modules (volume of new information per module), tests (complexity level), examples. All adaptive components are interconnected and influence each other. For example, adaptive tests can change learning schedule, thus spreading the adaptive quality on this learning environment component. Adaptive assessment. Adaptive tests are used for the following purposes: for distance learners to provide self-control, for educators to assess distantly the knowledge acquired by learners, and also for management of educational process. To manage educational process means here 1) to determine the basic level of learner's knowledge and assist in composing of individual course schedule; 2) to determine the degree of knowledge perception and work out recommendations on repeating some materials if necessary. The simple example of adaptation - adaptive assessment - is demonstrated below.  The mechanism of adaptive testing has advantages especially in the case of continuous learning when we face the problems of difference in levels of basic knowledge of learners, lack of time to study the whole course, etc. In this case, the possibility to generate an individual plan of studies can save learner's time and efforts. As it is hardly possible for a learner to objectively self-evaluate his/her level of knowledge and competence on the subject, the technology of support of individual plan generation plays an important role in increasing effectiveness of education, both in terms of knowledge acquired and time saved. Procedure of adaptive testing performs the following tasks:
This type of testing partially automate the work of instructor, preserving individual approach to learners. In adaptive test learner may perform one of the two actions:
Instructor (test developer) may determine the feedback interface and type of recommendations, generated by the program. The procedure of adaptive testing has a special algorithm of test development, including
An answer's protocol is generated and stored for each student. An instructor may analyze it, receiving the information on "problem units" and on the changes, necessary to made for the course. The past experience of our department in development and implementation of adaptive tests in the courses on high-performance computing for supercomputer center, proves the effectiveness of application of adaptive technologies in distance learning. Research project "Psychosocial aspects of application of modern information technologies in higher education". Individualization is based on adaptive technologies, the type of technologies that adapt a predefined set of educational materials to individual abilities and demands of learners. If to speak about Internet-based distance learning (or, generally, about computer-based distance learning), in order to provide individualization, we should consider three main fields of studies:
We have studied the literature and Internet resources, available on the subject, and have defined three main types of questionnaires to use in the research according to the three fields, described above. These are:
What criteria (most evident) for building of adaptive systems are expected to be developed among others on the basis of the research conducted:
The research conducted will also help to determine the degree of influence of new information technologies on psychosocial characteristics of various types of learners and work out recommendations on the effective use of information technologies in educational process. Acknowledgements: The research on psychosocial aspects of application of new information technologies in higher education is supported by the "Research Support Scheme" of the Open Society Support Foundation, RSS/OSSF № 1488/2000. References: 1. Osipova E. (2000) Application of adaptive assessment technologies for individualisation of distance learning, Materials of International seminar "Open distance education", 30-31 October, Saint-Petersburg, pps 32-34 |