Why Is Implementing Adaptive Learning Essential?
One of the reasons why implementing adaptive learning is essential for your organization is because it has a higher potential to revolutionize corporate training. Also, its ability to address the unique needs of learners makes it an effective tool, with little or zero room for errors. And being that effective, organizations stand a high chance of meeting their business goals when learners get trained through it. However, with these reasons and many more, it's so unfortunate that some organizations are still utilizing a one-size-fits-all approach to deliver training.
What can we say is the reason for that? Well, adaptive learning is a frontline topic in Learning and Development, meaning that there'll always be room for misconceptions about implementing it. Unfortunately, these misconceptions have discouraged so many organizations from using it. In this article, we'll be looking at the common superstitions that exist in adaptive learning and the reality of each of them.
4 Common Superstitions About Adaptive Learning
1. Adaptive Learning And Personalized Learning Are The Same
One of the common misconceptions that people have about adaptive learning is that it is the same as personalized learning. However, this is so untrue, as there are a lot of differences between the two learning approaches.
Reality
Personalized learning is a type of learning that requires learning professionals to have prior knowledge of their employees. That means instructors must first pre-assess their learners to learn their baseline knowledge level. However, in the case of adaptive learning, it is is different.
Adaptive learning is an effective learning approach that utilizes a data-driven algorithm to develop content that matches individual employee's learning needs. What it does is that it helps by evaluating a learner's knowledge level and interaction with specific content. It then remodifies the content according to the data acquired through evaluation.
2. It Requires Specialized Technology
Another misconception about adaptive learning is that it is expensive to implement, as it requires specialized technology.
Reality
Although having special technology will give you an edge and make adaptive learning easier to deliver, you can still do without it. That's because most authoring tools support it, and opting for one of them will make adaptive learning easy for you to implement.
But how can authoring tools fill in the space of special technologies in order for you to implement adaptive learning? Most advanced authoring tools have the ability to supply links to optional materials. Apart from that, they can also offer a means to assign learning by roles to individual employees. All you need is to research and opt for the right and advanced authoring tools in order to implement your adaptive learning.
3. Adaptive Learning Is Only About Assessment
Many people also have the misconception that adaptive learning is just about assessing learners. Without a doubt, it'll be difficult to see two people with the same learning needs from day one. Because of that, it's only essential that instructors should carry out a pre-assessment in order to learn about an individual employee's skill gaps.
Reality
Let's face it! It's not true that adaptive learning is just about assessment. Pre-assessments only depend on some data at a single time, and while it's effective, it only helps to limit the delivery of one-size-fits-all learning. That's not adaptive learning!
In the case of adaptive learning, there's always a need for ongoing acquisition of data, including employee performance, behavior, and practical assessments. And by continuously collecting data through adaptive systems, new content is created to meet learning needs.
4. Too Hard To Review Adaptive Content
Some people even say that reviewing adaptive learning content can be a difficult thing to do. And that it takes time to go through all of the learning paths in the content.
Reality
The reality of this myth is that most stakeholders with proper knowledge of adaptive learning should be able to review all their content. While some tools can help to simplify tasks for you, some templates also allow you to comment and review content in prototypes. So, by utilizing them, it becomes straightforward and easy for you to perform any review task.
Conclusion
There are numerous benefits attached to implementing an adaptive learning strategy in your organization. However, to get the most out of it, you need to look away from the misconceptions about it.
