By John Mullin, Enlearn CEO
The school district my kids attend recently completed a K-5 math adoption, replete with controversy between parents, teachers, administrators, and the school board. Those controversies centered, as they typically do, on whether or not the best text was adopted and how that decision was made, with all sides highly passionate about their curriculum of choice.
“Was it the right choice?” will be debated through test cycles and number crunching right through the next adoption cycle. Regardless of which text was adopted, the answer will be the same – yes for some learners in some math concepts at certain times, but no for others. This will be true not because it was the wrong decision, but because it is an impossible task for those involved — no single text can possibly meet the in-the-moment learning needs of every student.
The net result is that for the next seven years or so, teachers and administrators will work valiantly (and without much credit) to fill in the gaps and meet standards for the kids for whom this particular curriculum isn’t the best fit. They’ll add math supplements and interventions, participate in professional development, and work extra hours to help those students. And unless we help break the cycle, in seven years we’ll start the same process over again, looking for the best “one-size-fits-all” approach to reaching students.
What if instead we could actually help teachers and district administrators turn just about any curriculum into the best choice for each student, in real time, every day?
We can do this with Generative Adaptation. This technology, based on years of research and development at the University of Washington’s Center for Game Science, is now being made available to schools and curriculum publishers by Enlearn. It holds the promise of building, or “generating”, new content and new learning progressions, tailored to each student, and delivering them at the precise learning opportunity while also giving teachers real-time insights on where and how their help is most needed. It enables “one-size-fits-one” – a personalized curriculum that is continuously created for and adapted to the individual.
For content creators, Generative Adaptation provides the means to deliver a virtually infinite text that learns and improves with every additional student. At Enlearn, we are developing a platform for curriculum providers that will enable them to transform their existing curriculum into a truly personalized learning path for each learner.
Now we have the ability to create and deliver an education optimized for each individual, making a “one-size-fits-one” curriculum possible for every school district.
