The Darwin Awards, the Natureismetal subreddit, and other pop culture sites illustrate glorious and inglorious attempts at survival. Key to this endeavor is the notion of adaptive behavior: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change” (attributed to Charles Darwin).
Adaptation is a powerful survival mechanism and one that organizations and workers recognize—we must be fast and nimble to survive. Learning technologies have several options that highlight this response need by providing custom learning experiences for our users.
Adaptive behavior
Adaptive learning is an example of this, as it creates customized content for learners based on user proficiency levels. Adaptive learning is associated with extensive testing to determine where a user is and what they need to complete. Results from this testing are used to create custom learning paths for each user based on their goals.
Other approaches can customize content for your learners. These experiences may not be as rich as true adaptive learning, but they can offer many benefits.
Types of learning adaptation
| Experience | Trigger | Response Need |
|---|---|---|
|
Evolving content; evolving experience |
Learner histories |
Users need the most direct, complete, and relevant path to their learning gaps. |
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| Experience | Trigger | Response Need |
|---|---|---|
|
Static content; evolving experience |
Environmental awareness |
Users need feedback at the time of learning need. |
| Example | ||
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| Experience | Trigger | Response Need |
|---|---|---|
|
Static content; evolving experience |
Learner confidence |
Users need metacognitive feedback on how well they are doing. |
| Example | ||
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| Experience | Trigger | Response Need |
|---|---|---|
|
Evolving content; evolving experience |
Dated or limited sources |
Users need fresh and diverse content. |
| Example | ||
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| Experience | Trigger | Response Need |
|---|---|---|
|
Static content; fixed experience |
Role or position |
Organizations don’t want users taking unnecessary content. |
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What level do you need?
Our organizations are complex and have competing interests when it comes to training—time to implement, administration and control of content, cost of implementation, and maintenance are a few concerns with our development activities. Finding the right response need(s) will allow you to define the appropriate levels of adaptation for your organization and learners.