March 26, 2010
Amrita Learning Lab, Amritapuri
A paper titled Effectiveness of Adaptive Learning with Interactive Animations and Simulations was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications (ICCEA 2010) in Bali Island, Indonesia.
“We presented the effectiveness, preferences, methodology, costs, and benefits of Adaptive Learning in general, and its adaptive simulations, in particular,” stated Ms. Prema, the paper’s primary author.
Adaptive learning refers to a style of learning that focuses on prior successes and the use of these to determine the learning strategy and future successes. Often technology is used to assist students in the absorption of new materials.
Amrita Learning is Amrita’s adaptive learning platform, deployed now in many of the Amrita Vidyalayam schools. Incorporating the NCERT syllabus for students from standard I till standard VIII, it helps students learn according to their background and capacity.
In a survey conducted at the Amrita Vidyalayam schools, it was found that students performed in the top 10 percent of the class when provided with visual and interactive learning aids. Amrita Learning is replete with examples of such learning aids.
“In the paper, we discussed the geometry box tools and the simple pendulum simulation examples, and presented student feedback regarding the effectiveness of adaptive online simulations versus the traditional lab environment,” added Ms. Prema.
“The greater effectiveness could be due to the fact that adaptive systems help correct student errors and understanding with immediate and targeted feedback. We found that on average, even students with low pre-scores did better than when using traditional laboratory environment.”
“Further studies are being conducted to compare the effectiveness of teaching mathematics and science in a free-style learning simulation environment versus an adaptive simulations environment,” she noted.
The paper will be included in the conference proceedings by IEEE Computer Society CPS, and will be listed in IEEE Xplore and CSDL, as well as be indexed by INSPEC, ISI Thomson and EI (Compendex).
PAPER DETAILS
Prema Nedungadi, Raghu Raman, Effectiveness of Adaptive Learning with Interactive Animations and Simulations.
Abstract – We present the adaptive simulations of Amrita Learning, a web-based, interactive eLearning program that aims to create a realistic mathematics and science laboratory environment for school students to study equipments, perform simulation experiments interactively, measure or analyze results, and understand their application, It teaches abstract concepts, using highly sophisticated and interactive simulations.
The adaptive simulations follow the time tested principles of Amrita Learning, a previously discussed adaptive learning system, including adaptive sequencing, presentation and feedback. This novel system enables students to work at their own pace with learning level, content and presentation individualized based on a dynamically updated student profile.
While individualized simulations, animations, tutorials, and assessments enrich learning experience, simultaneous access to the content by thousands of students makes the return on investment very high.
Student feedback and assessments are used to compare the adaptive simulations and animations with the traditional laboratory. Results show that while the majority of the students preferred the ease of use, adaptive feedback and additional learning options of the adaptive simulations, they missed the group discussions and extra attention from the teacher at the traditional lab.
