Review of HigherEd Adaptive Learning Products

Last week we reviewed an EdGrowth white paper, A Case for Accelerating Adaptive Learning in HigherEd. Yesterday EdGrowth released a second paper that includes 8 profiles of adaptive learning providers.
EdGrowth developed three lenses through which to better understand adaptive learning solutions: approach, taxonomy, and maturity.  They considered six pedagogical components of an adaptive learning solution:

• Learner Profile is a structured repository of information about the learner used to inform and personalize the learning experience
• Unit of Adaptivity refers to the structure of the instructional content and the scale at which that content is modified for specific learner needs
• Instruction Coverage refers to the pedagogical flexibility of a product to deliver an adaptive learning experience and the scope/scale of that experience within the context of a course
• Assessment is the frequency, format, and conditions under which learners are evaluated
• Content Model describes the accessibility of the product’s authoring environment to instructors or other users and their ability to add and/or manipulate instructional content in the system
• Bloom’s Coverage highlights to what extent a product can support the learning objectives within the Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy

EdGrowth also considered six institutional decision making factors–from autonomous to highly interdependent– to help improve product match.
The profiled Adapt Courseware, Cerego Global, CogBooks, Jones & Bartlett Learning, LoudCloud, McGraw-Hill Education (LearnSmart), Open Learning Initiative, and Smart Sparrow.
CogBooks, a “small and growing company run by former Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, now based in Scotland,” looks like it scores the highest in the review.
The report also includes a list of 30 companies “active in the higher education market that either have adaptive learning capabilities today or may develop them in the future based on their current solution footprint.”
If you’re thinking about an adaptive higher ed solution, check out the EdGrowth report.