Chapter 10 – Adaptive Computerized Educational Systems: A Case Study

Publisher Summary Adaptive instruction focuses on textual presentation and support services that adapt to meet the needs of the user in the best way possible; however, even within this meaning the term often describes at least two different instructional service strategies: strategies that are homeostatic and those that are truly adaptive in the same sense that control systems engineers use the term. Homeostatic characteristics common to home air-conditioning systems serve as a model for almost all modern “adaptive” instructional software systems. Upon closer inspection, it is a somewhat misguided use of the term “adaptive.” It is certainly not consistent with how cybernetic and systems researchers would describe the feedback-driven, disturbance-control dynamics for maintaining stability in homeostatic systems like the air-conditioning example. Truly adaptive systems also include the metaphorical ability to learn or adjust by self-modifying the goal or the desired state. That dramatically increases the long-term maintenance or even enhanced development of the system's integrity. The concept of managing the learning process suggests that there is a need to be sensitive to where the student is at all times in terms of the student's need for prompting, segmenting content, and reinforcing through testing results. Such principles guide educators to begin with the size of content segment best suited to an individual student.