Right now the user has to select very specific, granular activities within the LMS. For example, the user selects Lose vs. Loose as a lesson.
A better system here would be to let users select a 1 level concept, such as Commonly Confused Words. Teachers could select the 1 level concepts they want to focus on.
Why Wait?
The reason why it is not worth doing this now is that certain 1 level concepts can have a lot of content in them. Rather than thinking of an activity as a 10 minute chunk, an activity could take 40-50 minutes. In this environment students work on the activity, quit out, and then continue on it later. We need to introduce the notion of an activity being in progress.
Note: Grammar hero will explore this territory. We can play around with the idea of letting users select content from different buckets (standard level, individual standard, 2 level concept, 1 level concept, 0 level concept) and use this to test out how granular we want to make the interface.
Genuine Mastery Based Learning
We can use Scott’s interface where each student has either completed a 1 level concept or is working on it. Students have to master all of the concepts to move on. Instead of simply having a score, students have a breakdown of individual concepts they need to master within an activity. Once they master all of the concepts, the student masters the activity. The LMS needs to know how each student has performed on each concept. Once a student has mastered a concept, it moves on to the next concept on the tree.
In App: How do you sequence the questions?
Option 1 - 10 questions per 0 level concept.
Students start the 1 level activity. They work on the stuff. There goal is to get 10 questions correct for each level 0 concept within the level 1 concept. They can quit out half way through, and it’s registered as in progress on the LMS. Once they have gotten 10 correct it is passed.
Option 2 - Diagnose and Follow up
Within the activity, you can either show 3 random level 0 questions all from all of the level 1 concepts. If a student gets those concepts wrong, the student then gets 10 follow up questions. If the student gets those questions correct, the student is marked as correct for that 0 level concept. The underlying idea here is that we present students with a wide range of questions, 3 from each concept, and if students know those answers they are marked as having the material and move on to the next set. If they get it wrong, they then focus on practicing those materials.
Painting a Picture: What this looks like on the LMS
As it stands right now, you might have a unit called “Commonly Confused Words” which has 10 activities in it about the individual word pairings.
In this new system you might have 10 1 level concepts, such as Commonly Confused Words, Relative Pronouns, Infinitive Tense, etc. all under the unit “Language Standards” and that would be your unit.
Question: How to handle duplicated units?
One of the problems here is that students will get duplicated activities, where they will practice the same thing they have already mastered. One way in which we can hack this is by taking greater control over the assigning process. Essentially we think about it like this: we provide the student a diagnostic, and then we create a unit of activities for the student based on the student’s performance on the content and the grade level. Once those student has mastered those materials we provide the next set. In this world the teacher really only specifics how much time they want to spend on grammar, and we will then fill that time with a series of activities. By generating the activities ourselves, we won’t create duplicates.
Future Design
Right now the user has to select very specific, granular activities within the LMS. For example, the user selects Lose vs. Loose as a lesson.
A better system here would be to let users select a 1 level concept, such as Commonly Confused Words. Teachers could select the 1 level concepts they want to focus on.
Why Wait?
The reason why it is not worth doing this now is that certain 1 level concepts can have a lot of content in them. Rather than thinking of an activity as a 10 minute chunk, an activity could take 40-50 minutes. In this environment students work on the activity, quit out, and then continue on it later. We need to introduce the notion of an activity being in progress.
Note: Grammar hero will explore this territory. We can play around with the idea of letting users select content from different buckets (standard level, individual standard, 2 level concept, 1 level concept, 0 level concept) and use this to test out how granular we want to make the interface.
Genuine Mastery Based Learning
We can use Scott’s interface where each student has either completed a 1 level concept or is working on it. Students have to master all of the concepts to move on. Instead of simply having a score, students have a breakdown of individual concepts they need to master within an activity. Once they master all of the concepts, the student masters the activity. The LMS needs to know how each student has performed on each concept. Once a student has mastered a concept, it moves on to the next concept on the tree.
In App: How do you sequence the questions?
Option 1 - 10 questions per 0 level concept.
Students start the 1 level activity. They work on the stuff. There goal is to get 10 questions correct for each level 0 concept within the level 1 concept. They can quit out half way through, and it’s registered as in progress on the LMS. Once they have gotten 10 correct it is passed.
Option 2 - Diagnose and Follow up
Within the activity, you can either show 3 random level 0 questions all from all of the level 1 concepts. If a student gets those concepts wrong, the student then gets 10 follow up questions. If the student gets those questions correct, the student is marked as correct for that 0 level concept. The underlying idea here is that we present students with a wide range of questions, 3 from each concept, and if students know those answers they are marked as having the material and move on to the next set. If they get it wrong, they then focus on practicing those materials.
Painting a Picture: What this looks like on the LMS
As it stands right now, you might have a unit called “Commonly Confused Words” which has 10 activities in it about the individual word pairings.
In this new system you might have 10 1 level concepts, such as Commonly Confused Words, Relative Pronouns, Infinitive Tense, etc. all under the unit “Language Standards” and that would be your unit.
Question: How to handle duplicated units?
One of the problems here is that students will get duplicated activities, where they will practice the same thing they have already mastered. One way in which we can hack this is by taking greater control over the assigning process. Essentially we think about it like this: we provide the student a diagnostic, and then we create a unit of activities for the student based on the student’s performance on the content and the grade level. Once those student has mastered those materials we provide the next set. In this world the teacher really only specifics how much time they want to spend on grammar, and we will then fill that time with a series of activities. By generating the activities ourselves, we won’t create duplicates.