Personalized Learning
New Digital Platform Focuses on Student Fatigue, Confidence Levels
McGraw-Hill has launched Connect Master, a new digital platform designed for
presonalized learning. As the company unveiled the new product
at the ASU + GSV Summit, it also announced that it has a first client, Arizona
State University, which will begin using the platform in its math
courses next fall.
McGraw-Hill Education representatives say the new Connect
Master
platform offers two features other similar learning platforms don't: an
ability
to measure students' sense of confidence and fatigue, allowing it to
make
adjustments to the customized content, and a focus on deeper concepts as
supposed
to simple problem-solving.
"Math can be one of the most challenging subjects to
master,
and it's easy for students to lose confidence in their abilities and
fall
behind," said McGraw-Hill Education Chief Digital Officer Stephen
Laster. "Connect
Master allows students to show their work and receive real-time
feedback, which
ultimately encourages critical thinking and boosts student confidence."
Other features of the new platform include:
- A personal learning coach that can provide the
student with
real-time feedback;
- Videos with real-world scenarios designed to lead to
greater
conceptual understanding;
- A mix of question structures — multiple choice,
matching and
drag-and-drop — with the intention to reduce student fatigue and
encourage
longer periods of study;
- An interactive "kaleidoscope" tool that shows math
concepts in
a variety of ways;
- Metacognition tools designed to measure student
confidence
levels in their answers; and
- Videos in Spanish to assist native Spanish speakers.
"One of the key things we learned is that, not only
are there
many ways to solve a problem," said McGraw-Hill Education Senior Fellow
of
Digital Learning Ulrik Juul Christensen, "there are multiple ways just
to get
from one step to another."
While ASU will begin using the math platform in its
fall 2015
classes, Connect Master is also now available for economics and
composition
classes, with more subjects to follow.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.
