IDRC among partners to receive Gates Foundation funding

 

Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - 4:00am

OCAD University’s Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) has partnered with Lumen Learning in a project to develop the next generation of digital, personalized courseware that improves outcomes for low-income postsecondary students. Today, Lumen Learning was named among seven finalists to receive $20 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Next Generation Courseware Challenge aims to leverage the best of what is known about the learning sciences, education research, and technology-enabled learning to create a next generation of digital courseware that can help postsecondary institutions and their faculty positively impact the trajectory of each student’s higher education experience.

Inspired in part by the ground-breaking work of Benjamin Bloom, Lumen’s courseware will apply educational strategies that show promise for improving learning outcomes: personal learning pathways for developing subject mastery; personalized teaching; and effective use of open educational resources. The result will be “next generation” courseware for four introductory-level college courses that enroll millions of students every year: Introduction to Business; Principles of Marketing; Microeconomics; and Macroeconomics. The IDRC will design the courseware’s universally accessible user experience through a highly iterative, inclusive and learner-centric process.

Among the IDRC, the other Lumen project partners are:

  • BBC Worldwide Learning: Lumen’s courseware will incorporate high quality educational videos that draw from BBC Worldwide Learning’s extensive library of engaging, informative and global subject matter.
     
  • Dr. Constance Steinkuehler: One of the world’s leading experts in game-based learning, Dr. Steinkuehler will guide the development of lightweight games and simulations for a hands-on, interactive learning experience.
     
  • Difference Engine: Difference Engine is tailoring its learner-centric platform to the unique requirements of mastery learning and open content, creating a personalized learning platform to adapt content to students’ needs as they master course competencies.
     
  • Norman Bier: Drawing on his work with Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative and forging connections with the Simon Datalab, Mr. Bier will establish a Learning Lab tasked with harnessing data to generate learning science insights and drive continuous courseware improvements.
     
  • The Online Learning Consortium (OLC), formerly Sloan Consortium: Faculty training and professional development for the courseware will be developed and delivered in conjunction with OLC, a leader in best practices for technology-assisted teaching and learning.
     
  • OpenStax College: Core content and subject matter expertise will come from OpenStax College’s high quality, peer-reviewed, open textbooks which allow tremendous flexibility to adapt, remix and repurpose content to fit the project’s progressive course design.

Collaborating with the Lumen courseware project as co-development partners are eight educational institutions including two-year colleges and four-year universities from across the U.S.: Broward College Online (FL), Cerritos College (CA), Pittsburg State University (KS), Salt Lake Community College (UT), Santa Ana College (CA), Tidewater Community College (VA), University of Maryland University College (UMUC), and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). Together these institutions serve more than 300,000 students annually. On average among these institutions, nearly half of all students are considered low income and/or disadvantaged.

With project kick-off taking place later this year, Lumen Learning anticipates developing the new courseware through the first half of 2015. The first wave of participating faculty members will teach with the pilot courseware during the 2015-2016 academic year. Informed and improved by learning data from the pilot year, Lumen anticipates general availability for the new courseware in 2016. Targeting courseware affordability as a major requirement for winning the grant, the company plans to provide platform hosting, ongoing courseware support and updates for approximately a quarter of the average cost of traditional commercial textbooks.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - 4:00am

OCAD University’s Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) has partnered with Lumen Learning in a project to develop the next generation of digital, personalized courseware that improves outcomes for low-income postsecondary students. Today, Lumen Learning was named among seven finalists to receive $20 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Next Generation Courseware Challenge aims to leverage the best of what is known about the learning sciences, education research, and technology-enabled learning to create a next generation of digital courseware that can help postsecondary institutions and their faculty positively impact the trajectory of each student’s higher education experience.

Inspired in part by the ground-breaking work of Benjamin Bloom, Lumen’s courseware will apply educational strategies that show promise for improving learning outcomes: personal learning pathways for developing subject mastery; personalized teaching; and effective use of open educational resources. The result will be “next generation” courseware for four introductory-level college courses that enroll millions of students every year: Introduction to Business; Principles of Marketing; Microeconomics; and Macroeconomics. The IDRC will design the courseware’s universally accessible user experience through a highly iterative, inclusive and learner-centric process.

Among the IDRC, the other Lumen project partners are:

  • BBC Worldwide Learning: Lumen’s courseware will incorporate high quality educational videos that draw from BBC Worldwide Learning’s extensive library of engaging, informative and global subject matter.
     
  • Dr. Constance Steinkuehler: One of the world’s leading experts in game-based learning, Dr. Steinkuehler will guide the development of lightweight games and simulations for a hands-on, interactive learning experience.
     
  • Difference Engine: Difference Engine is tailoring its learner-centric platform to the unique requirements of mastery learning and open content, creating a personalized learning platform to adapt content to students’ needs as they master course competencies.
     
  • Norman Bier: Drawing on his work with Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative and forging connections with the Simon Datalab, Mr. Bier will establish a Learning Lab tasked with harnessing data to generate learning science insights and drive continuous courseware improvements.
     
  • The Online Learning Consortium (OLC), formerly Sloan Consortium: Faculty training and professional development for the courseware will be developed and delivered in conjunction with OLC, a leader in best practices for technology-assisted teaching and learning.
     
  • OpenStax College: Core content and subject matter expertise will come from OpenStax College’s high quality, peer-reviewed, open textbooks which allow tremendous flexibility to adapt, remix and repurpose content to fit the project’s progressive course design.

Collaborating with the Lumen courseware project as co-development partners are eight educational institutions including two-year colleges and four-year universities from across the U.S.: Broward College Online (FL), Cerritos College (CA), Pittsburg State University (KS), Salt Lake Community College (UT), Santa Ana College (CA), Tidewater Community College (VA), University of Maryland University College (UMUC), and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). Together these institutions serve more than 300,000 students annually. On average among these institutions, nearly half of all students are considered low income and/or disadvantaged.

With project kick-off taking place later this year, Lumen Learning anticipates developing the new courseware through the first half of 2015. The first wave of participating faculty members will teach with the pilot courseware during the 2015-2016 academic year. Informed and improved by learning data from the pilot year, Lumen anticipates general availability for the new courseware in 2016. Targeting courseware affordability as a major requirement for winning the grant, the company plans to provide platform hosting, ongoing courseware support and updates for approximately a quarter of the average cost of traditional commercial textbooks.