An Asynchronous, Personalized Learning Platform – Guided Learning Pathways (GLP)

We live in a period of customization, with laser-fitted body-tight jeans, personally configured computers and less welcomed highly targeted online advertizing. We can customize our personal technology eco-system, from com-puters to music, entertainment and TV. Our fitness program is tailored to our individual needs and goals.

But what about education? The dominant form of education today is “one size fits all”. All students proceed through a sequence of learning exercises, at the same speed and with the same pedagogical model. This industrial style paradigm has been the leading form of teaching for more than a century. Think of Taylorism, made famous with Henry Ford’s 19-teens mass production of Model T’s. Students in K-12 can be visualized as in-process widgets, proceeding down the production line having 13 manufacturing steps, each corresponding to a school grade level. Concerning any customization of the output, Henry Ford said, “Yes, they can have any color, as long as it is black”. Perhaps the greatest disruptive force in education today is due to Moore’s Law that has made feasible customized learning environments, “laser fitted” for each student. Which is more important: Customized jeans or customized learning environments? Yet, we have the first and not yet the second. In this article we are trying to define a framework for design of a computer-based system that could provide the second – a rich learning environment made by contributors from around the world, an environment that learns a student’s strengths, weakness and learning style preferences, one that allows each student to move at her preferred pace and through different learning paths. We call it “Guided Learning Pathways”.