Stephen Downes

This article identifies "four techniques which have been used by vendors to decide which lesson sequence and content selection is most effective.

• Algorithm (analytics) – recommendations
• Assessment – rapid remediation
• Association – decision tree
• Agency – student chooses."

It's a good effort at opening the 'black box' of adaptive courseware. But is the core problem of learning technology really "lesson sequence and content selection"? I don't think so. We're not trying to solve a discovery problem. We're trying to solve a learning problem. The two are very different tasks. And the key danger of adaptive learning is that it conflates one with the other.