Over the past few months, Ken Carroll and I have been taking the first steps at defining the Praxis Language approach to learning languages - the personalized learning system. This is what we have so far.
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The Praxis Language Mobile Personal Learning System (MPLS) is designed for the language learner of the 21st century. It represents the evolution of the school and the migration of traditional learning out of the institutions, onto the network.
The application of a network approach to pedagogy, teaching, and lesson design, together with the new tools and technologies of the post web 2.0 era, distinguish Praxis as best practice leaders in the industry. The MPLS points to the future of language learning.
What is the MPLS?
The MPLS combines three elements:
- Learning Media. Comprehensive, searchable, relevant, timely, learning objects.
- Open Community. A social/collaborative learning environment.
- Personalization. Customizable tools and content options for the individual.
The purpose of the MPLS is to enable language learning on the individual’s terms. It strives to fit the learning around the needs of the learner (rather than the needs of schools, publishers, or other external agencies, as it was in the past). This allows the learner to learn what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and this mirrors a greater trend towards personalization on the web. Through the MPLS, the user is constantly connected to the content, community, and the tools he needs to learn the target language effectively. The result is a ubiquitous, immersive, learning environment over which he has a great deal of control – ‘Learning on your Terms’.
Lets look at the Learning Media in more detail.
1. Learning Media
Learners need a balance between the freedom to explore and find their own learning pathways, together with a degree of guidance. The Learning Media embody both – a choice of free-ranging, pedagogically sound content, with guidance on usage, learning strategies, and other things.
- Modular Lessons
Lessons take the form of hundreds of discrete, digital learning objects. Every lesson passes the quality test and functions as a stand-alone unit. They are archived, searchable, and graded for difficulty level. However, learners are not obliged to consume them on a pre-defined basis, but freely select and combine lessons according to their needs. - Daily Learning Events
New lessons appear on a daily publication/distribution cycle to create currency, and a rhythm of on-going participation. The balance between the familiar (structures, formats, hosts, etc) and the unexpected (topics, themes, moods) keeps interest high. Through user response, the daily learning events are negotiated conversations rather than lectures. - Engaging Content
An engaging, conversational style of lessons bonds learners with teachers. The high-frequency language takes the listener into real-life situations. Hosts offer expert insight into the language and the learning in short, manageable lessons that include, stories, anecdote, humor, mnemonic devices, and more. - A Communicative Approach to Instruction
The pedagogical approach is eclectic but rooted in the needs of the Western language learner. Content is designed for meaning, authenticity and communication. It integrates the lexical approach, cognitive psychology, and connectivist insights, with a variety of skills (grammatical competence, socio-linguistic competence, strategic competence, etc). - Multi-dimensional Design
Learning objects embrace a diverse selection of activities to accommodate different learning styles and consumption options. They bring together text, with audio and visual elements.
2. Open Community
The MPLS is designed around social object-language learning. The community features support the sharing of knowledge and good learning practices in the mode of a community of practice. As with the social networks, social membership in a learning community creates learning energy and motivation. This builds upon the learning events and on-going activities to create a virtuous circle of social/collaborative learning, motivation, and increased social capital.
Here’s more on how the Open Community works:
Two-way Learner Interaction
Community participation is encouraged at every point: learner-to-learner, learner-to-practitioner, learner-to-content, etc. Learning happens through connections with peers, practitioners and other community members (Knowledge does not reside exclusively with teachers).
The two-way flow informs the Praxis MPLS in several ways:
- Learner participation in the lessons
On lesson release, learners/practitioners un-pack it, add to it, critique them, etc, to ‘complete’ them. - Individual posts/blog
Each learner can post, to comment, ask questions, etc. - User suggestions
Most new lessons come from user suggestions, to ensure that content is relevant to the community. - Conversations
Users can create discussions (around lessons, words, grammar points, or other topics) as they please. - Reviews and rankings
Users review learning materials, language schools, etc.
Learning culture
All communities require shared values and behaviors. Relationships, trust and mutual respect form the basis of a healthy culture.
- Teachers are practitioners and connectors
In a network context, the old teacher/student relationships are neither relevant, nor possible. The role of teachers is to demonstrate, and model the target language, but also to connect learners, content, resources, and challenging new concepts. This approach works particularly well for the dissemination of ‘soft knowledge’ – informing learners of things they need to do, as well as things they need to know. Learning is a conversation. - Communities of practice
The learning culture borrows much from Wenger’s communities of practice. This includes the need to build social capital, and a shared repertoire of tools, concepts and practices that constitute a common vocabulary and make participation more effective. Users need to understand the culture of learning. - Study Groups
Study Groups allows a myriad of smaller communities to form within the MPLS, focused on specific locations, needs, purposes, and study methods. Students in these groups can learn together, and group organizers moderate discussion and re-publish archived learning media into the group, thus drawing fresh attention and decentralizing the creation of learning events. For the broader community, Study Groups offer another level of choice and personalization, and for the group organizer (hobbyists, companies, schools, universities) it turns the PLS into a learning platform that allows them to offer greater benefits to their students
3. Personalization
The MPLS connects the learner to a set of dynamic content and resources for an inquiry-based (exploratory) learning format. Greater choice for the user makers for a much more personal commitment to the learning. The MPLS allows individuals to configure the learning according to their needs
- Personal Guidance
Every learner has the option of receiving personal guidance from an expert teacher, ranging from the opportunity to ask for personal feedback to questions as they arise, to the provision of a detailed study roadmap followed up by daily contact and practice. All guidance is provided through the network, giving students flexibility of time and place. - Individual Assessment
The MPLS offers the learner many options to tailor their learning to meet their goals. Software tests, feedback from review tools, counselor needs analyses and custom tests all assist the learner to focus on the learning media that will most help them. - Custom Courses
The modular lesson format (learning objects) allows for maximum choice, re-mixable lessons, extensive library, and multi-dimensional activities that appeal to different learning styles. - Software Aids
A centralized web platform acts as a lifelong record of study activity (e.g. lessons learned, vocabulary saved, tests completed), as well as a springboard into review and reinforcement activities. - Mobility
The MPLS is channel agnostic and strives to deliver learning materials and social interaction to the student’s preferred media. This could be through a web browser, to an iPod, on a mobile phone, in a customized workbook or CD, on TV or through a learning service/API.
In future posts, Ken will continue to explore the pedagogical side of this approach on his blog, while I will focus on how Praxis applies ‘tech plumbing’ to help realize this approach.
