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Adapt Courseware Announces Grants for Large-Scale Adaptive Instruction

Program Will Award up to $20,000 to Each Recipient Institution to Further Explore Student Satisfaction, Completion and Retention Rates, and Measureable Learning Outcomes

Rochester, NY – February 18, 2013 – Adapt Courseware, the provider of comprehensive adaptive online curriculum resources that individualize each student’s learning experience, has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for its Scalable Adaptive Learning Research Grants. The program provides a new opportunity for innovative institutions to improve student satisfaction, course completion, and retention using adaptive learning strategies on a large-scale in a sustainable way. Proposals are due to the evaluation committee on or before March 18, 2013.

Qualified institutions, departments, faculty members, or teams of faculty members are invited to submit an RFP. Select institutions will be awarded up to $10,000 each for the implementation and study of Introduction to Psychology and $10,000 for Introduction to Sociology, with 300 to 1000 credit-seeking students per section. Proposers may focus applications on one subject, or apply for up to $20,000 for both subjects.

“Although there have been advancements in online learning with regards to accessibility and flexibility, little research exists that speaks to its real effectiveness in meeting the individual needs of students in a large-scale setting,” said Dr. John Boersma, founder and CEO of Adapt Courseware, and a former university faculty member. “For example, the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has helped elevate online learning on the national stage and created opportunities for scale in higher education, yet because they are not generally credit-bearing courses and do not charge for instruction, there are significant open questions regarding their outcomes.”

Adapt Courseware has conducted prior testing, which indicates that its adaptive learning platform and approach provide measurable increases in student satisfaction, learning outcomes, course completion rates, and re-registration rates when measured against a comparison online section using more traditional, non-adaptive instructional methods. The Scalable Adaptive Learning Research Grants aim to determine the extent to which these results apply to a variety of higher education settings and larger course sections.

Boersma continued, “Our goal is to explore further these results, demonstrating that measurable learning outcomes using adaptive learning strategies are not only possible in large-scale instances, but quite attainable. We have designed our courseware and entire business model to more effectively serve large student populations in general education courses with an individualized learning experience, while improving an institution’s academic and budgetary results.”

Grant recipients, which must be two- and four-year regionally accredited colleges and universities, will be required to implement a pilot session for the Summer 2013 term, followed by one or more large-scale sessions for the Fall 2013 term. For more information on the RPF process and Adapt Courseware’s individualized approach to learning, please visit: http://adaptcourseware.com/researchgrants/.

About Adapt Courseware
Adapt Courseware individualizes the learning experience for each student based on academic abilities and needs. The company offers complete, customizable, adaptive online curriculum resources that combine proven learning science with advanced multimedia techniques to help students achieve mastery learning. With Adapt Courseware, colleges and universities can realize measurable learning outcomes, increased student retention, and higher student satisfaction.

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