Ritsumeikan Moriyama Junior & Senior High School and Inolab Launch Adaptive Learning

I am Sekijima, Senior Consultant at the Open Innovation Lab (InnoLab) of Dentsu Inc. International Information Services (ISID). In a previous InnoLab series, I shared my personal parenting experience and the challenges I faced: "I want children to discover the joy of learning spontaneously," "I want them to acquire knowledge and academic skills at school and then immerse themselves in hobbies and interests after school," and "I want to bridge the gap between children, teachers, and parents." I explained how adaptive learning combined with ICT could address these challenges. Every child has strengths and weaknesses; their interests and optimal learning styles differ. We want to build a system with schools that further develops their strengths while ensuring they thoroughly learn areas needing improvement. I've long hoped to create such a system, and now we've finally taken the first step.

Over the next three installments, we'll introduce the practical project "Adaptive Learning Utilizing SNS," launched in July 2014 by Ritsumeikan Moriyama Junior & Senior High School and Inolab.

Shifting from knowledge-transmission-based whole-class instruction to a student-driven learning style

Ritsumeikan Moriyama Junior & Senior High School, part of the Ritsumeikan University group and located in Moriyama City, Shiga Prefecture, is a coeducational school with approximately 1,500 students. It focuses on "cultivating global talent for the future," "learning that builds solid academic skills," and "learning through experience."

Ritsumeikan Moriyama Junior & Senior High School sought to transition from traditional knowledge-transmission-based lectures to a learning style where students take the initiative. In autumn 2013, they consulted Inolab, believing ICT could be effective for enhancing students' knowledge and academic abilities, fostering habits of self-directed learning, and developing collaborative skills through peer learning.

Inolab, established in April 2011, is an organization that collaborates with professionals from diverse industries to conduct proof-of-concept and joint experiments using cutting-edge technologies, aiming to develop services and commercialize them. Since its inception, it has been researching and developing "edumame," an adaptive learning platform based on SNS. It had prior experience conducting proof-of-concept experiments at a public cram school in the Oki Islands, Shimane Prefecture, as previously introduced.

However, this project was vastly different in both scale and duration. The goal was to provide approximately 500 new junior high and high school students enrolling in April with one tablet per student for use in both classroom instruction and home study.

To achieve this, we had to simultaneously advance several critical tasks: upgrading the school's LAN infrastructure, selecting tablets and handling kitting, negotiating MDM (Mobile Device Management) and insurance coverage, negotiating with textbook publishers, breaking down and digitizing teaching materials, and building the platform itself. We had only three months... (Just thinking about it now makes me break out in a cold sweat).

Therefore, we launched the collaborative practice project "RICS (Ritsumeikan Intelligent Cyber Space)" with the help of specialists from different industries working with Inolab. Through practical implementation in the school setting, we aimed to verify and implement the environment and functions required for adaptive learning.

What is the RICS Project "Adaptive Learning Utilizing SNS"?

RICS has three key features.

First is the adaptive functionality of the content. Digital teaching materials accumulated in the cloud at the problem level present the optimal learning content tailored to each student's academic ability, level of understanding, and learning progress. Teachers and students themselves can select this content and incorporate it into classroom or home learning. Teachers can also upload and distribute their own materials to the cloud. Beyond receiving materials distributed by teachers, students can freely access the teaching material database to learn independently.

Second is collaborative learning through SNS features. Teachers and students, or students among themselves, can connect via learning content. Students can see when friends have already submitted assignments, help each other with problems and solutions, or ask teachers questions about unclear points, creating an environment where students can learn actively.

Third is the visualization of accumulated learning outcomes and activity histories as learning records. Information tailored to the needs of students, parents, teachers, and schools is presented through respective user interfaces. Students can objectively understand their strengths and weaknesses, compare themselves with peers to gain motivation ("I need to try harder!"), or notice aspects not reflected in scores ("I worked so hard, but should I change my study methods?"). Crucially, information sharing between school and home is vital. By praising effort even when it doesn't show in scores, sharing insights from each perspective, and offering encouragement or learning support at the right time for each individual, we can foster students' self-directed learning.

At Ritsumeikan Moriyama, we are exploring ways to develop diverse learning approaches using data analysis technology. This includes creating portfolios from this data in the future to support learning guidance within our integrated junior high, high school, and university education system.

Through practical implementation in school settings, Inolab will verify and implement the environments and functions required for adaptive learning, clarifying the necessary resources, costs, and responsible parties for ICT introduction and operation in schools.

What is Ritsumeikan Moriyama Junior & Senior High School's RICS Implementation Plan?

In the 2014 academic year (the first year), all first-year junior high and high school students and their teachers, totaling approximately 500 individuals, will each have a tablet. The program will start with two subjects: English and Mathematics. Subsequent years will see the program expanded to new students and their teachers each year, reaching all 1,500 students by April 2016. Subjects and content providers will be expanded incrementally (anticipating multi-OS and multi-device support).

The schedule leading up to the RICS launch is as follows:
May: Environment setup, teacher training (iPad basics and case studies), student information ethics training.
June: iPad distribution to students; learning about iPad features and operation; RICS training for teachers.
July: Implementation begins. Use in class, homework and review at home, self-directed learning, summer assignments, etc.

Teachers rejoice at the students' cheers and smiles!!

Mid-June: The RICS app was installed on each student's tablet.
"Yay, the RICS app is installed!"
To the students' voices,
"Don't get too excited. I'll be assigning tons of work!"
Witnessing this uniquely Kansai-style teacher-student exchange made us laugh out loud, while also making us truly feel we'd taken a big step forward.

Next time, we'll share how the teachers are doing.