PERSONALISED E-LEARNING: FACILITATING STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING AND MASTERY OF NEW CONCEPTS

Each individual perceives and experiences life and learning in their own unique way. Past experiences can influence our understanding and mastery of new concepts. Occasionally, learners meet obstacles in their learning experiences which they find difficult to surmount. Not all learners require the same learning experience to reach the required thresholds or basic units of understanding which are expected to succeed with their course of study. Threshold concepts are part of the fundamentals of a subject which one builds upon to eventually achieve the required learning outcomes. The provision of personalised e-learning resources to assist students to surmount their personal learning difficulties could improve student engagement with the required threshold concepts and therefore assist each individual student in achieving their full potential. Tailored learning experiences which have been specifically selected to suit individual students learning requirements could be made available to the students who felt a need to use these resources to help them through frustrating times on route to grasping new concepts. This research reviews the functionality which non-technical educators would need to enable them to create personalised learning resources. The objective is to develop an authoring package which will enable non-technical authors create personalised learning resources and activities. These personalised elearning resources and activities could be used to assist students in grasping a deeper understanding of the threshold concepts required for their discipline. A deeper understanding of the fundamental topics will help students during their progression through the rest of the curriculum and course of study. The authoring package for personalising e-learning should facilitate the creation of personalised learning resources and activities by non-technical authors. A modular approach will be undertaken in the development of this authoring package and evaluations will be conducted on completion of each module. An overall evaluation of this authoring package for personalising e-learning will be undertaken once the package is complete.