Thanks to your support, we are pleased to report our progress!
Halfway through our 2 year long NSF Exploratory Cyberlearning grant, 3 publications, and 20 talks later, we have a much deeper understanding of how online learning environments support self-directed learning and real world problem solving.
Our team followed a design research process to produce - The Loft (to which you’ll be getting an invitation to shortly.)
Not yet publicly released, we currently have over 1100 learners working on 257 innovation projects at over 25 Universities including Northwestern, Stanford, MIT, Vanderbilt, Yale, UC Berkeley, and many others on The Loft.
With such large and rapid adoption, we are able to gather critical feedback necessary for expanding and refining the platform.
We have outlined our current design plans in the attached summary doc. At a high level: (1) The LOFT guides learner-driven projects
through a meta-cognitive process in which leaners: set goals, develop their problem-solving abilities; plan their approach; facilitate team progress, and receive feedback on their approach. (2) The Loft’s tools are designed to encourage and make it easier to use effective teaching practices, such as timely, constructive feedback; learning-from examples, blended-instruction and authentic, motivating tasks.
We'd love your feedback on our future directions: one thing you like and one thing you wish we were doing differently?
After reading and giving feedback, if you remain interested in this project, we invite you to continue to serve on the advisory board for follow up grants. We are actively preparing a Cyberlearning DIP grant to focus on implementation.
Thanks again and we are looking forward to hearing from you!
Matt, Liz, and the Loft Research & Development Team
