"Today’s technological version of adaptive learning is at least partly an instantiation of Keller’s Personalized System of Instruction. Like the Keller Plan, a weakness of today’s adaptive learning software is the heavy emphasis on content and curriculum. Through ongoing evaluation of learner knowledge levels, the software presents next step or adjacent knowledge that the learner should learn.
Content is the least stable and least valuable part of education. Reports continue to emphasize the automated future of work (pfdf). The skills needed by 2020 are process attributes and not product skills. Process attributes involve being able to work with others, think creatively, self-regulate, set goals, and solve complex challenges. Product skills, in contrast, involve the ability to do a technical skill or perform routine tasks (anything routine is at risk for automation).
This is where adaptive learning fails today: the future of work is about process attributes whereas the focus of adaptive learning is on product skills and low-level memorizable knowledge. I’ll take it a step further: today’s adaptive software robs learners of the development of the key attributes needed for continual learning – metacognitive, goal setting, and self-regulation – because it makes those decisions on behalf of the learner."