Stanford’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI) program is one of seven educational technology programs to split a $20 million fund from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
OLI is an online educational platform that enhances classroom learning through digital modules that provide feedback to instructors. Students use the modules to learn and engage with material in an interactive online environment, while activities examine each student’s understanding of key concepts. The instructor uses the data from the platform to design the class and focus on important areas.
Founded by Candace Thille, OLI began 12 years ago at Carnegie Mellon University. Thille brought the program to Stanford one year ago when she joined the Graduate School of Education. Originally, OLI focused mostly on assessing the cognitive process of learning. Since it has come to Stanford, the goal has been to build on its foundation while also exploring theoretical models and psychological assessments. Teams of disciplinary experts, learning researchers and software engineers build environments that can support classrooms anywhere that aim to provide the same experience as a top institution.
“The team designs these interactive environments, and the environments both support the learners but also collect the data to refine the learning environment,” Thille said.
The grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will specifically go towards a module for an introductory statistics course, chosen for its high-enrollment and high-variability. Thille and her colleagues are building upon an existing statistics course and are integrating OLI into another online platform called edX. They will also be enhancing the environments with social-psychological interventions. Ultimately, the module will be used in thousands of classrooms across the nation.
Partners at other institutions offer faculty expertise for content development and use trial modules to gather data and improve strategies. These institutions include universities and community colleges in Maryland, North Carolina and California. The platform is designed to assess students’ specific sub-skills pertaining to larger concepts that they learn in the class, and design teams pool data to focus on refining less effective aspects of the online courses.
OLI also emphasizes the openness of every education environment it develops: Anyone can access its content. The program aims to lead the way in integrating technology into education. The enhanced statistics course which is already being taught at Stanford, and more courses will soon follow.
Thille explained that she considered three main resources through OLI: “What a student can do with their computer, what they can do with their peers, and what a student can do with an expert.” She also highlighted what she believes to be the key question in developing the program.
“What are the affordances and limitations of each of those resources and how can we blend them to create the best learning environment for that student at that point and time?” Thille said.
Contact Alexandra Bourdillon at abourdil ‘at’ stanford.edu.