Revitalizing education at all levels and in all subject areas is a major priority in the United States.  To properly educate the leaders of tomorrow, we must move beyond the centuries-old, ingrained paradigm of education that views the process of learning as “one-way street” in which knowledge is transmitted from teacher to learner via paper textbooks and lectures.  Instead, we must provide learners with tools to effectively engage in self-regulated learning outside the classroom.

Despite the promise and some early successes in computer-based personalized learning, many important issues and challenges remain to be surmounted before personalized learning reaches the mainstream.  The goal of this annual workshop is to bring together the intellectual leaders of this new movement in order to exchange ideas, network, and plot a course to the future.

This year’s workshop will focus on how knowledge that has emerged from the science of learning can inform the development of personalized learning systems.  Machine learning algorithms and “big data” have the potential to revolutionize learning, but their application should be based on basic research findings from cognitive science, psychology, and education.  There is a pressing need to explore how research findings from the laboratory can be applied to facilitate learning in dynamic and complicated educational environments.  The workshop will feature leaders in the basic research on the science of learning who will discuss both their recent findings and the potential implications for personalized learning.

The scope of the workshop encompasses PK-12 through college and lifelong learning.  While primarily an in-person event, the lectures will also be webcast and archived for later viewing.

Confirmed Speakers

• Michael Mozer, University of Colorado-Boulder
• Kurt VanLehn, Arizona State University
• Jeffrey Karpicke, Purdue University
• Mark McDaniel, Washington University-St. Louis
• Hal Pashler, University of California - San Diego

Workshop Sponsors

• Rice University Office of the President,
• Rice University Office of the Provost
• George R. Brown School of Engineering
• Ken Kennedy Institute
• Rice Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship.

Workshop Organizers

• Richard Baraniuk, C. Sidney Burrus, Rice University
• Elizabeth Marsh, Andrew Butler, Duke University