Learner Profiles: the missing piece in learning innovation

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As individuals move through life, learning is now a constant need. Traditionally, learning has been captured in the form of grades and transcripts. Continual life long learning, however, requires different mechanisms for communicating capabilities, mindsets, and competencies. Learner profiles have been explored from various lenses and a clear, generally accepted, framework does not yet exist. Attempts at learner modelling, learner records, and learning graphs indicate a growing awareness of the need to develop a persistent profile of what a learner has learned.

As individuals move between various stages of life – from K-12 to higher education, higher education to industry, and industry to reskilling – a learner profile would enable personalised learning and a record that accounts for what is learned outside of classrooms and formal education. For educators, learner profiles improve time to competence and ensure granular assessment. For state and national agencies, profiles provide a more nuanced assessment of learning gains within a system than current standard country-level comparisons. For learners, profiles improve quality of instruction, less time wasted on things already mastered, and greater recognition of learning that isn’t confined to classrooms. For researchers, profiles enable a deeper understanding of how learners learn, where interventions are most impactful, and ways to adjust and improve pedagogy and learning design.

This webinar will explore the history of learner profiles, detail actual work being conducted, and set the stage for future innovations and longer term systemic impact.

Date: Wednesday 21 September 2022, 8am – 9am (AEST)

Moderator: George Siemens, Professor University of Texas at Arlington, University of South Australia

Panel: Vitomir Kovanovic (University of South Australia), Judy Kay (University of Sydney), Hassan Khosravi (University of Queensland), and Maria Langworthy (Microsoft)

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