Designing Personalised Learning for Adult Learners in the Higher Education Setting

Colloquium
Jennifer Yeo,  Yan Yin Ho,  Evelyn Gay,  Shih-Ying Yao  

This colloquium consists of four papers that describe how various models of personalised learning are designed to support adult learners in their challenging quest for up/reskilling amidst competing demands from work, study and family in a higher education setting. The first paper (Adult Students’ Experience with Microlearning in Higher Education) discusses a mass personalization design based on bite-size learning, where learning materials are chunked into small sizes to provide learners the flexibility to learn during available small pockets of time. The second paper (Examining Personalised Learning in a Work-Study Arrangement in a Tertiary Setting) presents a mass customization approach to learning, where each adult educator's learning experience is made unique and personalized based on their specific workplace problems and interactions with their mentors as they draw their learning from common knowledge base. The third paper (Empowering Personalised Learning: Facilitating Socratic Inquiry using Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools as a Tutor) discusses how learners can leverage ChatGPT as a personal tutor through Socratic questioning. The fourth paper (Personalised Academic Coaching to Support Adult Learner in Tertiary Education) presents a bespoke academic coaching programme offered to adult learners taking part-time undergraduate programs to support them to become more effective and efficient learners. The papers suggest that these personalized learning models can come together synergistically as an ecosystem to enhance adult learners' experience in the higher education setting that supports learning flexibility and adaptivity.