At the recent Educause Learning Initiative meeting in Austin Texas, I came across some very interesting recent randomized control trial results from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. They’re testing a combination of mastery learning plus “amplified assistance” (data-driven suggestions for faculty about who to intervene with and how) in an introductory Psychology course, and, with thousands of students (!!) having run through controlled trials, they’re showing significant improvements in pass rates and long term retention.
It’s great to see this kind of work taking place: a learning institution at scale, using their scale to test out instructional approaches that fit in with learning science in careful ways. And getting good results, creating a runway for more work and impact.