At the end of each lesson, BuildUp provides a recommendation of another concept to work on.
Also, on the Topic page, BuildUp highlights a concept in each Topic that is most suitable for each student.
So, how does it do this? And why?
Personalised learning paths
Every student builds their knowledge by relating it to what they already know. And only by building fluency in earlier topics will they have the mental capacity to take on new ideas. These are the well-researched ideas behind mastery learning.
By building confidence and fluency at earlier concepts, students will become much more effective learners. Conversely, misconceptions from earlier in the course can start to have very negative and demotivating effects if they are not identified and addressed.
How does BuildUp recommend a concept?
In general, a student will start at the beginning of a topic and work forward. If the student is doing well, they will keep moving forward, and stay on closely related concepts.
If a student is struggling on a concept, they may be recommended to
- revise an earlier concept, if it looks like they need to reinforce that before continuing
- repeat this concept, if they are gradually getting there but need more practise
- try a different concept; often a topic may have several "branches" that are not dependent on each other, and a change would help rebuild their confidence
The recommendations take into account the map of the curriculum, which tracks the relationships and dependencies between concept on the curriculum. The recommendations also take into account the learning patterns of all other students, and what recommendations have worked well in the past.
What about a teacher's input?
The class teacher will always take precedence over the BuildUp recommendations. By setting Assignments, the student is always pointed towards the concept that the teacher has set, instead of at the BuildUp recommendation. In this way, the teacher has the option to directly control the path of the student.