MyGooru provides "GPS for Learning" by creating a unique learning pathway generated by AI that enables everyone to navigate to their learning goals successfully. MERLOT has partnered with MyGooru to leverage MERLOT resources to design and deliver a learning pathway of resources that is affordable and personalized.

The equity gap in higher education must be eliminated if the promise of higher education is to be fulfilled for the diversity of learners and equal opportunities for economic well-being for all is to be achieved. Designing and delivering a personalized learning experience that begins with the unique, existing competencies of the user and enables the user to learn and demonstrate their competencies that represent their achievement of learning outcomes has been a collaborative effort of Gooru and MERLOT-SkillsCommons for over 8 years. With accelerated capabilities of Gen AI, Gooru has accelerated its “GPS for Learning” platform to efficiently and effectively deliver a personalized learning pathway, unique to the users’ needs and goals. Every learner needs to find their way through learning and Gooru provides the personal navigation to learning. Bringing in learning resources from MERLOT that align with the users’ learning needs enriches the learning and keeps it affordable.

The presentation will review Gooru’s learning science parameters (knowledge, abilities, interests, mindsets, and community) that is used to “locate the learner” in the world of learning opportunities. Enabling users to designate their learning competencies that align with the desired academic and/or workforce goals is the next essential function of MyGooru’s “GPS for Learning.” With the definition of the current competencies (beginning where the learners are at) and knowing their personalized learning goals, MyGooru then “plots” a learning pathway that is predicted as an optimal learning pathway given the complex and personal array of parameters with Gen AI. If the learning pathway needs adjustments, based on the users’ performance (such as persistent difficulties in demonstrating their prerequisite competencies), Gooru’s Gen AI will navigate the learning along an alternative and predictively better pathway. The presentation will review the multiple techniques MyGooru uses to motivate users to persist in their learning and develop more confidence in themselves as learners.

Underneath the instructional design of the MyGooru tool is a complex management of all the data that determines the optimization of learning pathways. These analytics are robust and the presentation will review a number of case students that provide evidence of significant acceleration of learning and provide illustrations of MyGooru Insights that are designed to help instructors apply their time and talents to support their students most effectively.

MyGooru can leverage the significant libraries of OER available in SkillsCommons and MERLOT to deliver the free and open content pathways to the learners’ destinations. MERLOT’s over 220,000 registered members will have access to MyGooru to shape their own learning capabilities and find innovative ways to incorporate GPS for Learning into their teaching and learning opportunities. The presentation will review how “CI” (Community Intelligence) can be used to augment the effectiveness of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to produce effective, efficient, enjoyable, and affordable learning experiences.

The presentation will include a demonstration of how MyGooru works and an invitation for participants to try it out on their own devices. At various times during the presentation, the presenter will ask the session participants about their evaluation of the services provided by MyGooru and MERLOT, and about how the cloud-based services could benefit their institution.

Gerry Hanley

Exec. Dir., MERLOT & SkillsCommons; Dir.: CUDA Lab at California State University-Long Beach

Gerry Hanley Ph.D. is the Executive Director of MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, www.merlot.org) and SkillsCommons (www.skillscommons.org) at California State University Long Beach.  At CSULB, Gerry is also the Director of the Center for Usability in Design and Accessibility and Professor Emeritus of Psychology. Gerry’s previous positions included Assistant Vice Chancellor & Senior Director for Academic Technology Services at the CSU Office of the Chancellor. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Experimental/Cognitive Psychology.