Intelligent Learning in the Microfinance Sector
Rome (IT), September 2010 - "T2 Teaching Tutoring - Intelligent Agents to customize lifelong learning pathways in the microfinance sector" is supported by the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme. It addresses the needs of European microfinance institutions that provide micro-credit to non-bankable micro-enterprises and low-income and marginalized people. This is a summary of Jenny Petrucci's and Paolo Degasperi's report on the project.
This rapidly growing sector employs MFI professionals who are relatively young, work under diverse national legal frameworks, and adopt different intervention models. Despite a growing demand, training markets neglect to target the diversified training needs of MFI professionals. Many training courses are unaffordable and inaccessible to MFI professionals due to the fact that they are generally offered only in major cities, while most MFI professionals are based in rural areas. In addition, many eLearning courses targeting MFIs offer training that is too standardized and unspecialized.
The T2 project aims at improving the quality and accessibility of training in the microfinance sector by providing a didactic model based on integrating artificial intelligence technology with a blended-learning course. This allows MFI professionals to customize their training path according to their availability and specific needs. The T2 -œSocial Performance Management within the Microfinance Sector- course has been offered in Poland, France, and Italy and delivered in three sessions:
- an online course available to all MFI professionals regardless of their location;
- an on-site workshop to train the teachers from the partners organizations;
- a customized face-to-face session based on each learner's specific needs.
The T2 project is divided into two main phases:
- The first consists of training workshops for teachers in order to train them how to use the T2 system and the data derived from the online assessment paths to design and customize the face-to-face training sessions with the final beneficiaries (MFI professionals).
- The second phase is the delivery of the online training course with the intelligent agent as an assessment tool involving MFI professionals, who will also attend the face-to-face sessions conducted by the teachers.
The project is carried out by a consortium of four complementary partners located in four EU Member States: two Universities specialized in eLearning (Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi - IT and Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia - SP) and two European microfinance networks (Planet Finance - FR and Microfinance Centre - PL).
The eLearning platform is based on the LMS Claroline 2 and is structured in a training area and a communication area. In the framework of concrete learning objectives, the intelligent agents (IA) act as virtual pedagogical characters. IAs are autonomous software systems realized with artificial-intelligence methods that can operate in the training environment as virtual tutors who adaptively assist users in the performance of the training tasks.
They can intervene in case of suboptimal performance, demonstrate skills, provide explanations, answer questions, and play the role of team members in a multi-person task. IAs, represented as virtual humans, take advantage of non-verbal behaviors in order to capture the student's attention on the crucial moments of learning.
In April and May 2010, the T2 course was tested by a number of selected trainees from Italy, France, and Poland who are already employed in an MFI. They had one month and a half to attend the course and complete the intelligent assessment path. Throughout this part of the testing phase, they were constantly monitored by a tutor who would track their performance through the online platform. In this way, the tutors could foster skill building and support trainees during their online course and motivate them at the same time.
The participants all found the course content challenging and applicable to their daily work activities. As to the platform, they found it easy to use in terms of accessibility, flexibility, and available tools. After the tutors gathered all trainees' results through the tracking and reporting system of the Intelligent Assessment Path, they met in Rome to design the face-to-face sessions, which were delivered in May and June.
During these sessions, trainees were extremely engaged and showed a high degree of interest in the topic of the course as well as in the objectives of the project. The sessions were useful to discuss the mistakes made in the online course and gave trainees the chance to revise and understand them with the help of a "real" expert tutor.
