APPLICATION OF ADAPTIVE ELECTRONIC LEARNING IN BIOLOGY TEACHING

With the rapid development of information technologies and their application in all the areas of life of a modern man, and in particular with a massive use of the Internet and computers in education, the possibility of developing and implementing the Web-based Learning Systems is emerging. Thus it is possible to develop the Web-based Learning Systems that, in addition to the usual dynamics and interactive components, also have an adaptive component, which means adjusting the choices and ways of presenting the contents to the individual needs of students. Adaptive electronic learning is a form of individualized learning, in which electronic teaching material is adapted to the abilities and interests of every student. Adaptive electronic learning uses an active learning strategy that enables students to control the content, tempo and the scope of learning. It supports the students by providing them with tools and mechanisms with which they can personalize their learning. Due to the complexity of the adaptive electronic learning process, the number of research studies in which this area has been studied is still minor. The results of the available studies have shown that the students’ performance and their learning efficiency increases by adjusting electronic materials to different learning styles. In order to further develop and increase the representation of adaptive electronic learning in the educational process, this paper analyzes the didactic values of implementation of adaptive learning in teaching natural sciences in a primary school, with a special emphasis on Biology teaching. The paper presents an electronic material created according to the model of adaptive learning for the realization of the teaching unit "Classification of living beings" from the Biology curriculum for the primary school in the Republic of Serbia. For the purpose of its design, the Articulate Storyline software tool was used, due to the ease of working with tools and the predefined possibilities of processing the multimedia contents. When creating the educational material, the basic idea was to make an attractive interactive and teaching material, which would rise an interest of students of different backgrounds for independent acquisition of knowledge in Biology.