Outcomes-Driven Fulcrum Labs Wins 5 Brandon Hall 2019 HCM Excellence Awards

The Brandon Hall Group just announced the winners of its 2019 Human Capital Management (HCM) Excellence Awards and Fulcrum Labs has won five new honors, bringing our total “Brandon Haul” to 16 awards over the past three years.

This year’s HCM wins include:

• Gold – Best Use of a Blended Learning Program
• Gold – Best Advance in Learning Technology Implementation
• Silver – Best Advance in Competencies & Skills Development
• Silver – Best Advance in Creating a Learning Strategy
• Bronze – Best Advance In Machine Learning and AI

The HCM Excellence Awards winners personify innovation that drives business results.” – Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group

Driving business results, delivering on KPIs and improving learning outcomes is part of Fulcrum’s overarching mission. In fact, we earned this set of awards for delivering on the most critical KPIs of one partner, the Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM), one of the nation’s premier aviation mechanic training programs. The HCM Excellence Awards recognized Fulcrum Labs and AIM for our continued work on AIM’s FAA mechanic certification preparation program.

This program leverages Fulcrum’s AI-powered, Adaptive 3.0 learning platform to help AIM prepare learners at its 12 campuses nationwide to sit for and pass critical FAA certification exams. First implemented in 2017, the program increased AIM program graduates, increased exam participation rates by 25% and improved certification pass rates by more than 46%.

Building on our initial success, we’ve worked with our counterparts at AIM to continually refine the program –delving deeply into learner and content data to determine opportunities for program improvement, increased efficacy and new AIM corporate goals. For example, AIM hopes to increase pass rates by an additional 25 percent by 2021, moving the aviation industry toward unprecedented certification rates and filling a persistent and critical skill gap that has plagued the industry for years.

Our analysis and its resulting insights have changed AIM’s strategy in the following ways:

Content Efficacy

Using year one data, Fulcrum’s AI flagged 40 Problematic assessments for review and leveraged them as opportunities to “deepen the adaptive stack.” In this case, once all of the 40 questions were reviewed for accuracy, Fulcrum collaborated on 5 new “cloned” assessments for each – 2 at the same Bloom’s level and 3 others at varying levels. The goal was four-fold:

• To provide a better performing assessment 
• To provide learners who are struggling in these specific areas a more robust scaffolding to help them master the skill and gain confidence, which often means a bit more practice
• To improve the course experience by removing problematic content
• To improve course credibility and, in turn, AIM reputation via word-of-mouth

Deployment Strategy/Broadened Access

Based on performance increases for graduating students, AIM adjusted its training strategy to provide students access to Fulcrum’s training platform within the initial learning process (rather than strictly as an FAA test-prep tool for students after they completed all coursework). This helped AIM students better build their confidence, master the FAA certification content, and transfer their practical knowledge to the theoretical questions on the written certification exams as they progress through the coursework – rather than just at the end of the two-year program.

Another way that AIM is broadening student access to the Fulcrum Platform is through make up work. For the first time ever, when students miss class, AIM will allow them to learn/review the content they missed within the Fulcrum Platform, making it easier for students to stay on track and get up to speed with the content they need to learn.

Finally, the Fulcrum-powered program will be used for the first time this fall as a dual enrollment option for high school students, serving as a effective feeder into AIM’s full time program after completing the General certification.

Student Dashboard for Self-Remediation

Based on learner feedback, Fulcrum developed a brand new feature in its learner dashboard: Pathway To Mastery. The goal is to help learners efficiently and effectively review material and self-remediate knowledge gaps identified by the platform’s AI. This reduces the need for instructor intervention and allows the learners greater ownership of the learning process and material—boosting confidence and increasing subject-matter mastery. The platform’s learner dashboard will alert learners to their specific areas of weakness. Learners will then be empowered to pursue their own path to mastery with the support of Fulcrum’s competency-based methodology.

Dramatic Results

As a result of these changes, in 2018 AIM experienced:

• An increase in the amount of graduates getting licensed: From 358 in 2014 to 715 in 2018—that’s twice as many licensees annually
• Improved market share of licensees: in 2014, only 5.3% of those getting licensed came from AIM.  By 2018, it nearly doubled to 10.4% of those students getting certified nationwide came from AIM campuses

The Future is Bright

AIM predicts that, with Fulcrum, the future will be even more productive, estimating:

• An increase in the number of program graduates – from 1,034 in 2014 to 1,450 in 2019
• An increase in market share of licensees of 13-14% with between 870 and 1015 AIM graduates predicted to obtain certification

“The success of our partnership with Fulcrum Labs has empowered us to set new, exciting goals for our company. Armed with this technology, we’re committed to producing 20 percent – or one in every five – of all FAA certified aviation mechanics for the industry by 2021.” – Joel English, Vice President at AIM

For more information about these awards, visit: http://www.brandonhall.com/excellenceawards/past-winners.php