Why do teachers implement personalized learning? At a glance, personalized learning sounds like an obviously great idea. Parents want their children to receive personalized instruction throughout the school day. Teachers want to be able to respond effectively to individual students’ strengths and weaknesses. Students want their learning to be relevant to their lives. However, the reality of implementation poses a seemingly insurmountable challenge given schools’ limited time and resources. During our research for The Shifting Paradigm of Teaching: Personalized Learning According to Teachers, we spoke with teachers leading personalized learning transitions in their schools and districts. Here are some of the reasons that teachers committed to the challenge of personalized learning: Personalized learning is simply what is best for kids. For those reasons, and many more, teachers put themselves back in the shoes of a first year teacher as they re-learned how to best meet students’ needs. Written by: Sarah Jenkins
Personalizing the Learning Experience: New Insights from Future Ready Schools – Medium When done well, personalized learning has the potential to radically transform how we teach and learn and how we create more equitable opportunities for students. In the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP), our flagship policy document for educational technology, the U.S. Department Education defines personalized learning: Personalized learning refers to instruction in which the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each learner. On Monday, September 12, we are supporting the White House Next Generation High Schools Summit in bringing together six states and more than 20 school districts to commit to redesigning their high schools. Also, as part of the Education Secretary’s 2016 Opportunity Across America Bus tour, on Tuesday, September 13, we are hosting ConnectED Day to celebrate the three-year anniversary of President Obama’s ConnectED initiative and the two-year anniversary of Future Ready.
Personalized Learning: A Working Definition A group of philanthropies and school and technology advocacy groups, with contributions from educators, compiled a four-part "working definition" of the attributes of personalized learning. They also identified critical questions for K-12 officials to consider in implementing personalized learning. Related Story: What Is 'Personalized Learning'? Educators Seek Clarity Sources: Developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Afton Partners, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, CEE Trust, the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Charter School Growth Fund, EDUCAUSE, iNACOL, the Learning Accelerator, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Silicon Schools, and educatorsDesign & Visualization: Stacey Decker Coverage of personalized learning and systems leadership in Education Week and its special reports is supported in part by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
Can Personalized Learning Flourish Within A Traditional System? | MindShift | KQED News By SARAH GARLAND, The Hechinger Report Can students learn about what they like, at their own pace, and still pass standardized tests at the end of each year? It’s a dilemma facing a growing number of schools and districts that have jumped onto a new tech-fueled trend in education known as “personalized learning.” The goal of personalized learning is to tailor lessons for individual students to help them master content on their own schedule, whether it’s faster or slower than their same-age peers. At its most extreme, personalized learning can also unfetter kids to study whatever they’re most interested in, although experts say most schools still require students to cover key subjects and skills. The new educational philosophy has spread from Maine to Silicon Valley, propelled by new technology making it easier for a classroom of students to work on different tasks and by passionate proponents who see it as the future for an American education system that badly needs updating.
Four Reasons to Worry About "Personalized Learning" Tocqueville’s observations about the curious version of democracy that Americans were cultivating in the 1830s have served as a touchstone for social scientists ever since. One sociologist writes about the continued relevance of what Tocqueville noticed way back then, particularly the odd fact that we cherish our commitment to individualism yet experience a “relentless pressure to conform.” Each of us can do what he likes as long as he ends up fundamentally similar to everyone else: You’re “free to expand as a standardized individual.”[1] A couple of decades ago, that last phrase reminded me of how our pitiful individuality was screwed to the backs of our cars in the form of customized license plates. Today it brings to mind what goes by the name “personalized learning.” A suffix can change everything.
Updated Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization Chart Version 3 Personalization v Differentiation v Individualization (PDI) Chart (Version 3) The PDI chart was created for a reason: to clarify the differences in these terms. In 2010, the National Ed Tech Plan defined all three of these terms as they are related to instruction. We needed to emphasize the differences: Personalization is learner-centered. It has been some time since we initially published the PDI Chart in January 2012. We updated the chart again to version 3 from your feedback. Individualization involves assessment OF learning.
Individualized Instruction Vs. Personalized Learning This is one of those blog posts intended to help me shape my own thoughts – and asks you, “How close I am to the real world of teaching and learning?” With nearly four decades of experience in education, I’ve seen initiatives and memes come and go, pumped up and deflated by the hot and cold air of the education conversation. None of it, quite frankly, has had much effect on my personal philosophies of education – and I suspect the same can be said for many of you. Hopefully, we’ve simply become better at voicing those philosophies. So this morning, I’d like to explore what appears to me to be a passing of conversational energy (hot air) from the term, individualized instruction to personalized learning. The concepts, in my mind, are quite different. So here is a little more breakdown, as I see it, of the differences between personalized learning and individual instruction – acknowledging that this is not strictly an either/or proposition. What do you think? Comments
5 Things You Should Know About Adaptive Learning When we think about popular software, we picture sites like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu: the pros of personalization. As Amazon users shop, they buy everything from toilet paper to college textbooks, dog food, and nutritional supplements depending on lifestyle and AI-generated product recommendations. As viewers watch Netflix, they stream endless hours of reality television or hard-hitting dramas or true-crime documentaries depending on personal preference and, more often than not, previous search requests. These sites don’t discriminate based on age, interests, intellect or socioeconomic status, and neither does adaptive learning, an educational model changing the landscape of learning from a one-size-fits-all atmosphere, to a customized tool for students of all ages. What is Adaptive Learning? Adaptive learning is a technology-based or online educational system that analyzes a student’s performance in real time and modifies teaching methods based on that data.
Personalized Data Units or Personal Learning? – Education Reform – Medium “The assumption here is that curriculum can be broken into little pieces, that skills are acquired sequentially and can be assessed with discrete, contrived tests and reductive rubrics. Tracking kids’ “progress” with digital profiles and predictive algorithms paints a 21st-century gloss on a very-early-20th-century theory of learning.” – Alfie Kohn The semantics of school reform are sometimes deceptive. This is apparent when educators talk about “personalized learning”. Personalized Learning is an attractive proposition that is, in an increasingly number of instances, ironically characterized by an absence of the “personal”. “I’m taken aback by some of the highly packaged ‘’personalized’’ learning systems now being developed …. There’s an oft-quoted, dismissive description of what social scientists do that goes along the mocking lines of, “if it moves, measure it”. We have noted in these first months of the program that there are several spin-off benefits of this work. Like this:
Ten Tips for Engaging the Millennial Learner and Moving an Emergency Medicine Residency Curriculum into the 21st Century personalized learning | Rethinking Learning What is Personalized Learning? Personalized learning means that learning starts with the learner. Learning is tailored to the individual needs of each learner instead of by age or grade level. It is more than teaching the same to everyone or “one size fits all” or even changing furniture. Personalized Learning takes a holistic view of the individual, skill levels, interests, strengths and challenges, and prior knowledge. The learner understands how they learn and is motivated to own and drive their learning. Why do we need to move to Personalized Learning? Schools were designed around the factory model which has been in place for over 130 years. However, each person is unique and needs to be taught in a personalized fashion. The learner needs guidance to break out of the dependent, compliant role and become the owner of their learning. Why has it been so tough to move to Personalized Learning? Teachers, administrators, learners, and parents are all essential pieces of the puzzle.