Personalized Learning Puts Students In A Class Of Their Own A new learning platform is giving the traditional classroom a radical makeover. Using innovative ICT technology, iClass is putting pupils at the centre of the learning experience and providing them with more control over what they learn. Every parent believes their child is unique. And they are right. In fact, the image of classrooms as ‘knowledge factories’ has not changed much since the Industrial Revolution, despite the major advances in teaching methods that have occurred. “A school is not a factory,” bemoaned British novelist JL Carr in his acclaimed novel, The Harpole Report, which tells the story of a primary school headmaster. In recent decades, learning theories have shifted to a ‘student-centred’ focus, and moved attention away from the teacher, as the imparter of all knowledge and wisdom, towards the pupil or student, while the educator’s role has become more that of a mentor and facilitator. Learning gets personal The path to lifelong learning Nothing like a real teacher
Powering Personalized Learning Infographic K12 Infographics The current way student records and transcripts are managed is insufficient to meet the evolving needs of teachers, students, and parents. Without a robust plan for expanding notions of transcripts, student records and learner profiles, we’ll miss the opportunities for truly personalized learning. The Powering Personalized Learning Infographic presents “data backpacks” as the solution to this problem. Via: digitallearningnow.com Embed This Education Infographic on your Site or Blog! Spotlight on Personalized Learning The Education Week Spotlight on Personalized Learning is a collection of articles hand-picked by our editors for their insights on: Using new technologies and teaching approaches to improve learning in middle schoolsCreating individualized education plans for every studentConducting personalized assessment of studentsCombining face-to-face instruction and online learning Developing online credit-recovery courses to motivate underachieving students You get the nine articles below and a resource guide in a downloadable PDF, a great value! A Vermont initiative to improve learning in middle schools is working through the challenges of using the latest digital tools and different teaching approaches. March 14, 2011 - Education Week Targeting students' individual needs could help build a kind of individualized education plan for every student. January 29, 2010 - Digital Directions Determining what approaches work best when using digital tools to customize education is proving to be challenging.
RtI in a Personalized Learning Environment What is RtI? Response to Intervention (RtI) is multi-level instruction aimed at all students and is required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Learning outcomes cover all required standards, yet the focus is on what is wrong with the child and weaknesses instead of their strengths. Teachers tend to spend more time trying to be compliant filling out forms than working with at-risk students. RtI is classified in three tiers. RtI for All Learners Instead of waiting until a learner fails, you can target each learner's specific learning needs when they need it as they need it. Jim Rickabaugh, Director of the Institute @ CESA #1 wrote in his post Finding Coherence with RtI and Personalized Learning: "An educational system that is designed to support personalized learning is structured differently from the current system. RtI easily fits under the umbrella of Personalized Learning.
Personalized PBL: Student-Designed Learning I wrote a blog about one of the pitfalls of personalization for the ASCD Whole Child Blog. Specifically, that pitfall is the lack of engagement. With all the focus on personalization through time, pacing, and place, it can be easy to forget about the importance of engagement. No matter where students learn, when they learn, and the timing of the learning, engagement drives them to learn. Moving Past "Course-Based" PBL Due to the antiquated restraints of the education system, most educators are forced to implement PBL in a "course-based" manner. Student-Designed Projects Students at Phoenix High School have been engaged in a model similar to the one I've described. My PBL colleague, Erin Sanchez, (formally Erin Thomas), created an amazing graphic of this continuum that shows the power of PBL truly aligned to the learner. Role of the Teacher Not every teacher may be ready to jump into this type of personalization.