What is Personalized 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. Most U.S. schools are based on this model and focus too much on teaching to the test. Learners are unchallenged and unengaged by traditional models so they are searching for any alternative that they know: online courses, home schools, or maybe even dropping out. As a result, too many schools are closing and too many teachers are leaving the profession or being laid off. When this happens, communities suffer.

However, each person is unique and needs to be taught in a personalized fashion. After years of teaching “one size fits all,” and seeing it fail, learners are demanding to meet what they want to learn and address their personal needs. We cannot continue to teach out-dated strategies to prepare learners for their future. Instead, we need to create a different mindset that recognizes and validates each student as a learner.

The learner needs guidance to break out of the dependent, compliant role and become the owner of their learning. Personalizing learning will help your students increase their scores because they will own their learning. As a result, they will use higher-order thinking skills that they will need to be global citizens and future ready for today’s and tomorrow’s workplace.

Why has it been so tough to move to Personalized Learning?

Teachers have mentioned to me that they were not taught to teach personalized learning strategies or understand how they can incorporate it within the constraints of everything they are expected to do. Teachers need help in designing strategies that encourage students to take responsibility for their learning. Yet, educators only know what they know and don’t know what they don’t know.

Teachers, administrators, learners, and parents are all essential pieces of the puzzle. Parents know their children but only know how they themselves were taught and may not be aware of learner-centered strategies. Additionally, administrators have so much to do and are overwhelmed with the task of just managing the school. Teachers are busy with full class sizes and testing demands. Students are losing interest in school and many are not motivated to learn. As a result, many schools feel it is easier to continue with the “status quo” and traditional school fundamentals even if they are not improving test scores or preparing children for what they need.

What does Personalized Learning look like?

A personalized learning environment is competency-based where students progress at their own pace instead of by their age or grade levels. There is no more “mandated” seat time. The learner has their own learning path with multiple strategies and resources to meet their different learning needs. This changes the teacher role and the whole learning environment.A school doesn’t look like “traditional school” anymore.

Learners are co-designers of the curriculum with the teachers. Teachers are co-learners with the learners. The teacher doesn’t have to be the hardest working person in the classroom; the learners need to be. They want to learn because they have a voice and choice about the topic and understand what they need to learn based on how they learn best. They want to succeed so they try harder. They succeed because they designed their learning goals.

Want to personalize learning for your students?

Here are some strategies that can help you on your journey to personalize learning:

• Design a pre-assessment to determine the current status of teaching and learning.
• Create the shared vision with all of your stakeholders for your new direction.
• Help teachers understand how the brain works and how learners learn best.
• Design learner profiles for your students.
• Provide research on personalized learning and what it could look like in their school.
• Demonstrate how to make this change in the classroom.
• Design project-based learning with student voice and choice.
• Video the process and interview teachers and students on the journey to personalize learning.
• Coordinate a showcase and online space to demonstrate evidence of learning.
• Design and implement a post-assessment to measure success.

If you find you need support on your journey to personalize learning, please reach out to me. Personalized learning makes it fun for everyone to want to learn including you.

Read my post about 5 Reasons to Personalize Learning. Check back for more details about each of the reasons and more resources to support you on your journey to personalizing learning.

Barbara Bray

 

10 Strategies To Get to Know Your Students and Create an Inclusive Learner-Centered Culture

I remember being handed a book of policies and procedures to cover each day for the first week of school. Although the expectation at the beginning of the year (or semester) was always to cover the syllabus and get to the curriculum, I have never regretted making the decision to minimize the policies and maximize the time I spent building relationships. Learning names, seeing students as individuals, co-creating community guidelines, establishing jobs, and greeting students daily were foundational to developing relationships and creating the classroom culture.

My husband, a 10th-grade teacher, told me recently that he decided to start the year by having students share their strengths.  I love this idea but was shocked when he told me that half of his students didn’t feel that they had a strength to share. Just think about this for a minute– if students have made it through school and don’t have an idea of what their strengths are, we have failed them!

Committed to getting to know his students and having them identify their own strengths, he asked them to come back the next day ready to share something with the class. He shared how students came back the next day and juggled for the class, showed videos or demonstrated their dancing, skateboarding, speaking different languages and many more.  Although these students had a variety of talents, they hadn’t thought of them as strengths or that they made them special. The relationships and community were instantly different as each student was recognized and celebrated.People are more confident, passionate, and do better work when you focus on what’s right with them instead of what’s wrong with them. Creating a learning community that empowers learners to develop the skills and talents to manage themselves and build on their assets, rather than dwells on their deficits, maximizes the motivation, contribution, and impact of all learners.

Here are 10 strategies that you can use to get to know your students and continue to build relationships throughout the year in any learning environment:

10 Things I Need to Know About You 

A teacher shared with me that he changed his beginning of the year survey from standard questions like How many siblings do you have?,  What are your favorite subjects? and so on to an open-ended list of the “Top 10 things I Need to Know About You.”  Instead of static answers such as 2 brothers and art, he got responses like: It takes me an hour and a half to get to school each day.  My parents just got divorced. It takes me longer to figure things out and so I am quiet but I really do care about school. I love drawing. There are multiple ways to connect and get to know learners to better support them and often it begins with asking the questions and being willing to listen and connect. 

When we know our strengths and others do too we can be more open about how we can work together to accomplish our goals and more transparent about our needs.

Family Meetings

In the spring a group of teachers I was working with decided to check in on students at their homes and bring them some resources. They thought they were connected to students and knew them well but they learned more about their students and deeper empathy for them having connected with families and seeing their homes. Their students appreciated the effort and felt seen and cared about. They shared that it was the best thing for building relationships and better understanding their students and they wished that they had done it sooner. Teachers who do home visits to get to know their new students each year and acknowledge that it is an extra effort, but it makes a huge impact (for middle or high school, this might only be reasonable for your advisory group but still important). Although home visits are not always possible in many contexts, you can schedule a virtual call to check in with families or set up a space at school to meet up, connect and provide resources and materials that students will need with a personal touch that will set you and the students up for success. 

Empathy Interviews

Empathy interviews are a great way to just listen and understand your students and their families. You can do this in person or virtually but spending at least 30 minutes with your students is a powerful way to get to know them. You could also use these questions if you meet with families. Building empathy for your families and students will help you develop stronger relationships so you can better guide and support students in their academic and social-emotional goals.  Here are a few questions to ask:

• Tell me about yourself?
• What do you like about school?
• What do you not like?
• What have you been learning?
• What are you curious about?
• When have you felt the happiest? What do you enjoy doing?
• What can I do to support you this year?
• What ideas do you have to improve school?

One on One or Small Group Check ins

To ensure meaningful learning, we have to know the learners, help them understand and leverage their strengths, identify and work towards goals that matter to them and ensure they persist through challenges and setbacks. You can’t do this without building relationships first and maintaining them throughout the learning process. In lieu of a class period, could you take time to reach out and connect with each student? Both of my kids’ teachers schedule regular check ins and I did this in my graduate school course. It has changed the dynamic of the relationships and it is something I will do moving forward with every class.  Scheduling time with each student to connect, learn more about their circumstances, their goals, and ideas, created a different dynamic that built empathy and allowed for more personalization and meaningful connection. Students also recommend, reaching out via text, calling them or just checking in every so often to make the personal connection. 

Co-create Community Guidelines 

From day 1, it was important students felt that the classroom was ours, not mine.  The process of co-creating the community guidelines was modeled in my teacher education program and so it was only natural to do the same for my students.  I asked them to think about how they wanted to be treated and how they wanted to treat others in our community.  First, students independently reflected, then they shared in small groups, and finally, we put the big ideas into a list of 4-6 community guidelines.  Each class made a poster and they varied across the 5 classes, just like the kids, but ultimately helped establish the culture for each group. We all signed the poster that each class made and hung it up on the wall to remind us of our agreements with one another. 

Teach and Use Emotion Vocabulary

The Mood Meter, is an evidence-based grid of emotions. That helps you identify the “coordinates” to your current emotional state based on pleasantness and energy. The following description represents each of the quadrants. Yellow Zone (high energy, high pleasantness): pleasant, happy, joyful, hopeful, focused, optimistic, proud, cheerful, lively, playful, excited, thrilled, inspired etc. Links to Heart-Mind quality Alert & Engaged. 

• Green Zone (low energy, high pleasantness): at ease, calm, easygoing, secure, grateful, blessed, satisfied, restful, loving, balanced, comfy, cozy, carefree, mellow, thoughtful, serene, etc. Links to Heart-Mind quality Secure & Calm. 
• Red Zone (high energy, low pleasantness): peeved, annoyed, irritated, worried, frightened, jittery, tense, troubled, angry, furious, panicked, stressed, anxious, etc. 
• Blue Zone (low energy, low pleasantness): apathetic, bored, sad, down, uneasy, miserable, depressed, disheartened, exhausted, hopeless, alienated, despondent, despair, etc. 

Many teachers use it to check in with students, have them identify where they are walking in the door, or also to help them regulate their own emotion in the app.  The mood meter is about helping people (students and adults) name and identify emotions to become more aware of emotions, their impact so that individuals can choose to respond appropriately. 

You can use this as a daily check in or you can use it to debrief big events. Amy Fast, author and high school principal, shared how the mood meter helped their community to debrief the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Social Studies teachers facilitate a discussion and allowed students to process and use the mood meter to reflect and share how they were feeling.

Having a shared language to or images to talk about feelings can help build community, shared understanding and support to process the emotions appropriately. 

Establish Classroom Jobs 

As a teacher, I loved having classroom jobs. I created a list and students applied for the ones they were interested in.  I tried to match the kids and the jobs and they typically got one of their top 3 choices. This created a sense of ownership for the students and they were empowered to take on responsibilities that helped make the classroom learning community function.  Students had jobs like classroom photographer, greeter (for guests), birthday celebrator, historian, we even had a poetry reader that would kick off class and this ended up being a saving grace. Students would stop to listen to their peers and I never had to quiet the class, especially coming back from lunch. In a remote a or hybrid setting, there are different jobs but still very important like having helpers get class started with a connector activity, take attendance, or manage the chat, or check in on friends. There are so many ways that students can help!

Learning Circles 

One way that I love to connect learners is through learning circles or collaborative groups. It can be a text that they read, a common challenge they are working on, or anything but they meet regularly to check-in and learn together based on your goals and objectives, or theirs. This can be done virtually in small breakout groups that you manage or kids can set up on their own.

The teacher plays a pivotal role in connecting with individual students and their families, while also creating a community where students develop relationships with one another. The first few weeks are crucial as we get to connect with students and as a teacher, and remember that as the role of the educator evolves, human connection and guidance will become increasingly more- not less- important.

Show and Tell

Show and tell doesn’t have to stop after Kindergarten. Creating a place for students to chat and share what they are learning and doing in an asynchronous way can be a great way to connect kids without having a set meeting time. Just like many teachers have places in their classrooms for kids to share ideas, class challenges, or share pictures. A virtual space for this can make kids feel connected to you and the community. A high school teacher shared how she initially built a community by having students bring something to share and she continued to build on this practice once they felt comfortable with one another and speaking to the class. Next they picked a topic that they wanted to discuss from current events and practiced speaking, listening and connecting by sharing things that they cared about. When she wanted them to discuss their literary analysis, they were already connected, had built confidence and were able to share their ideas with an inclusive learning community.

Love Board

In Encinitas Union School District, the 6th grade team at Flora Vista Elementary School has created a learner-centered culture and on one of their walls they have a LOVE board where students can bring in things they love and are passionate about to share with the class. The wall is full of pictures, quotes, and is inclusive of the identities and interests of the diverse students. 

Our relationships and connections are built and sustained over time through opportunities to connect, discuss, and do things that matter. 

Belonging Versus Fitting In

In Daring Greatly, Brene Brown shares what she learned about the difference between fitting in and belonging from middle school students, who might be more consumed with this than any age group on the planet, but if we are honest, a little middle schooler lives in all us.

Here is what they said:

• Belonging is being somewhere where you want to be, and they want you. 
• Fitting in is being somewhere you really want to be, but they don’t care one way or the other.
• Belonging is being accepted for you. 
• Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else.
• I get to be me if I belong. I have to be like you to fit in.
  

The difference between how one behaves when they belong versus when they are trying to fit in should make us all pause and reflect: Are we creating the conditions where people feel like they belong? When young people (and adults) feel pressured to fit in ways that are not healthy to their overall identities around gender, physical appearance, color of skin, sexuality and other aspects of themselves, they are not at optimal emotional states to learn, grow and contribute meaningfully. Given what we now know about the influence of our environments on learning, it seems clear that creating an equitable and inclusive learning community shouldn’t be an add-on when it is foundational to learning and living our lives to our fullest potential.

Kristi Wilson - Personalized Learning: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Personalized Learning:  Opportunities and Pitfalls

 

“Know thyself!” is one of the most famous quotes in human history. However the principle behind Socrates’ sage teaching applies not just to the individual, but to the organization, system, or field as a whole.  It is imperative that we approach each promising opportunity with a clear-eyed knowledge of our field’s past, present and future.  This will allow us to maximize potentially positive outcomes and avoid mistakes that can undermine innovations that, with clearer foresight, might have come much closer to being the panacea we had all hoped it to be - before it assumed its place alongside myriad other well-intentioned and highly defensible efforts.

Nothing excites me more than the idea of innovation in education; we are a field in need of leaps forward in how we view, execute, and measure our work.  Of the innovations earning the most deserved praise is the concept of personalized learning, an approach that seems so obviously logical on its surface that it seems shocking to a reflective practitioner that it has not already entrenched itself into the schema of our field.  It is clearly logical to assume that if we wish to help students understand learning outcomes, we should accept that the pathways to that outcome may look markedly different for each child. 

And, to be blunt, it is logical.  And ethical.  So what is the issue?

As usual, there is not a simple answer to that question, but it is up to us to find the answers.  I would assert that we have a system built for the collective whole, including measurement systems that value, rate, and compare against an “average” expected performance for a student of a given age.  Even in a standards driven curriculum, the foundations of what a student “should” know or be able to do at a given age are based on implied averaging against a group norm.  Although these methods, particularly when it comes to large-scale assessment, serve the collective purpose well, it pays little attention to the individual.  The individual is sometimes sacrificed because, well, it works for many others.  This is in deep contrast to the concept behind personalized learning, which asks educators to allow for individuality in path and pace.  So, an obvious challenge exists: how do we embed something that can be at odds with pieces of the system in which it lives?

Although I do not have a prescription to serve as the unifying solution, I would encourage us to learn from prior experiences and not simply put it on the teacher through the “leader develops awareness of a solution > leader connects to a vendor peddling solutions to district, or leader directs staff to implement said innovation > district expects sites and teachers to make the dream a reality.  Much like the earlier stages of differentiation models which, in theory, solved many issues of individual learners yet was often found too cumbersome and difficult to implement at a rate of high scale, personalized learning is logical, intuitive outside of education, and yes, aligns even with the neuroscience of learning. 

That makes it obvious, but it does not make it easy.

As leaders, I would encourage us to recognize the significant potential of personalized learning, particularly in light of emerging technologies that can support implementation and lift some of the burden from the teacher.  However, we must be cautious that we do not chase the “next thing” to a point where we do not see hindrances or challenges that may doom a worthy pursuit.  We must scrutinize our own systems, be healthy skeptics about packaged “solutions,” empower practitioners to help design implementation models, and constantly ask ourselves how we can help clear obstacles at either a local, state, or federal level.  

I am bullish on this moment in time and the opportunities related to personalized learning that await.  After all, nothing empowers learners to know themselves more than a personalized learning plan.  Socrates may never have actually said it, but I think he would agree that the only thing better than an individual knowing thyself, is when others have the same window into their own minds.  Let’s seize this opportunity with clear eyes, informed by our own experiences as a field, and shoulder-to-shoulder with each other, as we interrogate a system that possesses inherent barriers to the success of personalized learning.  We stand to play a pivotal role in making personalized learning for all a reality. 

5 Reasons to Personalize Learning

 5 Reasons to Personalize Learning

Personalizing learning means different things to different people. The idea I want to share behind personalized learning is to empower learners including you as a learner to own and drive learning. That’s not easy especially when teachers have so much on their plates. It could be easier to continue with the status quo. But the teachers I know want the best for all of their learners. This post is to provide a few reasons to consider when you personalize learning.

1. No one is average.

In Dr. Todd Rose’s book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World the Values Sameness, he explains why we came to embrace the scientifically flawed idea that averages can be used to understand individuals. Rose offers a powerful alternative with three principles of individuality: the jaggedness principle (talent is never one-dimensional), the context principle (traits are a myth), and the pathways principle (we all walk the road less traveled). He explains that we are all unique and can take full advantage of individuality to gain an edge in life.

So why is this one of my reasons to personalize learning? I believe each of us is unique and all of us are learners. When I read Dr. Rose’s book, he explained about variability and why education has to change to meet the needs of each individual learner.

“Why is there no average learner?”

2. The Myth of Learning Styles.

We are all unique as Dr. Rose mentioned in his book, End of Average. Because of who we are and how we all learn in different ways, learners have preferences about how they learn. According to the authors [Riener and Willingham, 2014], whether we call it talent, ability, or intelligence, people vary in their capacity to learn different areas of content, differ in their background knowledge, and, intertwined with ability, they differ in their interests. When we identify a learner as one learning style over another, it does not follow the research about how the brain works. We use all of the modalities because that is how our brain works.

So why is this one of my reasons to personalize learning? I’ve seen so many learners labeled visual or kinesthetic so teachers differentiated instruction based on one or two labels. All of us have multiple dimensions that make us who we are. Most of us are visual learners unless we cannot see. Even blind people visualize in their heads what they are seeing. I will be writing more about this, but I hope schools rethink why they should not use learning styles to label a child.

“Why are learning styles debunked?”

3. How our Brain Learns.

Learning is a neurobiological process indicated by the growth and strengthening of connections between neurons. The brain is constantly changing which is called neuroplasticity. This means the brain can be improved and continues to adapt and learn through life even into our old age. The human potential for learning is limitless at any age. When you learn something new, your brain makes new connections. Your brain is even active when you reflect on your learning. You learn when your brain is active especially when learners ask questions, investigate, create, or reflect on their learning. Passive exposure or listening to a lecture does not necessarily lead to learning.

So why is this one of my reasons to personalize learning? Our brain is constantly changing as we learn. When a school or parent believes that a child is born with certain traits or talents, this can cause the child to believe that’s all they are. This happened to me. I was told I wasn’t very smart. I believed that during most of my school. My parents always believed in me and fought for me. And, on my own, I read and was hungry to learn. So I did. I was lucky to have parents who believed in me and a teacher who believed in my writing. I finally realized that I could learn anything if I put my mind to it. So now I write, share, and learn something new every day. I know that every child can learn because their brain is growing and learning every day. All children can learn if we give them opportunities and the support they need.

“How does the brain work?”

4. Universal Design for Learning® as the Framework

David Rose and Ann Meyers from The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) founded Universal Design for Learning® (UDL)  based on decades of brain research and the neuroscience of individual differences, human variability, and how we learn. UDL is about reducing or eliminating the barriers to learning and optimizing levels of support to meet the needs and interests of all learners in the classroom. They realized that the curriculum, not the learner, was the problem. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional methods, materials, and assessments that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

So why is this one of my reasons to personalize learning? We need to put more energy into finding out how children learn best. Universal Design for Learning does that. The three principles, Multiple Means of Engagement, Multiple Means of Representation, and Multiple Means of  Action and Expression, pave the way. All three of the principles work together, but when you start with the “Why” of what engages you to want to learn, nothing can stop you. It is about encouraging curiosity and wonder. That passion to learn is what is so exciting about personalized learning.

“How can we reduce barriers to learning?”

5. Accountability vs. Responsibility

The word “responsibility” tends to be interchangeable with the word “accountability.” In many cases, teachers feel they are the ones responsible for students to learn. The reason is that the system seems to hold them and the school accountable for what students learn. “Accountability” refers to making, keeping, and managing agreements and expectations where “responsibility” is the feeling of ownership. So this means that each learner needs to be held accountable for what they learn by taking responsibility for their own learning.

So why is this one of my reasons to personalize learning? If the teacher is the hardest person working in the classroom, then who are the people really learning? Learning is not about passively receiving information. When the teacher is the one held accountable for what kids learn, then learning becomes work, not fun for both the teacher and learners. When our kids have a voice and choice in what and how they learn, they want to learn. They are motivated to learn. When they realize learning is for them not for a grade or for the teacher, they own it and develop agency.

“Who owns the learning?”

Students Learning About Themselves as Learners Assists Personalizing Learning

 

Do Your Students Know Themselves as Learners? Three Tips To Help Your Students Discover Their Learning Styles.

The beginning of the school year is upon us and I see you, hardworking educators. I see you planning lessons and preparing your classroom for new learners. You are collecting supplies, organizing textbooks, and thinking through the best way to get to know your students.

This year, consider this new, two-part challenge: Get to know your students as learners and then help students know themselves.

By helping students discover their learning preferences, strengths and growth areas, you give them a skillset that lasts far beyond this school year. If a student knows how to learn, they will be set up for success throughout life.

If you have 25-30 kids in your class, I know this may seem daunting. I’ve been there. But this isn’t about 25-30 unique lesson plans per day. It’s about giving students some voice, choice and engagement opportunities to access your content and lessons in the best way for them.

Here are some ideas to help your students discover their learning styles:

1. Offer flexibility with parameters

Set guidelines within which students can make choices. How are they best going to accomplish a specific task? This can work with students across all ages. I can talk to a five year old about reading time, and ask them, ‘Do you want to read to Miss K? Do you want to read aloud with a buddy? Do you want to read on your own?’ Still hesitant? Here’s proof that personalized learning is possible no matter what age.

2. Partner with your students to create a learner-centered classroom

What could your culture look like if you asked learners to take part in setting classroom rules? What types of flexible seating would students like? Build the best learner-centered classroom by bringing your students into the conversation.

3. Create personal learner profiles

This is my favorite tool for getting to know your learners. It helps identify how students learn best based on strengths, challenges, interests, aspirations, talents and passions. The best part? It’s not for you to fill out. Allow students to think about how they like to access information (through books, videos, a teacher?), what working style engages them most (through hands-on projects, working alone, working in groups, listening or talking?), and how they best express what they’ve learned (through a presentation, creative project, or report?). This activity gives learners the opportunity to self-reflect, and it also gives you insight into their learning styles.

I recently heard the story of an early college high school student who discovered her strength as an auditory learner. She talked with the teacher and they found space for her to read test questions aloud to herself. This small change focused on and recognized the student’s learning style and strength, and she immediately started passing all her tests with flying colors.

Imagine the potential this has to change your classroom this year. How can you empower your students to be learners?

Thank you to Ken Wallace and Maine Township Schools

Today, Superintendent Ken Wallace led the virtual site visit at Maine Township Schools near Chicago, Illinois. This was a comprehensive visit, highlighted by testimonials from students who shared their experiences in moving from their basic education program to a career focus and learning all that they needed to learn to be successful outside the normal classroom environment. The power of the internship and students finding skills they never knew they had were realized. This sharing was powerful! 

Thank you Ken Wallace and the Maine Township Team! Great Day

SUPER PLANNING and Outstanding Website

WV Team - Yesterday, I had the opportunity to drop by a couple of schools, one being Wide Hollow Elementary. Dropping by the 3rd Grade Team of Sara Ketzenberg, Jaimie Groves, and Amy Tabor, I had the chance to look at Sara's classroom website for her class. This is a picture, but the link is below. Please take the time to check out this outstanding website!    

https://sites.google.com/wvsd208.org/3rdgrade-widehollow/home?authuser=2

https://sites.google.com/wvsd208.org/3rdgrade-widehollow/home?authuser=2