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Personalize Learning (#plearnchat)
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What pathways are being designed in today's schools to personalize the learning experience?
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Kathleen McClaskey
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We had the privilege to interview Darren Cambridge, Director of the Connected Educator on the topic of personalized learning that is a main topic during Connected Educator Month. Here are some comments that he made about personalizing learning that will give food for thought.
"What is your vision for personalizing learning?
I love the idea of enabling learners to make sense of their learning using more and more varied evidence.
What type of school culture is needed for personalized learning?
I think you need to move toward a school culture that's democratic, caring, inquiry-focused, genuinely social, that enacts participatory leadership. There needs to be a tolerance for messiness and frankness and a willingness to constantly be iterating towards something that works. Building trust is huge, and that takes time and lots of reflection in dialog at all levels."
Thank you Darren for your thoughtful and engaging responses!
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What does it mean to Personalize Learning?
The term "Personalized Learning" is very controversial and confusing. We created this site to define personalized learning, dispel some of the myths about personalized learning and for you to:
> learn about the latest research on personalizing learning.
> follow the thought leaders in the field of personalized learning.
> hear from teachers and learners who are personalizing learning.
> have strategies and tools to personalize learning for your learners.
Discover what has been "The Missing Piece" in the educational dialogue and what our vision, mission and core beliefs are that will drive our services to transform learning!
Twitter: @plearnchat
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The North Vancouver School District has produced, in collaboration with the students in our Digital Media Academy at Argyle Secondary, a Personalized Learning video that highlights many of the core values of learning in the 21st century, including:
>"Enhanced parent and community partnerships
Innovative and inclusive teaching practices that emphasize key competencies like critical thinking, inquiry, creative problem solving, innovation, cross-cultural understanding, and collaboration;
> Learning that is empowered by technology (smart use of iPads, laptops) to advance students’ digital literacy and research skills, and their competency in using current and emerging technologies;
>Learning opportunities that are tailored to the needs and interests of students;
> Greater flexibility and choice in learning pathways for students.
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Jean Garrity, Assistant Director at The Institute @CESA #1, writes a moving article that personalized learning is for all students. She points out that for struggling students, school is not always a welcoming place. So how can personalize learning change that?
"Struggling students require significant amounts of time and attention, and relying on a century-old approach to education will not help these students move forward and find success. When learning is personalized, teachers use assessment data to identify the starting point in the curriculum where students can be successful, creating learning paths that engage students in their own development. Personalized learning also makes learning relevant by engaging students in real-world problem solving connected to academic content."
She concludes: "Personalizing learning will promote achievement, engagement and ultimately ownership for all students, and if we give our kids who struggle a chance, they just might surprise us."
Thank you Jean for giving educators some food for thought on personalizing learning!
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"Blended learning refers to any time a student learns, at least in part, at a brick-and-mortar facility and through online delivery with student control over time, place, path, or pace. [source: infographic] This sounds like personalizing learning to me. Yet, something’s happening how schools are using the blended learning approach."
Barbara tales a closer look at the blended learning models and how each model is implemented. In not all cases is blended learning actually personalizing learning.
She leaves us with some "What if's" that we should consider when implementing a blended learning model.
"What if…
> learners are able to determine how they learn best?
> teachers are co-designers of blended learning environments with learners?
> learners have a voice and choice in the way they learn?
> there are a variety of opportunities of blended learning approaches to choose from?"
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Lisa Welch and Wanda Richardson are Kindergarten Teachers in Wisconsin who are personalizing learning for their students. They share their story in how they they needed to rethink personalize learning for their students. Here are they questions they reflected on as they created new learning paths for their students.
> "How can you personalize learning for students who are not yet able to read?
> How can you help student’s become independent learners at this young age?
> How can the 4 c’s of 21st Century Learning make their way into everything we do?
> How can we impart that core knowledge that is vital at this age?
We don’t have all the answers by any means, but we are certainly finding that we are on an exciting path at this time! Currently, every child in our classroom has a PERSONALIZED Learning Plan. These plans are created according to the child’s interests in learning styles as well as in subject areas. For example, one child is studying the subway and is interested in creating on the computer, math and music/dancing."
Thank you Lisa and Wanda for sharing this story!
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Here is Personalizing Learning Activity #73: The Questions in the Shadows. Tiffany Poirier outlines this PL activity in her blog and points out that it could be used at any grade level. She concludes her lesson by reflecting why this activity is part of personalizing learning.
"HOW THIS ACTIVITY IS A PART OF PERSONALIZING LEARNING:
Students are invited to use their intrapersonal intelligence, to be introspective and to analyze the content of their own minds. This is a valuable metacognitive task in and of itself, and students may also find turning focus inward in this way to be personally validating. Discussing and sharing with others in this personal way within the context of a safe classroom atmosphere can build a community where individual ideas are valued. This is a great activity to begin the school year with as it lets the teacher get to know what questions matter to students and therefore helps to better personalize choices about units of study."
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Josh Griffith, the principal of Collins-Maxwell MS/HS in Iowa, is passionate about personalized learning and creating a system that will support the needs of ever learner. Here is excerpt from his blog "Let Them Own the Learning".
"How do you learn best? What are your interests? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What motivates you? How fast of a learner are you?
Are your answers to these questions the same as everyone else you know? My point is, we are all very different. So, if we are all this different, why are we forcing students to learn the same way and at the same pace? I know that I learn best when I take ownership in my learning, by having choice in what, how, when, and how long it takes me to learn. Do you? I have been thinking a lot about what an education system would look like that personalized learning for every child – a system where students become learners who are actively seeking knowledge instead of receiving it. I would like to create a school where the learners are presented with every standard, benchmark, and/or competency they will have to demonstrate mastery of. After they are presented with these, learners are given the freedom to piece them together however they like and begin learning them in what ever order they like. They may choose to learn from a teacher in a traditional classroom setting, on-line, through a work-study in the community, or by doing some kind of project. There could be other ways that I haven’t thought of yet that students might come up with at a later time.
In order for a system like the one I envision to be successful, teachers will need to give up some control and become facilitators of learning, and students will need to take more ownership and become learners. We all learn best with the right motivations. Most of us are intrinsically motivated to do more and learn more when we have some choice in the process. Let’s release some control and let the students own their learning!"
Thank you Josh for your passion and your vision in personalizing learning for your learners!
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David Truss ponts out that personalization is about the learner taking responsibility for their learning. He includes that educators are also learners and substitutes "educators" in a paragraph in our report where we explain the chart on "Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization".
"Going back to Bray & McClaskey, have a look at the last sentence I quoted above, only switch ‘learners’ to ‘educators’: “When [educators] reflect on their own learning and must communicate it to others, they are intensifying their understanding about a topic, their learning strengths, and the areas in which they need to develop further.”
We need to personalize the learning for our educators and our students… seeing both first and foremost as learners. We can’t cookie-cutter our professional development to teachers and expect meaningful results. We can’t evaluate students based on tests with easily Googleable answers. We can develop a sense of learner responsibility by personalizing learning, making it meaningful and making it work that matters.
Finally, if we decide to look at educators and students as learners first, then we also need to recognize the responsibility that comes with being a learner. So much of what I read about now is about things ‘we need to do’ to support the learner. But be they educators or students, learners need first to understand the importance of their own role in learning. Personalization isn’t just about catering to a learner, it is also about learner autonomy and thus learner responsibility."
Thank you David in making the connections and in sharing your Manifesto!
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Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey – K-12 Students and Parents Connects the Dots with Digital Learning is the first in a two part series to document the key national findings from Speak Up 2011.
This report focuses on how today’s students are personalizing their own learning, and how their parents are supporting this effort. The ways that students are personalizing their learning centers around three student desires including how students seek out resources that are digitally-rich, untethered and socially-based. The key questions being addressed in this report include:
> How are students personalizing their learning?
> How are parents helping students to personalize their learning journey?
> What are the digitally-rich, untethered and socially based learning strategies that facilitate this process?
> How can education stakeholders support students as they seek to personalize their learning?
> What are the gaps between administrators’ views of personalized learning compared to parents’ and students’ views?"
As we move to personalizing learning, consider creating a conversation around these questions.
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The Stages of Personalized Learning Environments (PLE) Version One chart needed to be updated. Why? Because of the considerable feedback we received after posting our first version of the chart. Some of the feedback was about consistency and flow across the stages. What worked in what stage?
We definitely want to thank those that critiqued the stages for us and helped us with this version two. Some districts shared with us that our version one was going to be their foundation of their personalized learning initiative. We wanted to refine it so it was clear, consistent, and easily understood. We went to work to update the stages for them and anyone else moving to a personalized learning environment.
Please feel free to download version two and let us know how it supports your transformation to personalizing learning.
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Jackie Gerstein shares in her blog "Speak Up Report: Mapping a Personalized Journey". The report released by Project Tomorrow supports how and why technology can support personalized learning.
"What follows is an Infographic and key findings of Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey – K-12 Students and Parents Connects the Dots with Digital Learning"
"Students are already seeking out ways to personalize their learning. Looking to address what they perceive as deficiencies in classroom experiences, students are turning to online classes to study topics that pique their intellectual curiosity, to message and discussion boards to explore new ideas about their world, or to online collaboration tools to share their expertise with other students they don’t even know. Their experience with seeking out their own personalized learning experiences has changed their overall expectations for their education, and not just for the use of technology.
"These students have an intrinsic understanding that like so many other aspects of their lives, personalization is the key to their own greater engagement in the learning process. So, even while students have turned to personalized learning on their own time, in their own way, why is it that this revolution of technology that has enabled personalization not also penetrated our classrooms? Why is it that we are for the most part still educating our children with a model that perpetuates the fallacy of one size fits all? Why is it that technology has transformed the way we shop, bank and interact with each other and not yet had the same impact on teaching and learning, at least as education stands today?"
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Rescooped by Kathleen McClaskey from UDL - Universal Design for Learning |
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We realize that moving to a personalized learning environment where learners drive their learning takes time over several phases. The first phase is starting with the teacher so they understand Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and how to teach and support all learners in their class.
We are introducing the Personal Learner Profile, a tool to help each learner understand how they learn best. Each learner is unique and we need for students to be proactive in they way they learn. We have also included a scenario and how three learners could meet a CCSS ELA standard and how a classroom could be redesigned to support a personalized learning environment.
"To meet the standard ELA-RL.3.1, the teacher presents a story and offers multiple ways to read, listen, and respond to the story. To personalize the classroom, it can be set up with multiple stations so learners have choices how to learn and demonstrate understanding of a concept:
> Station 1: laptop computers
> Station 2: 2-3 tables grouped for collaborative work
> Station 3: teacher area with places for students to sit (rug or bean bag chairs)
> Station 4: individual area for privacy or journalling with mobile devices
> Station 5: standing or pacing area (desks could be high without chairs)"
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Steve Rauh reflects on his school's Rock Band at West Vancouver Secondary School and wonders if what he was observing was the results of personalizing learning. He created this list of instructional practices associated with personalized learning and compared them to the Rock Band. Here is what he discovered!
Steve also shares his thoughts as he watched the student performances:
"At the performance, I watched student after student perform at levels and with passion that can only be achieved with a strong measure of personal engagement and commitment. I watched one particular student seamlessly move between the guitar, bass guitar, and keyboards all within the same set. Each student proudly showed us their best piece of work or examplar."
Thanks Steve for sharing this story!
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At Coquitlam Open Learning, students in Grades 8 to 12 signed up for a whole new way of learning at the Inquiry Hub where "students will pursue their own education based on a student-driven inquiry approach."
Instead of taking individual core courses, such as English, social studies and math, students will pursue experiences based on their interests in one of the themes that include community and global issues; environmental sustainability; and media arts, design and technology — and they’ll have to demonstrate their learning in each of these areas.
Thank you Stephen Whiffin (COL principal) and David Truss (COL vice-principal) with your vision and courage!
David Truss's comment,
February 13, 2012 11:06 AM
Thank you so much for sharing and for your kind words. We are very excited about the possibilities and we look forward to getting students into the school in September!
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Barbara's blog outlines the differences between "personalization", "individualization" and "differentiation". These three words in education often are confused and misunderstood by professionals as well as the general community. Barbara concludes her remarks by what personalized learning would mean in the classroom. Thank you, Barbara!
"Personalizing learning starts with the learner. It is not personalized instruction. The teacher, the school, and textbook companies can individualize instruction for the different types of learners. Personalized learning means the students drive their learning and the teacher IS the guide on the side, the co-designer of their learning, and more of a facilitator to make sure the students are meeting their learning goals."
Join us on January 20th in the all NEW 5 W’s of Personalized Learning eCourse where you will learn the What, Who, Wow, Where, and Why to Personalize Learning. This eCourse includes what is and what is not personalized learning, how learners learn best using the Personal Learner Profile, the process using the new Version 3 of the Three Stages of Personalized Learning Environments (PLE), how teacher and learner roles will change, and why you need a common language and rationale for personalized learning when transforming teaching and learning. Collaborate with other educators in a Community of Practice.
Tuesdays, 1/20, 2/3, 2/17, 3/3, 3/17 [2pm PDT, 3pm MDT, 4pm CDT, 5pm EDT] next day for most of our international participants. - See more and register at: http://www.personalizelearning.com/p/5-ws.html