Personalized Learning Through Technology Integration
Personalized Learning through technology has the potential to offer students a tailored educational experience that serves their specific needs and strengths. It consists of four elements: learner profiles, personal learning paths, competency-based progression, and flexible learning environments (Hyslop & Mead, 2012). In “A Path to the Future: Creating Accountability for Personalized Learning”, Hyslop and Mead discuss the benefits of Personalized Learning. Personalized Learning offers a learning experience that will “respond and adapt to support students in achieving their goals”. It allows students to progress based off of their competency, not just their grade level.
Richard Culatta, the Director for the Office of Educational Technology for the United States of America is concerned about the digital divide in America. In his TEDx talk, he emphasizes that technology in the classroom should not be about digitizing traditional methods of learning. Rather, teachers must reimagine learning through the integration of technology. Technology offers new ways of tracking student learning, providing and organizing data, and personalizing the entire learning process to meet a student’s particular needs.
One way of doing this is to offer students different pathways to reaching competency in a skill (Hyslop & Mead, 2012). Traditional models of education require students to listen to the same lesson, complete the same assignment, answer the same questions, and pass the same assessment. Personalized Learning allows students to display competency in a variety of ways. One way is by applying their learned knowledge to a project, which is realized in the Maker Movement. Students apply, problem solve, think critically, and display a variety of skills during the maker process.
In preliminary studies, Personalized Learning looks promising, but implementing it on a large scale has yet to be seen (Hyslop & Mead, 2012). Schools that may benefit the most from such practices (low-performing schools), have difficulty implementing Personalized Learning because it is “hard work...that requires significant capacity and strong leadership to change longstanding norms and practices (Hyslop & Mead, 212). It requires investment in technology, like devices and internet connectivity, but also an investment in teachers, who may not have the necessary training to implement the technology effectively.
Personalized Learning also addresses a common problem in many classrooms: student motivation. Students live in a world that caters to their interests. However, when they enter the classroom, they often sit through a one size fits all lesson that doesn’t speak to their individual interests, abilities, needs, or goals. “Personalization is the key to their own greater engagement in the learning process” (Project Tomorrow, 2012).
Students are already personalizing their own learning through the use of technology outside of school. Forty-eight percent of students grades 6-8 maintain a personal social networking site and forty-five percent participate in online discussion boards, communities, and chats (Project Tomorrow, 2012). This data was gathered five years ago; Imagine what our 6-8 graders are doing now! “Today’s generation of students are documentarians with strong interests in analyzing, cataloging and sharing their experiences, insights, opinions and feelings with a broad circle of community in a highly timely manner” (Project Tomorrow, 2012). Students today are creators and sharers who are extremely motivated to learn how to use technology to impact their world.
Sadly, our students often do not see how their school lessons connect to their lives or their futures. Personalized Learning provides students with agency over their learning paths, their goals, and their lives. Technology integration should provide students with a learning experience that cannot be replicated with traditional tools. Richard Culatta sees technology as a way to revolutionized the way students experience school. When Mr. Culatta says, “technology creates creators”, he speaks to Maker Education proponents. The Maker Education Movement aims to make each student a creator and participator in their world. Technology provides a highly relevant avenue for teachers and students to structure learning on; learning that speaks to all learners, at all levels.
Hyslop, A., & Mead, S. (2015, May). A Path to the Future: Creating Accountability for Personalized Learning. Retrieved June 3, 2016, from http://eric.ed.gov.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/?q=a+path+to+the+future&id=ED557085
Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey: K-12 Students and Parents Connect the Dots with Digital Learning. (2012, April). Speak Up 2011. Retrieved June 3, 2016, from http://eric.ed.gov.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/?id=ED536067
Reimagining Learning: Richard Culatta [Video file]. (2013, January, 10). In TEDx Talks. Retrieved June 3, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0uAuonMXrg#t=418
