Hello everyone!
I see several benefits and difficulties in implementing personalized learning. I feel that the benefits reach highly motivated students the most, those who are willing to play with different styles of learning to find ones that suit them out of the selection their teacher can provide. On the other hand students that lack any motivation will likely have a similar experience whether they’re forced to do one assignment or may choose out of fifteen. The truest benefit may really be with the instructor rather than the student then, which is likely to have positive side-effects for students. If a teacher feels they have freedom and can think outside the box with lessons, then perhaps the profession may always feel fresh and enable the teacher to charismatically educate. Teachers that love their content and teach it how they love to teach will be better equipped to excite student interest. The corresponding struggle is that personalizing learning only goes so far as standards and curriculum allow, likely within good reason. I can’t foresee instances where personalized learning is limited by standards, but perhaps they’ll crop up and maybe have somewhere.
The piece that interested me the most in the article was about parent involvement. I am very curious to see the inventive ways teachers can garner parent support in a personalized learning endeavor. It feels that there needs to be a clear and vocal buy in. In conjunction with that, I think that for parents to buy in, a community needs to buy in, and that means the school community and district needs to buy in. The article questions whether personalized learnings’ success is dictated by all teachers in a school and I definitely think so. If a school or district is split even on personalized learning or something else (which is perhaps a problem… what is the opposition?) then parents and the community may be split too.
(Here’s a link, it’s a little dated but relevant)
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/02/24/personalized-learning-isnt-about-isolation.html