Personalized learning is an ideal method for educating students. One on one, or one on three instruction is where I find the most success with my current students. Unfortunately, there is not enough time or resources to provide this support. Currently I spend an inordinate amount of time lesson planning and providing feedback to students — for group instruction. Outside of structured class time I also work with students for a few hours a night on their school work. I have seen tremendous growth from students who I have provided direct instruction for after-hours. I see the benefits very clearly and strongly wish I could provide the same resources for all students, it’s an issue of not only time but also the current student to teacher ratios that have become normalized in the American education system.
I enjoyed the different points that the Let’s Celebrate Personalization: But Not Too Fast article brought up. Any change that schools want to make can be very challenging and it takes a lot of planning and tough conversations. The point that stuck out with me the most was when it talked about looking at the ‘Why’. Why are we doing this? What is the problem? What is our purpose with changing? Once establishing those answers then moving forward and looking at ‘How’ are we going to do this? Starting a dialogue of ideas — brainstorming. Once there are a lot of different ideas on the table, sitting down and really discussing the ideas, each time related it back to does this fulfill our purpose? Then taking the last step, the ‘What’. What are we going to do? Who is going to do this? What resources do we need? Starting with the purpose and working outwards is a strategy that makes the most sense when trying to implement a school wide change. It’s something we have discussed in detail at the high school I work at and am excited to see the idea reinforced through the ASCD article.
Resources:
https://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar17/vol74/num06/Let’s-Celebrate-Personalization@-But-Not-Too-Fast.aspx
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7fVRoBLMx6MeUpTdDJhblZiMjA/view