"Every student is unique, with different learning styles,
strengths, and areas of growth.
Personalized learning encourages and challenges
students to achieve their best.
It is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Instead, personalized learning customizes
activities to align with each student’s strengths,
needs, and interests." - Sandy Sutty, Sanford University (2018)
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As we are attempting to either live with various iterations of the COVID-19 virus - or to be hopeful it is fading into oblivion - schools are, of necessity, continuing to consider how to best meet the needs of our learners every day, as we have through the past two years' pandemic constrained living. Regardless of our beliefs, wishes, hopes related to the impact of the virus itself, children show up to learn and, as teachers, we are doing our very best to make professional judgements and decisions that will benefit each child to maximize their possibilities for learning.
There are numerous ways to approach teaching and learning on a daily basis in classrooms. Probably the one I knew best prior to becoming a teacher was the one-instruction-for-all model I experienced as a student myself.
My teachers planned daily lessons and taught them to all of us each class every day - sometimes there were activities to do as well as the more 'academic' pursuits of reading, answering questions, calculating mathematical problems, completing worksheets, writing tests. I do not remember any diversity in teaching, all the students in every class from Kindergarten through to grade 12 were taught the same lessons and we either understood and could represent those understandings on tests and worksheets or answering questions and writing essays - or we did not.
Those who did not ultimately left school early and pursued other interests. Learning came easily to me and I came from an academically-inclined family who introduced me early to the public library, museums, historical and biological institutions so I was able to experience success in school. Approximately 60% of the students I started Kindergarten with in my small Nova Scotia community graduated from high school together, and perhaps 25% pursued opportunities in higher education. I have not gone back and researched whether this was a typical graduating rate for the time; I do know for the three years my sisters and I were in school, this was a typical graduating rate.
One-instruction-for-all clearly did not serve everyone well.
32 years as part of the education profession has offered me numerous opportunities to both implement and observe other approaches to teaching and learning, including using a whole language approach, a balanced approach, a centres approach, self-guided approach, digital approach, hybrid approach, research approach - among several other approaches. Every approach has been implemented with the best of attentions: to improve access for learners to the knowledge, skills and strategies associated with the various subject areas and enhance student success and improve achievement.
A few years ago, we began to hear about personalized learning - or the practice of determining teaching and learning practices that are tailored to reflect individual needs, strengths and interests of each student to maximize their engagement in learning and, therefore improve their opportunities to be successful as a learner in school.
Personalized learning does not require writing a separate lesson plan for every student - many learners are able to engage in a wide variety of activities that are quite similar to each other as long as students are able to approach it from their own area of strength first. For example, if a child is not an auditory learner first, engaging them in a visual or hands-on initial task will help them grasp a new concept before being asked to listen and respond or participate in a conversation about that concept prior to truly understanding the meaning of the new idea.
Personalizing tasks for learners takes a bit of preparation for sure, on the part of teachers. There are multiple strategies for personalizing tasks, including considering visual/auditory/kinesthetic approaches to similar tasks or learnings as well as tasks that are highly adapted using digital tools, specific manipulatives to support specific student challenges. In a somewhat typical classroom, personalizing tasks that require significant adaptations are usually needed for one or two students while personalizing through the three lenses of auditory/visual/kinesthetic will meet different needs of many learners.
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"One challenge with schooling is that teachers want students to focus on the curriculum they’ve chosen, and students have other interests and concerns that lead them to daydream or disrupt instruction... about half of our students in grades 5-12 are engaged with their learning. About a quarter are passively disengaged, and another quarter are actively disengaged." - Dennis Shirley (5 Paths of Student Engagement)
Personalizing learning really gets to the heart of student engagement. Knowing how learners best connect with understanding and appreciating new ideas is immensely valuable knowledge for teachers to have about their learners to facilitate active learning all day long - there should not be gaps in the day where students are simply not paying attention or learning anything new because they have lost interest.
Teachers weave learning opportunities carefully for their learners, acknowledging their differentiated learning needs while also embracing student interests, motivating activities such as music or art and empowering learners with active learning tasks that provoke their thinking and energize them to pursue new understandings through the lenses (visual/auditory/kinesthetic) that appeal to them the most effectively.
Differentiating learning through the teaching day so it is personalized to the needs of students is not difficult or unusual. It is what meets the needs of learners' best to advance their opportunities for success. We cannot devolve to one-instruction-for-all when we know so much more about designing engaging and effective learning for our learners.
Personalizing learning elevates the need to know and appreciate our students as individuals with needs we are capable of meeting every day in classrooms. To do less is to deny what we know to be true about children as well as about teaching.
And in 2022, as we are trying to navigate a social climate that is simply impossible to clearly understand, our learners warrant all the individualized attention and support we are able to offer - this is not only a new social climate for them, it is the only one they have ever known or navigated as a learner. They deserve our best opportunities for learning in every situation, all day, every day if we are to generate enthusiasm for learning and promote life-long learning in what is certainly a precarious social circumstance.
Schools are consistently places where kids land and seek affirmations of worth and viability. Personalized learning offers educators the strategies to ensure they are affirmed capable and ready to engage in learning every day.
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School
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