Personalized learning

Personalized learning (also named individualized instruction, personal learning place or direct instruction) refers to a type of learning where learners are provided with experiences that uniquely meet their needs, interests and educational outcomes.

Personalized learning (also named individualized instruction, personal learning place or direct instruction) refers to a type of learning where learners are provided with experiences that uniquely meet their needs, interests and educational outcomes.

Definitions

The United States National Education Technology Plan 2017 defines "personalized learning" as follows: Technology is typically used to try to facilitate personalized learning environments. AI is often used as a source to develop personalized learning programs for students. Chatbots based on large language models are sometimes described as a promising opportunity for personalized learning on a large scale. According to researcher Eduard Pogorskiy:

Debate

Advocates for personalized learning say that many elements of curriculum, assessment, and instructional design must be present in classrooms for students to succeed, and recommend the use of software systems to manage and facilitate student-led instruction. Supporters argue that classroom learning activities must build upon students' prior knowledge, and that teachers need to allocate time for practice. Advocates also argue that teachers must continuously assess student learning against clearly defined standards and goals, and student input into the assessment process is integral. Determining how a student most efficiently learns can be time-consuming, resulting in class time being used up and effectively a less efficient use of time. Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley wrote that while there are advantages in students being able to access information instantly online, one should not mistake these processes for "something deeper, more challenging, and more connected to compelling issues in their world and their lives." Alfie Kohn argued in 2015 that while personalized learning may sound like a useful strategy for education, in reality it is a business tactic to increase sales of technology products. Personalized learning promises a strategy to specifically adjust education to the unique needs and skills of individual children, he argued, but really it means merely "adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students' test scores... [and] requires the purchase of software from one of those companies that can afford full-page ads in Education Week." While "certain forms of technology can be used to support progressive education", Kohn wrote, "...meaningful (and truly personal) learning never requires technology. Therefore, if an idea like personalization is presented from the start as entailing software or a screen, we ought to be extremely skeptical about who really benefits." Dr. Ces'Ari Garcia-Delmuro advocated in her research on personalized learning for other researchers to continue including teacher voice in their studies of personalized learning programs as a way to improve these programs for teachers and students. She said more studies should be conducted that focus on other low socioeconomic status schools implementing personalized learning.

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