Digital Discourse / Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning Central to Whole Child Approach

June 27, 2010 By

[Guest blog by Judy Seltz, Deputy Executive Director for Constituent Services, ASCD — Symposium Partner)

In April, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee made a whole child approach to learning part of the ESEA reauthorization discussion when it heard from a series of speakers about the importance of thinking beyond a narrow definition of academics and accountability in designing an education program for the future. ASCD believes that each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. That’s what a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement really is.

These 21st century demands require a new and better way of approaching education policy and practice — a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement. We need to redefine what a successful learner is and how we measure success. It is time to put students first, align resources to students’ multiple needs, and advocate for a more balanced approach. A child who enters school in good health, feels safe, and is connected to her school is ready to learn. A student who has at least one adult in school who understands his social and emotional development is more likely to stay in school. All students who have access to challenging academic programs are better prepared for further education, work, and civic life.

Personalized learning is central to this approach to learning. We talk about each child, not every child. Each child learns differently; personalized learning supports differences in talent, interest, style and pace.

ASCD is pleased to collaborate with SIIA and CCSSO in bringing together a unique group of thinkers from policy, practice, government, and business to learn from and listen to each other about the promise and challenges of making personalized learning a reality for each student.

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Mass Customization for Student Success

June 23, 2010 By

[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Symposium speaker Roberta Selleck, Superintendent Adam’s County School District 50, Colorado talks about her district’s shift from a teacher-led to a student-centric learning system.

What is the vision for personalized learning?

We just finished our first year using non-graded time as a variable this year, in other words, grade levels went away as we know it. They are based in their instructional level, not their frustration level. That’s a huge paradigm shift. The words we are using are mass customization. We recognize that every child is unique, so we must look at every child as a unique individual. Where are they on that continuum so that we can help them continue that academic unique journey?

Where does personalization intersect with equity?

We certainly believe that what happens in our traditional system is a travesty. The kdis are put on a conveyor belt, and nine months later they are popped out and for the most part if they are almost ready to go to the next level, they go, regardless. That for us is not equity. We have broken that model and tried to look at each child as an indidvidual. It’s not the teacher just talking about her 25 kids in the class. All teachers are owning all kids’ education and graduation goals, even at the elementary level. We all have a piece of the game.

I wish people could come and really see this in action. Once a month, we host these tours and we have 25 and 30 people, come, we put it in context. We put it in the classroom. These kids can clearly articulate what their goals are, and where they are at, academically. What it is they are working on, and they can tell you what they know, and they can tell you what they don’t know. It’s really remarkable to see. Kids are not shy about sharing that with others.

Read more of the inteview on the challenges being addressed, system design, curriculum and technology, teacher role and professional development, and opportunity for public-private software development partnership. Read more about the Adams County initiative.

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Personalized Learning is Ongoing Student-Led Improvement

June 15, 2010 By


[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Symposium speaker Wendy Battino is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, which grew out of reforms in the Chugach School District in Alaska. We spoke with her about vision, personalized learning components and policy-making strategy and how her implementation at RISC helps her students achieve.

What is the vision for personalized learning as your organization pursues it? One thing we have known for quite a while is that students learn in different ways. We have worked to create a system that meets the needs of every student. The vision is allowing students to engage and have responsibility for their own learning. The way we use personalized learning plans, students get a choice of what kind of topic they want to master. They get to start driving some of their learning and the teacher facilitates that.

What are the challenges being addressed by practitioners in this system? Our biggest mission is tackling the creation of systems so that individualized learning can happen. It’s systematic reform. The challenge is that reform itself is challenging, because of all those moving parts, it means change, and change is all a process for people to go through. To go through a change from a hundreds of years old model, to delivering personalized learning to each student, is not a minor challenge.

Videos of the RISC System.
MORE of the Interview on the personalized learning transformation and scale path, evidence and policy barriers.

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Race to Redesign Education for Personalized Learning

June 9, 2010 By

While much of the national education attention has been focused on Race to the Top (RttT), a growing movement is focused on the race to redesign our education system before it becomes too outdated to meet our students’ and nation’s needs in today’s digital society and knowledge economy. The reforms in RttT are necessary, but most would agree are not sufficient. We must educate to innovate, but just as importantly, we must innovate to educate. In response, SIIA, in collaboration with ASCD and the Council of Chief State School Officers, is convening 150 education leaders for the invitation-only “Innovate to Educate: A Symposium on [Re]Design for Personalized Learning.”

Leading foundations (e.g., Nellie Mae), associations (e.g., CCSSO) and non-profits (e.g., RISC) are challenging our long-standing notions of education, while local (e.g., Adams 50 School District, CO) and state education leaders are accepting the challenge. Recognition that our assembly-line, agrarian-calendar based model (symbolized by a classrooom of students in rows of desks) is unchanged since the industrial age a century ago and calls for anytime, anywhere, anypace personalized learning are not new. What has changed? As the new U.S. Department of Education Report “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” recognizes, what has changed is our ability to respond with an ever more sophisticated arsenal of research, alternative models and technologies. A number of initiatives are leading the way, but as is often the case in education, they are too often isolated and not at scale.

The SIIA-ASCD-CCSSO Symposium will bring together SIIA members with national, state and local education leaders. They will develop a common vision, share models and practices, identify key policy and systems change enablers, and spec the technology, curriculum and human resources needed to power this student-centered customized learning system. Perhaps more importantly, they will continue building a community of practice needed to further develop the vision, models and tools and an action network to drive the change of policy and practice.

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