SERIOUS ABOUT PERSONALIZED LEARNING?

Three Things Teachers and Leaders Do to Personalize Learning

For Instructional Leaders and Teachers
Marty Creel, Vice President, Curriculum & Instruction, Discovery Education

Like many terms

in education,
personalized
learning suffers
from ambiguous
definitions.

The students in Sarah Johnsons third

period Algebra hunch over their desks
working through the mysteries of
Pythagoras. The room quietly echoes
the sound of pencils on paper and
the occasional desk squeak. From
her perch in the back Mrs. Johnson
reflects on how similar they all seem
when testing. But having dealt with
adolescents for longer than most of
them have been alive, she knows this
is an illusion. Twelve are boys and
thirteen are girls. Each one is different.
Even the identical Franklin twins
are very different. Ali Franklin loves
mathematics and is excited about
what he will learn this year in Algebra.
Abram is an excellent student, but
hes really nervous about how hell do
in Algebra because mathematics has
never been his best subject.
Mrs. Johnsons superintendent has
been telling parents that the district
is working to personalize learning and
she knows that her students could
really benefit from instruction that

meets them where they are. Shes

been through differentiated instruction
workshops and has tried her hand at
a number of learning apps, but in the
quiet of twenty-five students working,
who, by the way represent only onefifth of her total students, she wonders:
what exactly is personalized learning?
What is personalized learning?
Like many terms in education,
personalized learning suffers from
ambiguous definitions. Some
proponents of personalized learning go
to great lengths to distinguish among
differentiated instruction, individualized
instruction, and personalized learning.
Others view personalized learning
as an umbrella term that includes
differentiation and individualization
of instruction. For some schools and
districts, personalized learning refers
to what others call blended learning
(combining some form of online
instruction with more traditional
classroom instruction).

In most cases, personalized learning is a

three-part process:

In a
personalized
learning
environment,
teachers facilitate
learning and
work as partners
to maximize the
learning of each
student.

Instructional planning that promotes

deeper student learning

Understanding of each students

learning needs and interests

Provisioning of appropriate learning

experiences that match each students
unique learning profile

The 2016 National Education Technology

Plan states, personalized learning
refers to instruction in which the pace of
learning and the instructional approach
are optimized for the needs of each
learner. Learning objectives, instructional
approaches, and instructional content
(and its sequencing) all may vary based
on learner needs. In addition, learning
activities are meaningful and relevant to
learners, driven by their interests, and often
self-initiated.1
While different educators mean slightly
different things when they refer to
personalized learning, most seek to
leverage technology to manage the
learning needs of all students and to
engage students as active participants
in setting goals, identifying learning
pathways, tracking progress, and
determining how learning will be
demonstrated.
From the teachers perspective, there are
three guideposts that mark out the road to
personalized learning.
1. Redefined roles for students
and teachers
In traditional classrooms, teachers
make most of the important decisions
about learning. They select instructional
materials, decide which assignments
students will complete, and determine
1
2

when the assignments are due. On

occasion, teachers will build some
aspect of student choice into their
lessons, but even then the teacher is
usually seen as making the important
decisions while giving students some
limited choices.
In personalized learning, teachers help
students know how they learn best
and where they are in a progression
of learning goals and objectives.
Teachers then work with students to
determine specific learning targets and
suggest a variety of learning activities
that match the mutually agreed-upon
targets. Begin by encouraging your
students to choose the activities in
which they have the greatest interest
and to design a plan for how they will
complete agreed-upon assignments.
Build ongoing assessment into the plan
so that students will be empowered to
adjust and modify the learning plan.
Research2 has shown that empowering
students to make more decisions about
how and what they learn is associated
with higher student achievement. In
a personalized learning environment,
teachers facilitate learning and work as
partners to maximize the learning of
each student.
2. Flexible learning environments
A very consistent characteristic of
personalized learning is expanding
where and when students learn and
making greater use of digital resources.
If students have mobile technology,
they can watch the video clip at
home and come to class with a list of
questions that they wish to discuss with
their learning teammates. Students
with mobile technology can complete

Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education. (2016). Washington, DC: US Department of Education.
Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 126.

Fully realized,
personalized
learning seeks
to use different
contexts to help
students develop
the knowledge
and skills they
are responsible
for learning.

practice exercises on their device while

they are sitting on the school bus and
going home. The goal is for students to
learn everywhere and anytime. When
learning is personalized, students can
pursue their interests and continue to
learn well beyond the traditional school
day.
3. Competency-based learning
progressions and personal
learning paths
progressions and personal learning paths
OK This is probably the hardest part
of personalized learning. Historically
in education, we have held time
constant and allowed learning to vary.
In competency-based learning, students
continue to work on a given learning
target until they are able to demonstrate
mastery. The curriculum will have to be
carefully rearranged into competencybased learning progressions. This
will allow students to work on some
topics in different order and still master
expected standards within each unit. In
fully rearranged curriculum materials,
students may even be able to develop
proficiency with the same set of skills
using very different resources. Its best
to go down this part of the road with
several partners either find comrades
to share the load of developing learning
progressions for a unit or two or
purchase a service that has already built
curricula based on learning progressions.
The Instruction team at Discovery
Education has begun this work for
middle school math.
Fully realized, personalized learning
seeks to use different contexts to help
students develop the knowledge and
skills they are responsible for learning.
Students, in consultation with the
teacher, may select learning resources
that match their interests, current skill
level, and preferred learning modality.
And at the end of the unit, students have
choice as to how they demonstrate what

they have learned. One student may

demonstrate mastery by creating a new
learning resource and another may write
a more traditional paper.
Three things educational leaders can do
to facilitate and support the movement
to personalized learning
1. Begin with a vision
Collaborate with community
stakeholders to create a shared vision
for what our school/district means
by personalized learning. Given
the broad definition of personalized
learning, it is essential that your district
set clear goals to work towards. What
strategies should be used to support
personalized learning? How heavily
does this vision rely on technology and
what needs to transpire to ensure that
we have the infrastructure to support
these technology needs? With limited
access to technology, what strategies
should be used to support the use of
digital content in the classroom? Do
we have adequate digital content
resources accessible in our schools? If
not, what are we doing to enrich our
bank of resources?
2. Cultivate a Learning Community
Support the development of a learning
community on personalized learning.
While there are a lot of questions
related to technology, the heart and
soul of a personalized learning initiative
is about teaching and learning. It is
essential to bring school-based and
central office leaders together with
teachers to learn about 21st century
approaches to teaching. The learning
community members will need to
decide how personalized learning
aligns with other initiatives within
the district. The learning community
provides the perfect opportunity for
district leaders to demonstrate the
power of walking the talk. Partner
with other stakeholders and decide

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Our job is to
bring together
their natural
curiosity, their
interests, and
natural learning
preferences to
empower them
into realizing
their full
potential.

together what you need to learn. Get

to know the staff members as learners.
Give learning community members
clear targets for what they are expected
to know and be able to do and then
give them lots of choice about how
they move toward those expectations.
Give them choice as to how they will
demonstrate their knowledge. Explicitly
show staff members how leaders are
using the principles of personalized
learning within the learning
community model.
3. Develop a plan
Encourage learning community
members to develop an action plan
for implementation. Implementing
a personalized learning initiative is a
major task. Lots of activities need to
happen and the team needs a plan to
guide the implementation. Instructional
leaders must communicate the vision
and be prepared to support the
acquisition of resources, while giving
stakeholders primary responsibility
for making decisions about a lot of
the specific details. Those closest to
the students are the ones who need
to understand in detail what this will
involve and they need to see how it will
benefit their students. Every teacher
understands how different the students
in her classes are and every teacher in
her heart understands that personalized
learning has the potential to improve
learning for the students she works with
every day. But teachers also need to
understand how this will impact them
and the work they do. They deserve the

opportunity to be a part of the design of

the initiative from the beginning. Now
is not the time for classroom teachers to
feel that those who work in the central
office are forcing another major change
on them.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in
North Carolina underwent a careful
process of defining and planning for
personalized learning. You can see the
plan and definitions they created here:
http://pl.cmslearns.org/
Its an exciting time to be in education.
Finally, the digital resources exist to
make personalized learning a reality .
Our students use digital resources all the
time and they already know how to use
them to learn more about their personal
interests. Our job is to bring together their
natural curiosity, their interests, and natural
learning preferences to empower them
into realizing their full potential.
Thats an awesome charge.

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About the author

With over 26 years

experience as an educator,
Marty Creel leads Discovery
Educations innovative
curriculum and instruction
team. Marty began his career
as an engaging social studies teacher known for
creative use of technology to deepen learning. As a
district-wide curriculum, instruction, and professional
development leader in a large urban/suburban school
system he was the architect for a thoughtful transition
to instructional standards that empower teachers and
principals as instructional leaders.