This foundational post has found a new space to be. Click here to see!
Culatta goes on to show and cite how personalized learning through unnamed online course offerings at multiple schools across the country have innovated and led to student success in the classroom, lowered numbers of discipline instances, higher high school graduation rates, more students starting college, and greater success on standardized tests. I needed to find additional information to provide a well-rounded foundation to personalized learning, so I located two additional articles - "Strategies for Implementing Personalized Learning in Rural Schools" and "Four Reasons to Worry About Personalized Learning." The first article is from Future Ready Schools which is a program for districts to implement personalized learning, specifically course offerings that it otherwise cannot provide due to a small teaching staff and limited resources and/or finances. The overview caters to what the school, specifically rural schools, already have to offer in order to get them to bite on the other amenities of the process. Personalized learning is presented as online learning capabilities to allow the teachers to provide to students and enhance their learning through their established relationships with students and understanding of the community's needs and wants. The other article provides the other end of the spectrum and is provided by Alfie Kohn, an opinionated blogger in the field of education. Kohn (2015) provides four reasons to worry about the promises personalized learning provides: 1. "The tasks have been personalized for kids, not by them." As with the traditional classroom, personalized learning curriculum has been created by "experts" in the field. Kohn argues that students are fed "mass-produced" and "standardized" curriculum that they can navigate at their own pace rather than experience authentic learning. 2. "Education is about the transmission of bits of information, not the construction of meaning." Kohn believes the delivery of information is not effective when by a provided by a computer or scripted curriculum. He believes that education is about transmitting the information in chunks by an educator, and perhaps improving this delivery if needed, not trying to get students to understand a concept and then move on. 3. "The main objective is just to raise test scores." Standardized tests are beginning to dictate education more and more. Most of the articles I skimmed promised personalized learning would raise test scores and assist with getting students into colleges because their test scores AND GPAs would be higher because they were learning in a personalized way. 4. It's all about the tech. Technology equates to money and programs that the school district have to purchase for personalized learning. Kohn believes it is just another business venture and sale for the education companies selling the programs and computers. Essentially, personalized learning is the new format of a pre-packaged textbook. Kohn wraps up this reason by saying, "technology can be used to support progressive education, but 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." What do you think about personalized learning? Can it be more than just digital curriculum? Let me know! References:
Kohn, A. (2015). FOUR REASONS TO WORRY ABOUT "PERSONALIZED LEARNING". Tech & Learning, 35(9), 14-15. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/1683977126?accountid=12598 Strategies for implementing personalized learning in rural schools. (2017). The Education Digest, 83(3), 40-50. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/1949505147?accountid=12598 TedxTalks. (2013, January 10). Reimaging Learning: Richard Culatta at TEDxBeaconStreet. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0uAuonMXrg
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
EducollecTIONsAs an educator and lifelong learner, I have a collection of "-tions" involved in my studies and practice as an educator. Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
|