Personalized learning. Differentiated learning. Individualization of learning.
Three jargon elements that twist any teacher’s grey matter in spectacular motions. Which is what? Add to that the pressure that may come through a school PD (“We need to individualize learning!”) and you have the perfect combination for confusion.
There seems to be a continuous debate around the first (“personalized” learning) but I think clarification of terms is always useful before engaging in any argument. Also, a little historical background helps one understand the causes, underpinnings and implications of any educational approach.
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A bit of history
1914 – The inception of the concept rests with Helen Parkhurst who was heavily influenced by Maria Montessori and John Dewey’s work when she created the Dalton Plan, plan that was introduced in 1914 and was extended later in several countries across the world (from the U.S. and Australia to Japan and The Netherlands). It was designed as an “experiment” where teachers were observers mostly and they would “study the children to find out what environment will best meet their immediate educational needs.” Its main aim was to design learning experiences tailored to the students’ interests, needs, and abilities.
1919 – Another step was taken by Carleton W. Washburne who set up the Winnetka Plan in Illinois, again influenced by Dewey’s ideas of progressive education: “The Progressive education is always concerned with the whole child – both as an individual and as a member of society.”
1920s – William H. Kilpatrick, a successor of Dewey and considered a developmentalist, sets up the Project Method for early childhood education. The role of the teacher is that of a “guide”, children direct their own learning according to their interests, and explore their environment freely. Following the criticism from Dewey himself and other American scholars he admitted later that he “had made a mistake” when using an 18th c. approach and reviving it in a different context.
1950-1960 – Benjamin Bloom ‘s model of Mastery Learning (we all know his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, which he published in 1956) aimed to improve student achievement and to reduce performance gaps by customizing learning experiences. It could involve teacher-directed group instruction, one-to-one tutoring or self-paced learning with programmed materials. It was a sequential model based on Skinner’s behaviorist theory: the material is broken down into small discrete units, lessons follow a logical progression, and only observable behaviors are measured. *This resembles Engelmann’s Direct Instruction model.
1960s – Fred S. Keller implements PSI (Personalized System of Instruction) also called The Keller Plan. As Bloom’s, his plan was grounded in behaviorist principles (operant conditioning), and mastery of content was the key feature. Proctors (either external or internal) would certify the level of “mastery” before students could move on to the next unit of study.
1980s – Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983 – Frames of Mind) was published and was seen as a gateway to personalize learning even further. It was on this theoretical background that, unfortunately, the concept of learning styles emerged and took over much of the educational establishments (and no, learning styles are not supported by research nor by cognitive science).
Further on, the concept was discussed by Dan Buckley, David Hargreaves , David Hopkins, Michael Fullan and more. Technology is brought up as a major tool for personalization of learning and it becomes part of the rhetoric of “21st century skills”.
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As you can see, “personalization” was claimed by both behaviorists (traditionalists) and progressives, but for different aims and within different education philosophies. The former see it as a way to increase achievement alone, achievement that needs to be strictly controlled, measured and compartmentalized; the latter, as a path towards self-directed learning, experimentation, and development of the “whole child”. Regardless of where your biases lie, both have merits and disadvantages.
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Terminology
It is difficult but not impossible to clarify the meaning of each term in the apparently never-ending list of educational jargon. The more we know about education the less we seem to understand as complexity gives way to confusion – which, in its turn, reflects on the actual pedagogy being embedded in the classroom.
| Differentiation | Individualization | Personalization | |
| Teacher role | Central | Moderate(sometimes s/he only facilitates learning) | Guide /mentor/ tutor*Self-directed learning occurs most of the time |
| Objectives | The same for all students | The same for all students | Each learner has specific objectives to reach |
| Curriculum | Defined by teachers | Defined by teachers | The learner co-constructs the curriculum(decides what to learn) |
| Strategies used | Teachers use different strategies so that all learners achieve key competences; these strategies vary according to groups of students not individuals | Teachers vary their strategies according to individual needs; learning plans and contracts are negotiated with learners | Focused on stimulating the full potential of the learner – rather than strictly cognitive skills |
| Agency | It is given as a choice not as complete independence | Learner’s self-direction is an accessory skill | Self-directedness is central to learning |
Many teachers combine features of the first two in different moments and with different learners. The challenges we face as teachers vary from one educational setting to the next, and those who dismiss differentiation either do not work with a truly heterogeneous group of learners or simply can’t be bothered to improve their practice (try using a single approach when teaching 6 subjects to 23 students of 10 different nationalities whose language competencies vary from beginner to advanced and I guarantee your failure). They would also claim that differentiation is antagonistic with high expectations and challenge – sign that they really do not grasp the concept let alone apply it.
While I am an adept of differentiation, I do not see the personalization of learning as an effective way to advance learning in primary classrooms. Surely it works well with older learners (teachers included – we blog, tweet, select what to learn, choose what conferences to participate in, read what we deem important and so on) but children as young as 7 do not have the necessary skills to direct their own learning. As seen above, the failure of various progressive models should be a lesson we are still denying. Incidental learning as well as informal learning do occur and they enrich children’s experiences and perspectives. However, in school, time is our most critical currency. Every decision we make affects what is learned and how it is learned. There is always a trade-off between what you choose to do more and what you do less or not at all.
Personalization sounds intuitively great – who wouldn’t like an education that allows us to learn “anything, anywhere, anytime”? Unfortunately, what stemmed from a rather noble concept has turned, in my view, into a complete caricature: a dry behaviorist model (chunk, study, test, repeat), a complete progressive failure (see references above, learning styles, and other nonsense), or a cult of technology (which presumably should replace teachers).
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Some reasons…
Age – Young learners do not possess the necessary skills to self-direct their learning. Their intelligence has nothing to do with self-regulation and metacognition, these being critical in knowing what and how to learn. Completely deconstructing the curriculum is like throwing a non-swimmer into the deep. To be able to direct your own learning you need to master several key elements:
- optimal learning strategies
- reasonable background knowledge (to make sense of what you are learning, to be able to make connections and explore further)
- self-monitoring and self-assessment strategies (so you can decide what you have learned and what you need to improve on, as well as to be able to identify own errors)
- good development of literacies
- strong motivation
We know how different our students are. While a small percentage might succeed in such environment, most would find it extremely difficult to learn in these highly demanding cognitive conditions. And that can easily lead to frustration, lack of motivation, abandonment of task – all with a great impact on learning itself. Even high school students still work on the elements I enumerated above – why do we ask it from young learners? They need a good curriculum, teacher pedagogical knowledge, feedback and guidance all along – even in guided inquiry settings. The rest is just an ideal – beautiful, but not realistic.
As Keith Brennan said,
“Agency without the ability to fulfill itself is not freedom, or true agency. And the issue in learning is not about freedom. We enhance our students’ agency not when we set them up in learning experiences with tools that are not equal to what we ask of them – when we give them perfect freedom to make sub-optimal learning, assessment and critical choices. We facilitate agency when we provide students with tools that are equal to the things we ask of them, and that they ask of themselves.”
Further gaps – With students left to choose their own curriculum the gaps will only become greater. Many would pursue their interests (which is fine) but at the expense of being ignorant of core knowledge shared by the larger cultural and social group (which is not fine). Nobody *has to* learn about Shakespeare, about gravity or about power structures but then do not complain when people raise their eyebrow when you have no clue about either when engaged in a conversation. You may disagree with Hirsch, a pure traditionalist, (I do, on many levels) but he had a good about what it means to disempower students by giving them complete freedom on their learning. I think that the model he proposed is very reasonable as it allows students to both access and use basic knowledge and to devote time to their interests.
Technology cult – The idea the technology will replace teachers is a new trend in educational debates. Sorry to disappoint but less than 13% of participants enrolled in online courses and MOOCs complete them. And we are talking about learners who are way past age 7. If that happens with young adults then why do we keep promoting self-directed learning with children? How many failures do we need before we change this discourse?…
Teacher workload – Last but not least in my list is the amount of teacher work that needs to be devoted in a personalized approach to teaching. We already have a big share of work – from planning, marking, teaching in class to attending meetings, workshops and whatnot. It is unrealistic to request a primary teacher to personalize learning for 20 students, let alone a secondary teacher for a hundred or more.
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Further readings on personalization:
Benjamin Riley – Don’t Personalize Learning, The Ideology of Personalization
Dan Meyer – Don’t Personalize Learning
Mike Cauldfield – Why Personalized Learning Fails
Michael Feldstein – Personalized Learning Is Redundant
A good blog post on differentiation by David Fawcet
*I wrote this at 2 a.m. so blame me for misspelling, typos or other mistakes.
Moments, Snippets, Spirals 