Personalized Learning - Definitions

Definitions

According to the National Educational Technology Plan developed by the US Department of Education, personalized learning is defined as adjusting the pace (individualization), adjusting the approach (differentiation), and connecting to the learner's interests and experiences. Personalization is broader than just individualization or differentiation in that it affords the learner a degree of choice about what is learned, when it is learned and how it is learned. The rhetoric is often phrased in terms of learning 'any time, any where or any place'. This may not indicate unlimited choice, since learners will still have targets to be met. However, it may provide learners the opportunity to learn in ways that suit their individual learning styles and multiple intelligences.

Sometimes Personalization is improperly used as synonymous to Individualization. These are distinct terms with different pedagogical meaning. Individualization refers to the set of didactic strategies aiming to guarantee all students' mastery of the same learning objectives by adjusting the pace to the progression of the learner. The teacher (or computer) manages the best solution based on learner performance. Personalization does take into account the pace at which the learner is progressing, but also aims to valorize the entire potential of the learner, the biography, the intelligences, the sensibilities and competences (also emotional ones) that characterizes each person, in order to reach a form of cognitive excellence, by developing all aptitudes, capabilities and talents. Learning objectives then will be different for each learner, and they will cannot be foreseen at all from the beginning of the learning process. Not the kind of competences to be acquired will influence the outcomes, but the different degree of ability in the use of competences themselves. The learner, guided by the teacher, is an active co-designer of the learning pathway-experience.

Differences' List:

Dialogue is a central element to personalization, as it is with all social constructivism in learning spaces. One example of this style of learning is demonstrated by learning logs which support development of thinking and learning skills in students.

Whilst personalized learning may happen in traditional learning contexts such as schools and colleges, it embraces learning that happens anywhere, for example in the home, in the community - anywhere. Personalized learning can happen in partnership with other learners, for example learners working together in a group to study a particular topic. This 'anywhere, anytime, anyplace' learning can be seen in light of the forces of globalization that are influencing this latest trend in education, where time, space and place are experienced as compressed; a death of distance.

ICT and Communications technology can be a powerful tool for personalized learning as it allows learners access to research and information, and provides a mechanism for communication, debate, and recording learning achievements. However, personalized learning is not exclusive to digital technologies or environments. In the rhetoric around 21st Century Skills, personalized learning is often equated with 'customization' (as found in the business world), with digital personalization used to the frame the learning experience as highly efficient. Problematic in this is the discounting of the highly relational and socially constructed space well defined in the research on learning. Narrowing personalized learning to its digital form also raises the concern of the Echo chamber (media) effect emerging in (hyper)personalized online experiences.