Future Oriented Teaching and Learning

A Change in my practice towards Future Oriented Teaching and Learning:

Personalised Learning

I have always been a fan of learner agency, before I even knew it was called that. When I first started teaching, I quickly came to realise that not everyone learns at the same pace.

For as long as I can remember, I have designed and provided booklets for each of the Japanese alphabets that showed how to write the symbols and included a series of puzzles and activities that learners could proceed through at their own pace. To complement the booklet, a series of four graded tests were printed out and placed in boxes for students to attempt when they felt ready.

As advances with technology have been made and I discovered the flipped classroom model and other possibilities on my Mind Lab journey, I have become interested in finding new tools to help personalise learning to a much greater extent in other aspects of my practice as well.

To further understand the concept, I watched this video by Jill Pellegrini which gives a clear definition of personalised learning as opposed to individualised and differentiated learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKtr8BY65sM  

It also provides a series of steps which can be followed in a personalised learning model.

1. Know your learner
2. Set goals and plan together
3. Build individual pathways with students
4. Provide appropriate resources and assessments
5. Collect data, monitor progress, make adjustments as required

While I know my learners quite well and am good at finding and designing engaging and appropriate resources, I realise I usually skip steps 2 and 3. We set goals and plan together on a whole class level but not with each individual, and so I think they lack purpose at times and their pathways could be a bit haphazard.

This is something I would like to make an effort with next year, particularly with my Year 10 class as there is a wide range of abilities in that group and they are not so constrained with curriculum since they don’t have NCEA exams in Year 10. An idea to explore for my next inquiry project, maybe?

The report “Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective” published by the Ministry of Education (2012) states that personalised learning moves the focus away from the current “one size fits most” system and the existing assessment-driven curriculum to a system where the learner needs and interest are central, and everything else revolves around them.

The benefits given are many: to foster and encourage engaged and independent learners, support every person to develop to their full potential and to really own their learning.

The resource gives the metaphor of a “networked campground” as a personalised learning model. It has a central base where the teacher is available to help and various paths branching out from here along which a learner can choose to follow.

While I like the concept, the image that came to my mind is a train station.

Ueno Station, Tokyo, May 29, 2017

The train station is a busy but calm place. It is the central hub of every community, big or small. Everyone has a purpose for being there, with different destinations in mind. Some will spend approximately 3 minutes in the station before jumping on a bullet train and hurtling towards their destination at 200 k/h. Others will spend a lot longer in the station and will only leave it for short walks, and then with a friend.

I hope I will be able to get my students on board with personalised learning journeys as the destinations are almost limitless. I already have a huge amount of material available on our LMS so it will just take some thought and reorganisation to make this possible. I need to step back from always being the train driver and spend more time with my passengers to ensure they have a great travel experience.

However I have discovered there is only so far I can go as one teacher in a single cell classroom. Most of the research I have found on personalised learning took place in Modern Learning Environments or open plan classrooms where several teachers were available as learning advisors for small groups of students, with flexible timetabling and hours.

Wanner and Palmer (2015) researched a University Course using the flipped classroom model to explore personalised learning for their students. They found that students enjoyed freedom of choice but needed clear structure and guidance. Staff found preparing flipped activities time consuming and they realised assessment needed to meet the flexibility of the learning. A very valid point - how to assess when everyone is learning different things?

The Ministry of Education report (2012) describes ‘Unbundling’ as "a process in which innovators deconstruct established structures and routines and reassemble them in newer, smarter ways". It seems to me that while my school continues to follow the silo model rather than unbundle, it will be difficult for me to go the full distance with personalised learning.

But we all have to start somewhere, right?

References

Pellegrini, J  Differentiated vs. Individualized vs. Personalized (Youtube video) Sept 27 2016

Ministry of Education.(2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Wanner, T., & Palmer, E. (2015). Personalising learning: Exploring student and teacher perceptions about flexible learning and assessment in a flipped university course. Computers & Education, 88, 354-369.