Personalizing Education Promoting Student Agency

1. Personalizing Education
Promoting Student Agency

2. Personalized Learning
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• In the diverse and ever-changing world of educational technology, the term
"personalized learning" seems to be everywhere
• There is not yet a shared understanding of what it means
• It contains efforts to tailor lessons to
students of different ability levels
and educational needs and desires
—an appealing concept

3. Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)/Response
to Intervention (RtI)
Three-Tiered Instructional/Intervention Model Collaborative Problem Solving
The MTSS and RtI processes are integral parts of personalized learning. 3

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Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)/Response to
Intervention (RtI)
The MTSS and RtI processes are integral parts of personalized learning.

5. Personalized Learning
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To facilitate the academic success of each student by:
• Determining the learning needs, interests, and aspirations of
individual students
• Providing learning experiences that are customized—
to a greater or lesser extent—for each student
To accomplish this goal, schools, teachers, guidance counselors, and other
educational specialists may employ a wide variety of educational methods:
• Intentionally cultivating strong and trusting student-adult relationships
• Modifying assignments and instructional strategies in the classroom
• Entirely redesigning the ways in which students are grouped and taught in a school

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The 360° Teaching with Technology Model
Questions to ask when
you are trying to
personalize learning:

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What might this look like?
• Reconfiguring the operational and educational structure of a large school
• Students are organized into smaller groups and paired with a consistent team of
teachers who get to know the students and their learning needs well
• Smaller learning communities – teaming and theme-based academies
• “Schools-within-a-School”—creation of distinct academic programs, or “schools,”
within the operational structure of larger school
• In Broward – Innovative and Magnet Programs

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What might this look like?
• Eliminating heterogeneous grouping - the practice of
grouping students into different academic “tracks” or tiered
course levels based on their perceived ability or past
academic performance
• Teachers may employ a variety of personalized
instructional and academic support strategies generally
called differentiation, differentiated learning, or
differentiated instruction

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What might this look like?
• Schools may create or offer students a variety of learning pathways—i.e., a wider and more diverse
selection of learning experiences – Broward Virtual School, D3, D4, D5 Classrooms, Innovation for
Learning (IFL), Utilization of a Learning Management System (LMS)
• Career-related internships that allow students to satisfy school graduation requirements or meet
state-required learning standards- Technical Colleges and CTACE
• Dual and Career Dual Enrollment experiences – Technical Colleges and High School Articulation
Programs with FIU, FAU, and Broward College
• Accelerate learning – College Academy – Graduate high school with an AA degree,
Broward Virtual School (elementary, middle, and high school courses)
• Independent-study projects, which allow students to self-design learning experiences in collaboration
with a teacher, mentor, or advisor

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What might this look like?
• Students create and maintain personal learning plans
• Plans describe academic, collegiate, and career goals while mapping
out the educational decisions they need to make to achieve their goals
• Portfolios - cumulative record of a student’s academic work and
accomplishments
• Teachers, advisors, and educational specialists use plans and portfolios
to guide how they teach and support specific students.
NAVIANCE – Connecting Learning and Life - Naviance is a comprehensive
college and career readiness solution for middle and high schools that helps
align student strengths and interests to post-secondary goals, and improve
student outcomes.

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What might this look like?
• Replacing more traditional homeroom periods or study halls with advisory sessions
• Time in the school day for educators to meet with small groups of students and
advise them on academic, social, and postsecondary-planning issues
• Students paired with advisors, adult mentors, or peer mentors who meet
regularly with students over the course of several months, a year, or multiple years
• Help students acclimate to a school, navigate educational options, or plan for
higher education and careers after graduation
• Utilization of Media Specialists for guided inquiry and support
New High School Schedules – A/B Block offering 8 classes per year, 1 class offered as an advisory session
Pompano Beach High School – 4-day school week/Friday remediation and assistance

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What might this look like?
 Using alternative educational approaches and instructional practices:
• Authentic learning
• Blended learning
• Community-based learning
• Project-based learning
 Give students more personal choice in their education and more opportunities
 Pursue learning experiences that reflect their personal interests, career aspirations, or
cultural heritage.
A variety of digital and online learning options are instituted to personalize learning for
students

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What might this look like?
• Increasing the level of choice and personal responsibility students have in the instructional process
• Student Voice - the values, opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds of individual students and
groups of students in a school
• Develop instructional approaches and techniques that are based on student choices, interests, passions, and
ambitions
• An alternative to traditional forms of instruction where teachers may make unilateral decisions with little or no
input from students,
• Introducing more student voice into the learning process is one way to personalize learning
Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) –
 Higher levels of integration of technology into the curriculum promotes student choice of how to express
understanding of concepts.
 Lessons are structured so that student use of technology is self-directed.
 The teacher guides, informs, and contextualizes student choices of technology tools and is flexible and open to
student ideas.

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• Deeper learning requires students to think, question, pursue, and create—to take agency and ownership of
their learning
• When they do, they acquire deeper understanding and skills, and they become more competent learners in
and out of school
• They become better prepared to succeed in academics, in 21st century careers and in life
• We can’t force students to develop agency and drive their own learning. It must come from within.
• Deeper learning instructional practices:
 Student-centered and self-directed learning methods
 Encouraging collaboration – Distance Learning Projects
 Incorporating real-world projects, interviews, case studies
and explorations – Global Scholars Program
Student Agency
What do students need in order to get in the driver’s seat, take agency, and dive deep? And how do
we help them do so?

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PATHWAYS TO
PERSONALIZED
LEARNING WEBINAR LINK
Pathways to Personalized Learning

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Benefits and Challenges
Center for Digital Learning, Pathways to Personalized Learning, 2013. Retrieved from
http://825d0007e19cfb8330f5-793aa0e2839afbbc4a0b9a46376ed589.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/CDE13+SRQ3.pdf

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Next Steps

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Your Thoughts?
Taken from http://personalizedlearning.spps.org/what_is_personalized_learning