Personalized learning aims to tailor education to individual students' needs and desires. It allows for flexible grouping practices, learning pathways, and instructional methods to meet each student where they are. Personalized learning may include smaller learning communities, independent projects, advisory periods, and increasing student choice and voice in their education. While promising benefits, personalized learning also presents challenges to implement effectively.

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