Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning is dynamically tailoring learning experiences to students’ strengths, needs and/or interests.

Personalized Learning provides multiple pathways for students to access and show mastery of academic content, and prepares them to become critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, creators, and contributors.

Personalized Learning is one of the LCPS Building Blocks for Deeper Learning. There is not a one size fits all model for Personalized Learning. Schools have identified structures and areas of focus based on the needs of the students and teachers. Personalized Learning, PBL and PBA lead to deeper learning by enhancing student agency, providing students opportunities to reflect on their learning, and engaging them in solving authentic, challenging problems.

8 STEPS TO DEEPER LEARNING

Key elements that teachers can use in instructional design to guide students to engage more deeply with content.

1. Learning goals and success criteria: Any great lesson begins with clear goals for what students need to know and be able to do. Goals, coupled with criteria for success, should be communicated to students in a manner that clarifies our expectations and serves as a guide for self-assessment.

2. Compelling content and products: Beyond discrete standards, teachers have the opportunity to use content and performance expectations to create real-world problems or situations for students to solve. Learning experiences that offer authentic, interdisciplinary tasks provide relevance and promote curiosity for students.

3. Collaborative culture: Learning is social, and the purposeful inclusion of collaboration throughout the learning process is highly engaging for students. There are endless design options for collaboration, including flexible groups, partners, peer tutoring, Socratic seminars, academic discussion, and online experts.

4. Student empowerment: Students’ ownership of their learning increases exponentially when they’re given choice over how to show mastery or create a final product or performance, including using digital tools and resources. Additionally, inviting students to provide input into what they learn and how they engage with content allows them to play the role of co-designer.

5. Intentional instruction: Evidence-based strategies should be carefully selected in order to have the greatest impact on the learning goals. One such strategy is the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model, which provides structure for direct instruction and modeling (“show them”) and guided practice on a task (“help them”), before students attempt it independently (“let them”).

6. Authentic tools and resources: Students should have access to a variety of tools and resources, both print and digital, throughout the learning process and when creating products to demonstrate their learning. Providing a variety of tools offers students choice and emphasizes process over product. Digital strategies such as blended learning and flipped classrooms offer rich experiences that are highly engaging and honor how students like to learn and create.

7. Focus on literacy: Regardless of the content, reading, writing, and speaking should be incorporated into every learning experience. Expose students to multiple texts, primary and secondary sources, and online resources. Engage students in opportunities to write often—e.g., by assigning lab reports, technical manuals, narrative stories, research summaries, opinion papers, or interactive notebooks.

8. Feedback for learning: Throughout the learning experience, there are feedback loops to give students guidance on their progress toward the learning goals. This feedback can be teacher-to-student, student-to-student, or self-assessment. Feedback is formative and provides students with the safety and security of knowing they can take risks and try new things without fear of failure.

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