As a child, I loved reading books from the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. Each time I read one, it felt as though the book had been written just for me because the characters did as I wanted, not as the author forced them. In many ways, Personalized Learning has the potential to be the "choose your own adventure" of education, because the learning is based on the student's wants or needs, not on a pre-planned, static curriculum.

Personalized Learning, as I interpret it, is the creation of a closed feedback loop between the teacher and learner; with each iteration of feedback the teacher provides an appropriate support to guide learning toward the target goal. Unlike traditional instruction where all students receive the same assessment and then are "moved" forward as a group, personalized learning allows for divergent pathways that can provide remediation, problem practice, or supplemental materials as needed for each learner.

The foundation for creating a personalized learning experience rests on the student's location on the Learning-Model Spectrum. For some students, their personalized learning may entail a significant amount of autonomous work with minimal direct instruction; other students may require the bulk of their learning to take place through direct instruction.