Personalized Learning and Differentiated Instruction

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to go ahead and look at personalized learning and differentiated instruction. For today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Dr. Seuss, which states, "Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you."

Now, by the end of the lesson today, you will be able to define a personalized learning and differentiated instruction. You'll be able to describe the features of personalized learning and differentiated instruction, and you will be able to compare and contrast personalized learning and differentiated instruction.

First and foremost, let's go ahead and look at what personalized learning and differentiated instruction is. Well, personalization, in this case, really refers to the idea of instruction that is, first and foremost, individualized. so paced to differentiated learning needs. Then, one that is differentiated, so it's tailored specifically to learning preferences. And also, it's important that everything within personalization is tailored to the specific interests of different learners.

So it's important to note that in an environment that's fully personalized, you're really going to see that the learning objectives and the content, as well as the methods and the pace, will vary depending on what students you have in the classroom at that time. This definition was established by the US Department of Education from their 2010 USDOE Learning Powered by Technology plan.

Next, let's take a look at some of the features of personalized learning. First and foremost, the instruction often occurs in one-to-one or small group situations. That instruction tends to be standards based and competency based. So it's not personalized just to gain interest, but also, attention is paid to the various standards.

Content, then, tends to be both highly relevant, as well as highly authentic. So that means it is interesting to the students and it's applicable to what they will need. Now, there are a variety of various resources that are available for students, and teachers and students can use a variety of technologies. But all of that is used with a very clear purpose to further the education.

Technology is often used during independent work time, but can also be used during class instruction to really help enhance that learning experience and allow students to go deeper and to go farther with their learning. Also, you'll notice a feature of personalized learning is that students are able to move freely throughout the classroom. This helps, depending on certain students' learning needs. And the classroom, then, can also be accommodated to help both independent work as well as some of those group work areas. There are often spaces in personalized classrooms that allow for online work, as well as hands-on work. So it's really a classroom environment that's open to this type of learning.

And finally, the assessments that you'll notice within personalized learning are frequent informative, meaning they happen often and throughout the learning, not just at the end. This gives students the opportunity to retake when necessary.

Now, when we look at differentiated instruction, what we're really looking here are at the changes to the content that's going to be taught. So this is really the process, then, also, by which the content is learned by the student and then the products that the students are going to produce based on that learning so that they can show all that they have learned within various classroom. All of this is done in order to really meet those students' needs.

So, first, let's look at some of those features. First and foremost, teachers really focused on student interests and readiness to really help address the content and performance standards. So when we look at those standards, we then find ways to connect them based on student interest.

The classrooms are emotionally safe and student centered. They need to be in order for students to really feel comfortable taking those risks. And when they don't succeed or they have those individual differences in learning challenges, they're able to take that in stride. Also, teachers are going to vary their instructional practices so that they're able to be really responsive to the students' learning styles and their various readiness levels.

Teachers are also able to assign work to individual students or to small groups. This really allows to personalize the learning based on their interests or learning types. And finally, pre-assessment allows those teachers to really differentiate the learning so that they know where the student is coming into the classroom.

Now, some teachers believe that if they are to differentiate instruction, that that is also personalized learning. And if they have personalized learning environment, then they are also differentiated instruction. That's not necessarily true. Although there's a bit of an overlap between the two different types of models, there are some differences, and that's what we're going to look at right now.

So the first major difference is teacher designed versus teacher designed and student designed. In differentiated instruction, it's teacher designed in that the instructional design or those elements really depend on the teacher. So the teacher is the one tailoring all of that information to help meet the needs of the students. Whereas, in personalized learning, the student design is incorporated. So students can collaborate to really help make it informative for them.

It's not personalized instruction. It's personalized learning that can then be self-paced based on that student's progress and then really tailored to help meet their individual preferences or their interests to really benefit in that learning.

Also, it's same goals versus same goals and/or different goals. So when we talk about differentiated instruction, what we're looking at there are the goals all being same for all of the students, but the students are working to meet those same standards in different ways, as opposed to personalized learning, where the teacher and the student really collaborate together to help identify those goals that the student needs to meet. And then they create the learning plan that help gets them there. So each student might have unique goals that differ from one another, as opposed to differentiated instruction, where it's all the same goal, but they just work about it in different ways when it comes to content, process, product, and the learning environment.

The third major difference is teacher support versus teacher support and network support. Within differentiated instruction, the teacher supports various groups of students, as well as individual students, by providing a lot of those different levels of content, so different ways in which they can approach the process or the strategies that they employ. Whereas, in personalized learning, students are much less reliant on the teacher. It's the students that help to develop those systems for support and then go out to that network of support, so their peers, experts in the content, and possibly teachers.

So whereas teachers, in differentiated instruction, are really promoting that students demonstrate that learning through that creation and learning profiles and they're supported really by the teacher and then some small groups during that class time, in personalized learning, the student helps to create that.

Finally, there's assessment for learning as opposed to assessment as learning. In differentiated instruction, the teacher can carefully and consistently collect those formative assessment data to see where the student is and then help differentiate and move forward, as opposed to in personalized learning, where the student is the one who's self-directed. That student is the one who's monitoring their progress, as opposed to the teacher giving those individual learners feedback based on that data. It's the student that's taking advantage of it and really allowing themselves to reflect on their learning and their mastery as they go through.

So while differentiated instruction and personalized learning are different in terms of those different instructional approaches, there are also overlaps. So differentiating lessons for particular learners through the use of those various teaching methods and learning styles can be a really important part of personalized learning. Both personalized learning and differentiated instruction really help and focus in on that competency-based education approach.

So when we talk about competency-based environments, those students are really moving on to those next skills when they show mastery. The learning is differentiated and personalized to the students, and they're able to show that they've met those competencies through a variety of ways. Again, really helping to all hone back to that competency-based education.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you have been able to define personalized learning and differentiated instruction. You've been able now to describe the features of personalized learning and differentiated instruction. And you've been able to compare and contrast personalized learning and differentiated instruction.

Now that you have an opportunity to reflect, I want you to think about your learning practices and your teaching practices and think about which one of those, personalized learning or differentiated instruction, would be the easiest for you to incorporate into your teaching. As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you might want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to really help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set.