What Is Personalized Learning?

It may seem incredible to you, but the origin of the personalization of learning comes from Ancient Greece, when Plato already expressed in his works the need for children to be educated based on the experience while they play and their self-awareness. 

Since then, multiple education experts have developed methods that support the need to promote educational independence, which, far from tying students to certain content, gives them wings to discover what they want to know.

But these methodologies have begun, they have been massively successful until very recently, currently training centers are becoming aware of the importance of autonomy with respect to memorization.

Why is personalized learning highly beneficial for comprehensive development? Do technologies play a determining factor in the process? If you want to answer these and other questions, continue reading.

What is personalized learning?

Personalized learning includes a set of techniques that seek to offer attention adapted to each student. The great protagonist of this educational practice is the student and his needs.

The theoretical basis is that each child, despite not having knowledge at birth, is predisposed to discover the world in certain ways, hence the importance of personalizing teaching.

5 examples of personalized learning

Visual and kinesthetic learning

Visual learning occurs when a student better assimilates knowledge through images or patterns by relating them to the concepts discussed, it is a fairly predominant system.

As a teacher, it is advisable to be aware of children who have difficulties understanding explanations verbally. Likewise, those with a powerful imagination, a great sense of color and who normally opt for artistic studies.

Another effective way to implement personalized learning can be through kinesthesia, which uses the power of sensations, experiences or feelings to teach by focusing on the practical.

This personalized model is ideal for restless and expressive learners, also for those with lower concentration abilities. This is how you can propose role-playing games, a didactic trivia or any example that involves the direct participation of the student.

Cooperative learning

Who said that personalized learning is incapable of being produced in groups? Under the cooperative premise, students are able to get the most out of each lesson if they meet in teams.

This approach rejects teaching as a mere form of memorization, and focuses on learning occurring collectively based on the shared interests of the group.

In this context, a student must learn to clearly express his or her ideas to complete certain tasks related to the syllabus, integrate different opinions, manage misunderstandings, etc.

Flipped classroom

It is one of the most innovative and disruptive techniques that seek to get the most out of class time. Classical education is questioned by suggesting that each student prepare the theoretical content outside the classroom.

Later, during the lesson it will be possible to look for practical, interactive and, above all, personalized ways to reinforce understanding. The protagonist is the student, teachers must create spaces according to their abilities and they will choose the way they learn; Therefore, flexibility is highlighted.

PBL method

It is about personalizing learning through projects, students get involved in them for long periods, having to solve questions posed to develop research and critical thinking.

The projects deal with topics from the training itinerary, but can be personalized according to the student or group of students; The objective is to unleash your creativity, self-knowledge and capacity for inquiry.

Montessori Learning

Maria Montessori was a doctor and educator who maintained that greater effectiveness lies in discovery learning. Thanks to direct contact with objects, practice, the use of specific materials, the student’s freedom to choose, etc.

According to the Montessori method, the teacher must act as a guide to guide the student, but in no case as an instructor who hinders the self-learning process. Therefore, this philosophy moves away from traditional technique and is based on promoting spontaneity, imagination and independence.

How personalized learning works

To begin, personalized learning is based on concepts that you must understand such as self-direction, self-assessment and self-reflection.

Self-direction refers to the need to establish honest communication between students and teachers so that the protagonist of the methodology, that is, the student, is able to establish his or her own objectives during teaching.

Self-assessment, as its name indicates, implies delegating the responsibility of evaluating their academic work to the student themselves. It must be based on trust, but the objective is to achieve an appropriate evaluation.

 Finally, self-reflection has to do with the concept of metacognition, which implies awareness of one’s own individual and his or her limits; It is necessary to encourage it so that learning is meaningful, transcending memorization.

Once these foundations have been laid, various models are implemented in the training centers to successfully meet the needs of each student in a personalized way.

Schools are based on the motivations, needs, goals or strengths of each student, that is, on their profile to build from there all decisions about their learning while making periodic updates.

Academic evolution serves to determine a personalized learning path in relation to your goals, this is what is called competency-based progress. This route adapts the entire environment to specific methodologies based on providing autonomy.

The 5 pillars of personalized learning

Defined student profile

This is the first step to achieve personalized learning. Fortunately, various strategies have been developed so that teachers can clearly determine the ideal teaching for each of their students.

Everything will depend on the educational context and the ages of the students, but in general it is useful to start with an initial questionnaire, which should be stated, in a simple way, about their greatest difficulties and strengths at an academic level. With questions like: How do you evaluate your math skills from 1 to 5?

Later, the questionnaire can move on to discuss personal qualities, main interests or hobbies. To personalize the questions, some of them can be short answers to be filled out by the student.

From this moment on, it is the teacher’s responsibility to both integrate the different profiles of his students into daily teaching, and to identify possible related groups in favor of the personalization of learning.

But observation is vitally important as the best way to determine the profile of your students. Behavior, academic progress, the questions you ask or your personal difficulties can be decisive.

Personal abilities or circumstances face a constant progression that must be addressed. Once greater confidence is gained, in-depth interviews can be held, especially if important changes occur.

Autonomous Learning

All of the above examples of personalized learning have a common denominator: the need to provide freedom to the learner. In this way, independence and a sense of responsibility are given to the student.

Self-learning increases the motivation to know, since it is the learner himself who configures the space, decides the pace and progressively acquires enough critical thinking to express himself without needing help.

The role of the teacher moves away from an authoritarian or instructive conception, but their mission as guides of the process is indispensable. Teachers know the theories, they are a source of knowledge, they must be able to leave the practices in the hands of the student without forgetting the advice.

Shared learning culture

It is a fundamental pillar that in the educational center there is a system of agreed beliefs about the way of understanding learning. Personalization, for example, proposes a model in which each student can advance at their own pace.

Professional orientation

One of the teacher’s functions in personalized learning is to detect the abilities of his student and manage to enhance them for their professional future.

However, the focus of this method aims to move away from giving too much relevance to the results obtained, but what is important is to achieve optimal academic development of the child while he or she enjoys what he or she does.

Flexible learning environments

Classrooms in personalized learning are oriented towards versatility; they must be able to accommodate different teaching environments in the same space. The objective is to allow the effective development of different active, dynamic, innovative and autonomous methodologies.

This transformative nature of the classroom joins with the need to incorporate digital devices, as well as with the idea of ​​multi-age co-teaching. Co-teaching allows several teachers to be in charge of teaching the same group of students.

Its purpose is to combine the skills of two different types of professionals so that their collaboration fosters greater personalized learning success. There are different modalities of team teaching, it is most convenient to adopt one or the other depending on the results sought.

On the other hand, the multi-age system is based on the coexistence in the classroom of students born in different years, without significant differences. The idea is that feedback occurs through which some learn from others.

The exchange of knowledge occurs because the little ones are more encouraged to develop exploration together with their older guides. A relationship of mutual trust develops that improves the self-esteem of both.

Relationship between digital tools and the personalization of teaching

Personalized learning has found its greatest ally in technology; Thanks to digital tools, the effective application of any study methodology is much easier.

ICT, Information Technologies, have meant an educational revolution in terms of dissemination of projects, editing and creation of educational content, research or instant communication.

Technology adapts to the demands of new generations; However, it is necessary to break certain barriers such as ensuring that each teacher knows how it works.

But also thanks to the correct use of ICT, it is possible to achieve gamification of classes, the educational profile of each student is easily managed and physical limitations when learning are eliminated.

In addition, the devices provide the autonomy for each student to access the information they want without the need for the school or the teacher. It was after the arrival of the pandemic that digitalization in education has taken on a leading role.

However, education professor Javier Touron, warns in an entry on his blog about personalized learning and technology, that the presence of the digital tool in no case replaces teaching.

It is a way to complement it to deepen the educational experience of the students, as long as it is done with a purpose. It also states that, although technology is not the main driver of teaching, it must be part of it to the extent that it is crucial in today’s life. 

Challenges of personalized education

Teacher training

To adopt personalized learning it is essential to transform the roles of teachers; Teaching staff must forget about reading the subject, preparing exams and grading them in a report.

This transition can be complicated for certain age groups, who must suddenly integrate not only a new way of doing their work but also multiple digital skills.

However, it is a reality that ICT is here to stay, not as a replacement for teachers but as an additive to their work, which is why it is advisable to provide affordable training resources for teachers.

Educational digital divide

The digital divide refers to the disparity when it comes to accessing technological resources, in this case in relation to education, and although it is reduced more each year, certain data continue to show the need to overcome this challenge.