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In the past if you'd seen one definition of personalized learning, you'd seen... well... one definition of personalized learning. While this is a common occurrence in the early stages of disruptive innovation in any field, the lack of a consistent definition and language for a relatively complex idea has hampered both understanding and effective implementation.

student_ipad_school - 124 by Brad Flickinger under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

The situation was further complicated by the use of several terms interchangeably with personalized learning, most notably: adaptive learning, blended learning, competency-based learning, differentiated learning, and individualized learning. Today, however, most in the education community would agree that while each of these learning approaches shares attributes with personalized learning, none is synonymous.

One-line descriptions of each of the following terms offer insight into how the confusion between them and personalized learning might have arisen. Each definition overlaps in at least one key area with personalized learning.

Adaptive learning: technology used to assign human or digital resources to learners based on their unique needs

Individualized learning: the pace of learning is adjusted to meet the needs of individual students¹

Differentiated learning: the approach to learning is adjusted to meet the needs of individual students

Competency-based learning: learners advance through a learning pathway based on their ability to demonstrate competency, including the application and creation of knowledge along with skills and dispositions

In the desire to establish clarity around definitions and practices, we also sometimes neglect to emphasize what's most important - when done well, personalized learning has the potential to radically transform how we teach and learn and how we create more equitable opportunities for students.

It is important to recognize that personalized learning entails more than a definition: school culture, pedagogy, curricular choices and available resources all influence the shape personalized learning takes in any given learning environment. Still, a shared definition is helpful in supporting this work. In the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan: Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education (NETP) and the 2017 NETP Update, the flagship policy document for educational technology, the U.S. Department of Education defines personalized learning:

Personalized learning refers to instruction in which the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each learner. Learning objectives, instructional approaches, and instructional content (and its sequencing) may all vary based on learner needs. In addition, learning activities are made available that are meaningful and relevant to learners, driven by their interests and often self-initiated.

Though there are subtle differences, mostly around emphasis, the definitions of personalized learning that have been put forward recently, by organizations equally motivated to resolve field confusion, are strikingly similar to ours and to each other. Across these definitions the following similarities emerge:

The pace of learning is adjusted

Learning objectives, approaches, content, and tools are tailored and optimized for each learner

Learning is driven by learner interests

Learners are given choice in what, how, when, and where they learn

Learning is often supported by technology

U.S. Department Education's 2016 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) and 2017 NETP Update

Personalized learning refers to instruction in which the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each learner. Learning objectives, instructional approaches, and instructional content (and its sequencing) may all vary based on learner needs. In addition, learning activities are made available that are meaningful and relevant to learners, driven by their interests and often self-initiated.

The District Reform Support Network (District RSN), an organization formed to offer technical assistance and resources to grantees of the Race-to-the-Top-District education reform initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Personalized learning emphasizes student-driven instructional objectives, content, pace and sequencing. Ideally learning activities are frequently student-initiated, meaningful, and relevant to the learner. Personalized learning often includes the use of technology to facilitate student ownership of learning and to provide tools for individual pacing and more efficient assessments to inform and tailor instruction.²

The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University

Personalization refers to instruction that is paced to learning needs, tailored to learning preferences, and tailored to the specific interests of different learners. In an environment that is fully personalized, the learning objectives and content as well as the method and pace may all vary (so personalization encompasses differentiation and individualization).³

Digital Promise

Personalized learning, learning that is connected to each individual's development, background, interests, and experiences, provides an approach that broadly and equitably supports educators' efforts to empower learners as individuals.

Personalized learning offers a path to effectively support the growing diversity of the population of students by understanding how individual learners learn best and actively engage, motivate, and inspire them with the right resources at the right time, in the right medium, and at the right pace.⁴

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and EDUCAUSE

Personalized learning seeks to accelerate student learning by tailoring the instructional environment - what, when, how, and where students learn - to address the individual needs skills and interests of each student. Students can take ownership of their own learning, while also developing deep, personal connections with each other, their teachers and other adults.⁵

International Association for K-12 Learning Online (iNACOL)

Personalized learning means tailoring learning for each student's strengths, needs and interests-including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when, and where they learn-to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.⁶

Rhode Island Personalized Learning Initiative

Personalized learning is student-centered learning approach where learning experiences are tailored to meet the unique needs and ensure strong growth of each individual student on a real-time basis.⁷

*Also incorporates NETP definition.

Alliance for Excellent Education

Personalized learning is a student-centered approach designed to help all students, including students from low-income families and students of color who have been traditionally underserved, develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities that will prepare them for college, a career, and life. Personalized learning means that educators develop caring and trusting relationships with their students, who, because of these relationships will put more effort into their school work and achieve at higher levels.⁸

LEAP Learning Framework for Personalized Learning

Personalized learning occurs when all learning is focused on, demonstrated by, and led with the learner, and connected meaningfully with mentors, peers and the community.⁹

Great Schools Partnership: Glossary of Education Reform

The term personalized learning, or personalization, refers to a diverse variety of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic-support strategies that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students.¹⁰

Personalized Learning in Action: The Continuous Learning Process

In addition to defining personalized learning, we want to understand how teachers, learners, and learning resources and systems work together to achieve personalized learning. Here is where learning science and researchers can work with practitioners and providers to identify what elements make the most difference in moving the needle. What does personalized learning look like in action? While the specifics of personalization can and should vary based on individual learners and their unique situations, most practitioners of personalized learning today agree that typically the same general process is followed:

1. All learners are engaged in a tailored learning experience. This could include teacher-led whole-class or small-group activities, learners working in groups or individually, and learners engaged in digital learning activities.

2. Each learner's performance is measured. The type of learning experience determines the types of data that can be collected. For example, as learners participate in a small-group activity, the teacher might ask them targeted, open-ended, probing questions that will help in tailoring upcoming components of the lesson. When technology is used, performance can be measured continuously in real time.

3. Each learner's performance data is interpreted against established criteria. Criteria could include learning objectives and formal standards for college and career readiness. It could also include measures of other success skills like problem solving and critical thinking.

4. Learning experiences are personalized for each learner based on data. A learning experience can be personalized by teachers or the technology-based personalized learning system or some combination of the two. In some approaches, learners can also make their own adaptations based on the data.

5. Each learner's performance is measured again. Once a learning experience has been personalized, the teacher and a technology-based system measures performance again and the cycle repeats. Data collected is used by the teacher, and sometimes the learner, to improve the experience for the learner as well as to improve the technology-based system designed to support the personalized learning.

It's worth noting that while each of the five components in this continuous process can be done without technology, technology makes it possible for a teacher to scale these activities consistently and accurately to more students, which is important given the practical realities of teacher-student ratios in classrooms.

What can sometimes get lost in the focus on a consistent definition and process is the potential power and benefits of personalizing learning, which are many:

When the pace of learning is adjusted for each learner, all learners have the time needed to demonstrate mastery.

When learning is optimized and tailored for each learner, and driven by learner interests, it can be more meaningful and relevant, which can lead to greater engagement and achievement.

When learners are given more choice, they tend to take more ownership of their learning and develop the academic mindsets, learning strategies, and self-regulated learning behaviors that are necessary for meeting immediate goals and for lifelong learning.

When learning is supported by technology, learners can receive more frequent and immediate feedback through formative assessments, quizzes, and checks for understanding with results provided to teachers and learners in real time.

With the right tools, learning gaps that impede progress can be identified more quickly, allowing learners to close those gaps.

The use of technology to provide teachers with the ability to tailor instruction to individuals allows teachers more time to provide targeted attention to learners who are struggling or who are progressing more rapidly than their peers, rather than being forced to "teach to the middle."

When teachers can use technology to identify or modify existing resources more easily, teachers can then build stronger and deeper relationships with each learner and provide more resources for dealing with specific challenges. This can promote a greater sense of belonging among students by demonstrating that there are adults who care that they thrive.

There is one more important advantage to personalized learning that cannot be underestimated. We know that all learners have different abilities and experiences and will respond in unique ways to learning opportunities. An enormous challenge we face in our public education system is how to equitably recognize these differences and develop learning approaches that help all learners achieve. Creating tailored learning environments for each learner can increase equity by providing every learner what they need to be successful, regardless of race, ethnicity, first language, culture, socio-economic background, physical and mental abilities, or geography.

Like other educational technology terms, the definition of personalized learning is in danger of becoming diminished to the point where it becomes no more than marketing hype. We hope that the field can converge around a definition that accounts for the key aspects of a robust system discussed above, that respects learner agency and expands learning communities, and that is attuned to issues of equity. If personalized learning is to deliver on its promise, then those who implement these systems need to measure and optimized these impacts side-by-side with learning outcomes. Our approach to personalized learning needs to reflect both our aspirations and our values.

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In the past if you'd seen one definition of personalized learning, you'd seen... well... one definition of personalized learning. While this is a common occurrence in the early stages of disruptive innovation in any field, the lack of a consistent definition and language for a relatively complex idea has hampered both understanding and effective implementation.

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Examples of what Personalised Learning Looks Like

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Examples of what Personalised Learning Looks Like

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We have a few answers to this question. One is that personalized learning always involves these core four elements - targeted instruction, data-driven decisions, flexible content, and student reflection and ownership. Check out our Core Four white paper for a more detailed description of these elements, as well as classroom examples.

Another answer is that, "it depends" - we believe strongly in the design thinking process, and that school leaders and teachers are in the best place to put together instructional models that meet the needs of their students. Check out this great blog post on the process by my colleague, Kelly!

That being said, we realize that we can never answer this question enough. In response to this demand, here is a short collection of videos, photos, artifacts, and teacher testimonies that we hope will help illustrate what personalized learning could look like at your school or district. Some of these examples are from Education Elements districts and schools, and some are from other places!

Personalized learning is: Incorporating Self-Reflection and Goal-Setting

In Middletown, NY , the school culture incorporates student reflection and goal-setting starting with the youngest grades. Check out these classroom photos of goal-setting artifacts.

From a Middletown teacher: "[Students] use a Google form, and t
he forms are sent to me automatically so I am able to instantaneously see how they are self-assessing. It gives them a sense of accountability and it also lets me be aware of how they think they did... I use their self-assessment to help guide my instruction and to help group them for math and ELA." Check out this classroom teacher as she talks about her approach to Student Ownership & Reflection
Personalized Learning is: Flexible & Intentional Master Schedules

In Wake County, NC, school leaders at Rogers Lane Elementary School have created a master schedule that's aligned to their three core principles: Agents of Change, Out of this World Learning, and Intentional and Reciprocal Relationships. While it's still a work in progress, the schedule does a wonderful job of showing the back-end work it takes to explicitly incorporate co-teaching, multi-level classrooms, student choice, and blocks for targeted small-group instruction.

Additionally, to help parents and students better understand how this schedule would affect a student's daily experience, Rogers Lane created a "Day in the Life of" Primer .
Check out this classroom teacher as she talks about her approach to Flexible Path and Pace Check out this video from a high school teacher, where she describes how she has students use a digital tool to demonstrate their ability to collect and analyze data from a field exercise.
Personalized Learning is: Using Digital Content and Tools in a Purposeful Way - Flexible Path and Pace
Check out from an elementary school teacher about how he uses a portfolio of digital content tools in his classes. These last 2 videos are part of a larger collection of great this video videos from BetterLesson on blended learning strategies.

Personalized Learning is: Incorporating Personalized Playlists

Many personalized learning classrooms incorporate flexible pacing by having students go through content via playlists. However, not all playlists are personalized.

My colleague Brittany, in partnership with teachers and school leaders at Rochester School District, NH, put together this helpful Playlist Building 101 Guide that describes how to build a personalized learning playlist.

Personalized Learning is: Planning for Flexible Seating
Photo: Loudoun County Public Schools (VA), Twitter #LoudounPL Photo: Loudoun County Public Schools (VA), Twitter #LoudounPL

Flexible seating is a popular strategy because it is a physical manifestation of targeted, fluid instruction. With a focus on student choice and comfort, flexible seating is a great way to convey to students, "You matter."

Edutopia has a terrific article specifically focused on flexible seating at the high school level, including classroom photos and teacher testimonies. Ashley Rice Broomfield, a 1st grade teacher, shares, " I am in my 13th year of teaching, but this is my first year incorporating flexible seating into my classroom. I will never go back to traditional seating."

EdSurge also has a great post on 10+ brain-based methods to redesign your classroom, and how to include your students in the redesign process. We love this quote: "A good friend of mine often reminds me that we aren't raising a class of second graders, but in fact, we are raising future adults. She says, 'If they're old enough to do it for themselves, they should not only be allowed to, but expected to do so.'"

Finally, see these pictures above from our awesome partners in Loudoun County Public Schools, VA!

check out the BONUS:#LoudounPL hashtag for more amazing pictures of how Loudoun County schools are personalizing learning.

Personalized Learning is: Involving Students in Grading Conversations

Prolific blogger Catlin Tucker offers another great strategy - including "grade interviews" with students. Tucker shares, " As grade reporting approaches, I sit down with every single student for a grade interview. Students come to these grade interviews prepared with a formal argument. These conversations are invaluable. Students walk away knowing exactly what they need to work on or what they are doing well. Also, I feel like I know my students so much better because we sit down and chat about their learning every 5-6 weeks!" Check out her full blog post !

Additionally, student-led conferences (SLC's) can be a great way to engage both students and parents in reflection. In an SLC, a student might not only explain what progress he or she is making, but why it is that progress is occurring. This Edutopia post has a great set of resources on SLC's, sourced from articles like this Atlantic piece to protocols and videos of SLC's in action.

To learn more about how these examples build on the core four elements of personalized learning, check out our white paper.

More Personalized Learning reading

Blog: Personalizing Learning: Getting it Right

Blog: Personalizing Learning: Reflection and Goal-Setting

Blog: How to Pick the Right Instructional Model for Your Classroom

Blog: Personalizing Learning: Flexible Pace & Path

Blog: Personalizing Learning: Targeted Instruction

Blog: Personalizing Learning: Collaboration & Creativity

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Six Examples of What Personalized Learning Looks Like

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Personalized learning takes different forms in different classrooms - here are six examples of what personalized learning looks like.

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A Six-Step Approach to Personalized Learning

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A Six-Step Approach to Personalized Learning

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Many teachers shy away from personalization due to its complexity. While the ultimate goal of technology-powered personalized learning is to minimize this complexity, the typical approach of pairing students with individualized content is reductive, at best.

Scalable and sustainable personalized learning environments should instead maximize the power and potential of individuals and strengthen interpersonal connections. Technology-powered personalized learning simply cannot provide this.

Personalizing learning doesn't necessitate investing hundreds of dollars per child in expensive hardware or applications-but it does require an investment in people and in fostering relationships between them. This investment can be as minimal as a few simple changes in mindset and practice, ones that move away from personalizing for students and toward personalizing with them.

The best part is, you may already be doing some of these things, and it's critical to name them so you can continuously improve them.

First: Teach Social and Emotional Skills to Foster Autonomy

Culture is everything in a personalized classroom, which is why it's critical for educators to invest in the people who build the classroom culture-the students. It's a common misconception that personalized learning is controlled solely by teachers or a digital platform. In my experience, personalization is more sustainable if the students play a role in shaping their own experiences.

By proactively teaching social and emotional skills, we teach students how to make responsible choices and shape their experience autonomously. This autonomous decision-making allows them to play a significant role in the act of personalizing their own learning.

To achieve this, I start the year explicitly teaching emotional awareness and regulation using Leah Kuypers's Zones of Regulation, a framework intended to foster self-regulation and emotional control that I refer to throughout the school day. Originally developed for students with autism, it guides students to be aware of their emotions and impulses and to become independent in controlling them.

When building routines for simple tasks like gathering materials, self-starting new tasks, taking risks, and rebounding from mistakes, I use Responsive Classroom's interactive modeling, a widely accepted practice for not only showing students how to perform routines, but also helping them understand why such routines are important. The teacher models first, explaining each of the steps she takes along the way. Next, a few classmates model the routine, and then the whole class performs it. Interactive modeling concludes with focused reflection on students' demonstration of the routine through positive reinforcement and compassionate redirection, when necessary.

By explicitly building routines and social and emotional competencies, we set students up for later success when they must make choices autonomously.

Second: Build a Standards-Aligned Curriculum That Includes Student Choice

We often believe there is a linear relationship between choice and freedom, but it's possible to be paralyzed by choice. Radical forms of personalized learning models provide too many choices, making the notion of a curriculum built with standardized outcomes undesirable.

Even John Dewey, the father of progressive education, would advocate against a form of personalized learning where the kids call all the shots. In Experience and Education, he states that an adult's life experience guides their decision-making around which experiences are "educative" and worth students' time in the classroom.

Using clear learning objectives (or standards) can help us build this educative structure, while still allowing space for learners to mold the curriculum with some autonomy.

Building a curriculum fortified by standards sets up what I like to call a "flexible frame." Think of it as being like a wire frame an artist might use to structure a clay sculpture. The wire is sturdy, yet flexible, allowing for choice and creativity through structure.

Curriculum works similarly. Say you want to explore perimeter and area with your students, critical skills for late elementary students. After building a strong frame fortified by clear success metrics, you can engineer a set of learning activities that helps students explore these concepts and construct knowledge around them in a variety of ways: Students can play math games, solve a variety of open-ended tasks, or even build Lego structures with various areas and perimeters.

The clearly defined standards build a frame that ensures that students are learning what they need to-the activities are the medium through which each child will personalize the learning through autonomous decision-making.

Third: Establish Structures for Feedback and Formative Assessment

When students are equipped for autonomy through explicit social and emotional learning and a structured, yet flexible curriculum, they operate with much less assistance from a teacher, allowing educators to spend time doing what really matters-interacting with kids. When my kids are exercising their autonomy, I'm able to circulate, assist, provide feedback, and even pull small groups together when necessary.

But when technology is used to personalize on behalf of students, it often acts as a prohibitive intermediary between the teachers and students. It chips away at connection, adds complexity to routines, and can even lengthen feedback loops.

Feedback is the life force of the personalized learning environment, and it's much more nuanced than personalized learning technology would have you believe. Sure, advanced technology can assess on our behalf and perhaps even provide bits of feedback. But we must remember that learning is an emergent and serendipitous conversation defined by interpersonal interactions. Our time is better spent giving meaningful feedback and working with students to make learning more personal.

We must stop personalizing on behalf of our students. By partnering with them and building opportunities for autonomy, we begin sharing the responsibility of making learning personal. This makes personalized learning scalable, sustainable, and helpful in enriching the connections between humans, which is, after all, the most personal way to learn.

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Personalized Learning Isn't About Tech | Edutopia

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Many teachers shy away from personalization due to its complexity. While the ultimate goal of technology-powered personalized learning is to minimize this complexity, the typical approach of pairing students with individualized content is reductive, at best. Scalable and sustainable personalized learning environments should instead maximize the power and potential of individuals and strengthen interpersonal connections.

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This is the state of Vermont's consultant...good site to look at!

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During the past six years there has been a volume of articles written about ownership to learning, personalized learning and personalization with some saying that it should be called "personal learning". Let's stop mudding the waters with educators and embrace this one idea:

Personalized learning starts with the learner -not the curriculum, not the standards, not the test and not the adaptive learning systems that claim they are personalizing learning.

Let's also clarify what personalized learning means for the learner!

After researching and co-authoring two books* on personalized learning, consulting with numerous school districts to launch, build and sustain personalized learning environments, it is evident that the stakeholders in a school community need to come together and agree on a vision and set of beliefs about teaching and learning first. Then they need to create an actionable plan where daily instructional and learning practices empowers every child to take "ownership to learning." But before we can turn over the remote to the learner so that they can have ownership, we need to ask ourselves:

What does "ownership to learning" really mean?

Ownership to learning means that a learner is motivated, engaged and self-directed. It means they can monitor their own progress and are able to reflect on their learning based on mastery of content. In addition, the learner has the skills, knowledge and dispositions to independently direct and design their own learning experiences and is skilled in selecting and using tools, resources, strategies and a Personal Learning Networks (PLN) to support their learning. But first...

For every learner to begin to understand how they learn, we need to turn to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is a research-based set of principles based in the neurosciences to guide the design of learning environments and instruction that is accessible and effective for all. In 2012, The UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™ was created to empower learners to tell their story of who they are and how they learn and to inform us of the variability in the way they learn: their strengths, challenges, interests, talents, aspirations and yes, their hopes and dreams! Above all, UDL is a lens that applies to ALL learners as a means for creating personalized, learner-centered environments where each learner can develop agency. The next question is:

How can teachers support learners in understanding how they learn and help them take "ownership of their learning"?

Let's dive a little deeper into the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™!

Simply, it is designed so that we see the learner in every child.

It offers key information about the learner's strengths and challenges in how they access and process information, how they engage with content and concepts and how they express what they know and understand.

The terms Access, Engage and Express ™ also serves as the common language between teacher and learner where daily conversations can take place about learning with a process to identify the tools and skills that could support a challenge or enhance a strength. A Personal Learning Backpack™ of tools, apps, resources is discussed with the learner so that learning goals to acquire the skills to support their own learning can be included in A Personal Learning Plan ™ (PLP) where each learner articulates an action plan and how they will demonstrate they achieved the goal. In the end, they acquire the necessary skills to support their learning and become an independent and self-directed learner, a learner with agency that has "ownership to learning". Here is just one example of a Learner Profile and Personal Learning Backpack™ (PLB) that will lead to a few learning goals for a Personal Learning Plan™ (PLP).

Let's take a look at one way the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™ and the Learner Profile is being used in practice and how this one school district has turned over the remote to empower their learners to take "ownership to learning".

Stories that Empower Learners to take "Ownership to Learning"

Jason Phelps is the principal at Clyde F. Brown Elementary School where he shared how Fourth Grade Genius Hour passion projects were created from the information the learners shared about themselves when responding to Part 1 of the Learner Profile, "Who I am as a Learner". The fourth grade teachers initiated deeper and emotionally connected learning through goal setting around passion projects. Based upon the famous Google concept of "20% time", each fourth grade learner selects a personal passion topic and then uses a weekly hour and a half "personal learning time" to work on a project that would improve the school community or society in some way. In the end, learners create passion projects that result in lessons being taught by the learners on anti-bullying, learner-led advocacy and support for local homeless shelters, "adopt-an-endangered-animal" drives, and creation of "care packages" for a local children's hospital. The "personal learning time" has empowered learners to identify a purpose for learning as they take ownership through voice and choice.

Maureen Knowlton is the principal of the Millis Middle School where they use Learner Profiles to understand a learner's strengths as well as their interests, passions and aspirations. On entering a classroom in Millis Middle School, a visitor may have to search for the teacher because the learners are front and center, leading the learning! Here is just a glimpse of what you would observe: Fifth graders writing skits and creating videos following research on the Roanoke Colony and sixth graders collaborating during a Civil Rights unit to write a thirty-three page choose-your-own-adventure book entitled, Living in Segregation, which classmates now read during independent reading time. In seventh grade, learners helping one another deepen understanding of literature themes by designing interactive lessons about topics like substance abuse, social justice and mental health challenges. Similarly, eighth graders enrich curriculum with their own presentations on topics of interest such as Social Media and Conformity. Can learners own their learning? Millis teachers think so. Using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™ with a strengths-based focus to create their own Learner Profile, teachers are able to offer choices that fosters ownership to learning. You see, when learners call the plays, they can exceed teacher expectations and they might even earn a standing ovation!

Millis Public Schools in Millis, MA is an wonderful example of what can happen when you empower learners with the what, why and how of learning including their passions and interests. The focus on creating learner-centered environments where "ownership to learning" can be realized by every learner was led by an innovative leader, Superintendent Nancy Gustafson, along with her administrative team. Nancy has been a long-time believer in creating learner-centered environments using the UDL Lens and the results are found in these stories. The teachers turned the remote over to the learners where they used their strengths and passions to take "ownership to learning".

Related Blog posts:

* Learner Profile, Personal Learning Backpack and Personal Learning Plan located in Chapter 4 of How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey; also co-authors of bestseller Make Learning Personal: The What, Who, Wow, Where and Why.

Personal Learning Backpack, Personal Learning Plan, The UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express are trademarks of Kathleen McClaskey.

I am excited to share the Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization Chart, v3 in 9 European Languages in addition to the AU/UK version developed a few years ago. This chart was translated by European Schoolnet, a network of 34 Ministries of Education from across Europe. These charts will be used by teachers in their TEACHup project course on personalizing learning that will be conducted by the European Schoolnet Pedagogical and Scientific Assistant Knowledge Team in Brussels.

Spanish

Portuguese

German

Lithuanian

Estonian

Greek

Hungarian

Slovak

Turkish

I have also included the Australian/UK version that was developed a few years ago.

Now thousands of educators from Europe, South and Central America and Australia will have access to the PDI chart in their native language that can be shared in schools and communities with colleagues and parents around the world!
Sign-up for the MLP Newsletter to receive future updates!
PDI Chart,v3 in Spanish

PDI Chart, v3 in Portuguese

PDI Chart, v3 in German

PDI Chart, v3 in Lithuanian

PDI Chart, v3 in Estonian

PDI Chart, v3 in Greek

PDI Chart, v3 in Hungarian

PDI Chart, v3 in Slovak

PDI Chart, v3 in Turkish

PDI Chart, v3 - Australian/United Kingdom

It is the start of the school year and you have been preparing to have your assigned children enter your classroom. You have so many questions about them but one you may have not thought about is: Are they students or learners? Think about that... do you want students or learners in your classroom this year? What is the difference anyway? Well let's take a look at the difference and have you decide for yourself.
Learner vs. Student
We are at a crossroads in education where we understand that traditional school systems are not preparing our children for a world where they will need to learn, unlearn and relearn in an ever-changing economy. As we try to create more personalized, learner-centered environments, it is important to understand that we need to change the language so we can change the culture in the classroom and school. Using the term "Learner" is a critical first step so that we see every child and every person as a learner. So what is the difference between a learner and a student? Let's look at the definitions:

From Wikipedia, "A student is primarily a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution who attends classes in a course to attain the appropriate level of mastery of a subject under the guidance of an instructor and who devotes time outside class to do whatever activities the instructor assigns that are necessary either for class preparation or to submit evidence of progress towards that mastery."

From Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, a learner is "a person who is finding out about a subject or how to do something."

From The Glossary of Education Reform, when comparing learner and student, they point out that "While this preference may seem arbitrary on the surface, it does appear to serve a semantic purpose: learning can occur in the absence of teaching, but teaching doesn't occur without some form of learning taking place. i.e.,

learners can learn without teachers, but students are only students when they have teachers."

Now take a look at the comparisons in the chart and decide on the qualities you would like for the children in your classroom to have. This is not a comprehensive comparison of Learners vs Students but it does offer an initial comparison on what the distinct differences are and what qualities would be found in a traditional vs personalized learning system. If you have decided you want learners in your classroom, then the question you need to consider exploring is....

How can I create a classroom culture in which being a learner is more valuable than being a student?

The simple answer is to empower your learners to share their story of who they are and how they learn! Have your learners use the UDL Lens to develop a Learner Profile, based on the learning sciences, to discover their strengths and challenges, preferences and needs in the what, how and why of their learning. Value every learner by building a strong relationship with each of them. Help them develop learning goals in a Personal Learning Plan so that they can gain the skills to be agents of their own learning. Reflect with each learner so they can realize the progress they are making with their goals. When you do this, your classroom culture will be filled with learners who are future ready!

To

Make Learning Personal, we need...

to empower each learner with the skills to be Future Ready,

to transform teaching and learning practice, and

to embrace and value each learner!

This puzzle logo with it's multi-shades of blue represents that each learner is unique and multi-faceted in that they learn in different ways. We see the importance for each learner to understand how they learn so that they can develop agency with the skills, knowledge and dispositions to have choices in college, career and life.

MLP Vision

Each learner...

is valued, supported and embraced.

understands how they learn.

is unique and develops the skills to support their learning.

advocates for their learning.

works at their own pace in a competency-based system.

follows their passions to discover their purpose.

takes ownership to their learning.

achieves agency.

MLP Mission

MLP Core Beliefs

The first chart of the Stages of Personalized Learning Environments was posted in 2012 and it immediately became an initial guide to help pioneering teachers who were trying to transform their classroom environments to be learner-centered. Barbara Bray and I heard from hundreds of teachers who were asked by principals to create learner-centered environments and we wanted to provide a guideline to let them know that there was a process to do that and it was not done in just a few months. Thinking like practitioners, we created the first Stages of PLE to help educators understand that there is a process to move from a traditional classroom to Stage One where it is teacher-centered with learner voice and choice to Stage Two where it is learner-centered to Stage Three where learners are driving their own learning.

After 6 years, thousands of teachers from around the world are using this chart to guide them in creating learner-centered environments. To celebrate this 6th anniversary, this infographic was created to share with all pioneering teachers who have transformed their classrooms where every learner is valued.

The Stages of Personalized Learning Environments, v5 can be found under the Toolkit tab and in the book, How to Personalize Learning.

http://bit.ly/StagesofPLEInfographic

We are embarking on an era of transformational change in education where we have a vision of creating learner-centered environments where learners pursue their passions and interests and develop agency with the knowledge, skills and dispositions so they are future ready for careers yet to be imagined. The question is:

Why are we still using the traditional approach of learning styles to develop learner profiles?

Let's take at the research and what it says about learning styles.

Why Stop Using Learning Styles?

As we are transforming education from the traditional teacher-centered environments to a personalized, learner-centered environment we need to reconsider the learning styles approach that has no basis in research. Classroom teachers and academics have been using learning styles for over four decades to understand learners. During this time the notion that teaching methods should match a learner's particular learning style has had a powerful influence in education, however, a study published in the Psychological Science in the Public Interest challenged the concept of learning styles and their affect on performance.

Despite the preponderance of the learning styles concept "from kindergarten to graduate school," and a "thriving industry" devoted to such guidebooks for teachers, Pashler found there wasn't rigorous evidence for the concept. He wrote:

Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis. We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice.

The four prominent cognitive psychologists in this study found no evidence for validating educational applications of learning styles into general education practice. This was their conclusion:

Research conducted over 40 years has failed to show that individual attributes can be used to guide effective teaching practice. Rather than being a harmless fad, learning styles often perpetuates stereotyping and harmful teaching practices it is suppose to fight." (Pashler et al, 2009).

So as schools move from a traditional system to a personalized, competency-based system, we need to evaluate the traditional tools we have used around learners and learning and teachers and teaching, and understand how a learning science can be used to nurture and build a culture of learning.

Start Using the Learning Sciences and the UDL Lens

We need to stop using learning styles and start using Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a research-based set of principles based on the learning sciences to guide the design of learning environments and innovative sustainable systems that are accessible and effective for all learners. UDL tells us that there is variability in the way each learner learns: their strengths, challenges, aptitudes, talents, and aspirations.

The UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ is designed so that we see the learner in every child. It offers key information about the learner's strengths and challenges in how they access and process information, how they engage with content and how they express what they know and understand. The terms Access, Engage and Express also serves as the "common language" between teacher and learner where daily conversations can take place about learning with a process to identify the tools and skills that could support a challenge or enhance a strength in their Personal Learning Backpack™. This leads to a Personal Learning Plan™ (PLP) where each learner can set goals to acquire the necessary skills to become an independent and self-directed learner, a learner with agency that has ownership to their learning.

Ownership to learning requires the learner to understand how they learn.

Empower Learners with the UDL Lens

Start the next school year with having every learner create a Learner Profile. From the learner's perspective, the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ in a Learner Profile would give him or her an opportunity tell their story of who they are and how they learn by:

sharing their strengths, challenges, preference and needs in how they access and process information, engage with content and concepts, and express what they know and understand;

express their interests, talents, aspirations and passions;

set learning goals and actionable plans with teachers to support a challenge or enhance a strength; and

have regular conversations about their learning with teachers, peers, and parents.

Let's take a closer look at the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ and how a learner can share how they learn by using a Learner Profile (LP) that also includes their interests, talents, passions, aspirations and the words that would describe them.

The information in the Learner Profile (LP) helps each learner tell their story and how they learn with their teacher. This is the foundation from which conversations, relationships and partnerships in learning are built. What are the possible messages and outcomes from a learner using the Learner Profile?

It helps validate the learner and how they learn.

It tells the learner that you care about who they are.

It creates a community of learners based on trust and respect.

"No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship." - Dr. James Comer
To learn more about how to personalize learning and the three-step process of the Learner Profile, Personal Learning Backpack™ and Personal Learning Plan™, refer to How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper by Bray and McClaskey (2016) or the blog posts on the Learner Profile, Personal Learning Backpack and Personal Learning Plan.

Access, Engage and Express, Personal Learning Backpack and Personal Learning Plan are trademarks of Kathleen McClaskey.

Reference: Paschler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., and Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 105-119. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3.pdf

Celebrating 6 Years of the PDI Chart with the PDI Chart, v3 Infographic!

6 years ago this week the Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization (PDI) Chart was published. Millions of educators from around the world have downloaded the PDI Chart. It has been translated in many languages and it is found in schools, classrooms, academic publications, state DOE sites, educational blogs and articles.

I am excited to create and share this PDI Chart, v3 Infographic designed specifically to mark this anniversary!

Barbara Bray and I created the first PDI chart in January 2012 so that educators and parents could understand these terms from the perspective of the learner. We also wanted to clarify the differences between these terms as there was and still is confusion around them. Please note that there are distinct differences between these three terms: Personalization is learner-centered, Differentiation and Individualization are teacher-centered.

Personalization or Personalized Learning always starts with the learner where he or she has ownership to their learning.

I welcome you to share this PDI Chart, v3 Infographic or the standard PDI Chart, v3 located under the Toolkit tab. Please use it for action research, in your classroom, professional learning, and staff meetings.
Look next for the Stages of Personalized Learning Environments, v5 Infographic coming out soon! If you would like to receive our newsletter or the upcoming Insights on Personalized Learning, please complete the information below.

Part 3 of the 3 Part Series on Using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage, and Express™ to empower learners to be Future Ready.

Just imagine learners turning challenges they have into strengths! Consider those same learners enhancing their strengths so they are self-confident in what and how they learn. Wouldn't it be great if your learners were able to set their own goals to explore careers and determine what experiences they need to be college and career ready?

This post is the last part of the three-part process for all learners of any age to build agency so they become independent and self-directed learners.

Your learners shared with you how they learn best using the Learner Profile (LP). Your conversations with your learners when using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens of Access, Engage and Express™ describing their strengths, challenges, preferences and needs in how they learn helped them decide what to include in their Personal Learning Backpack (PLB). You collaborated with your learners to choose the skills, tools and apps that can enhance their strengths and support their challenges they have in accessing and processing information, engaging with content and expressing what they know and understand.

The next step in the process is to help each learner develop the skills to be an independent, self-directed learner with agency. The Personal Learning Plan is where the learner defines goals, describes actions steps, and indicates a way to measure progress and achievement.

Introducing the Personal Learning Plan™

The purpose of a Personal Learning Plan (PLP) is to assist learners to develop goals with a set of action steps to achieve those goals, ways to monitor their own progress, show evidence in reaching the goal and a reflection on achieving it. The PLP has four specific focuses:

Learning Goals (Access, Engage and Express) to develop independent skills to support their own learning;

Personal Goals to explore their interests, talents, or passions;

College and Career Goals to gain first-hand experiences in career areas where they have strong interests; and

Citizenship Goals to become an active citizen in the local or global community.

Learning Goals for Skill Development

In Part 1 (LP) and Part 2 (PLB) of this series, the learner shared one of her Express challenges was that she found it difficult to put her thoughts on paper, and that she needed a speech-to-text (STT) tool to help her write her thoughts down. She has seen that tool being used by other learners but would like to learn how to use it on her own. She works with her teacher to describe the Express Learning Goal along with a set of action steps to learn the speech-to-text tool, ways to measure progress and showing evidence in reaching her goal and finally a reflection on achieving the goal.

On reflection, she has taken a challenge she has had for a while and has now learned new skills so she can independently write her assignments. What a great feeling she has in achieving a goal she set for herself! Her next focus is on a personal goal. Let's take a look back at how she described her interests, talents and passions to illustrate what a personal goal would be.

Personal Goals to Explore Interests, Talents, and Passions

For this learner, having a personal goal that she can focus on gives her an opportunity to explore what she has only dreamed about doing.

Interests, talents, and passions: I love drawing and want to take more art classes in different mediums. I am interested in helping others and maybe can see myself as a teacher or a business leader when I grow up. I am starting to learn about social media and may even look at starting to create a logo and website to showcase my artwork.

Setting a personal goal and taking actions to meet that goal ignites engagement and encourages ownership to learning. Her personal goal is to create a logo and website to feature her artwork. The action steps to help meet this goal can include:

Consult with art/design teacher on personal goal.

Create several logo designs.

Invite art/design teacher to help her choose the best design.

Prepare artwork to display on the website.

Locate low or no cost websites and review features and specs to display artwork.

She decided with her teacher that her evidence in reaching this goal would be featuring her artwork with written and audio narratives on a website with her self-designed logo. Next, she wants to focus on her college and career goals.

College and Career Goals to Pursue Opportunities

The high school where this learner attends offers Extended Learning Opportunities (ELOs). She is excited to have an opportunity to teach art with younger learners in her town. She meets with her ELO Coordinator and begins outlining the action steps that include:

Discover who are the elementary art teachers in the local and adjacent schools.

Develop a proposal outlining her goals for an art teacher mentorship.

Decide on two art teachers and set up a time for an interview to share goals of the mentorship.

Begin mentorship with art teacher and coordinate a schedule.

This experience of being mentored by two art teachers helps this learner make college and career decisions about going into this profession. During the mentorships, she created a visual portfolio of her experiences in the classrooms on her website with audio to show evidence of reaching her goal for college and career.

Realizing that she enjoys working with younger children and learning from her mentors, she was inspired to look at ways to give back to the community since she received so much help from others.

Citizenship Goals to Contribute to our Democracy

A Citizenship Goal contributes to a learner's understanding that a democracy thrives when you are an active citizen in the community. This learner meets with her teacher/advisor to discuss how she would like to give back to the community by being actively involved with the local food pantry. Now that she has decided on the goal, she discusses what her action steps could be.

Meet with the food pantry coordinator to discuss how she could contribute and the time she could commit.

Make up signs to post at local businesses and schools.

Collect non-perishable food for the food pantry.

Organize food at the pantry for distribution.

She decides that one of the best ways to show that she has reached her goal is to share her experiences on her website and invite her peers to join her in working with her at the food pantry.

Learner Agency and Future Ready

Learner Agency means that someone has developed the skills to become an independent, self-directed learner. This learner has created her Learner Profile (LP) using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express to identify her strengths, challenges, interests, talents, and passions. The Personal Learning Backpack (PLB) defines the skills. strategies, tools, and apps that will help her become an independent learner.

Future Ready means that the learner knows how to set her own goals, develop action steps and show evidence in achieving these goals. The Personal Learning Plan (PLP) guides the learner in gaining the skills and experiences she needs to support her learning and make choices for college and career. This post provided one example using an older learner who turned her challenges into strengths and enhanced her strengths so she developed the self-confidence to follow her passion for art and in helping others.

We want you to know that you can build a learner with agency at any age by using this three-step process. We provide an example of an older child only as a model for you. Consider building a relationship right away with young children by starting with a Learner Profile. Get to know your kids and how they learn using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™. Have them share with you their preferences and needs and build a Personal Learning Backpack with them. Then encourage them to choose and set goals with your guidance. Just imagine what your kids can do when they have the confidence in how they learn and that they know how to set goals for themselves. This is the Wow! of learning that we all want for our kids.

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Empowering Learners, Personal Learning Backpack, Personal Learning Plan, UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express are trademarks of Kathleen McClaskey. This post was revised and updated from http://www.personalizelearning.com/2016/09/the-personal-learner-profile-goal.html

Part 2 of the 3 Part Series on Using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage, and Express™ to empower learners.

Once a learner has indicated their strengths, challenges, and interests along with their preferences and needs in the Learner Profile (LP), then the teacher can work with the learner to develop a Personal Learning Backpack™(PLB).
This infographic will be available for purchase in early January 2019!
The UDL Lens: Access, Engage, and Express™

The PLB using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens is for ALL learners. It is about teachers understanding how learners access information, engage with content, and express what they know and understand. This lens is also for the learner to understand how they learn best. It validates the learner and prompts conversations about their learning between the teacher and learner. To understand this process and how tools, resources, strategies and skills can support learning, this table was created as prompts for the learner to effectively use Access, Engage, and Express™.

When you identify how you learn best using the Learner Profile (LP), the next step is to determine what you prefer or need to do or use to support your learning using the PLB.

The PLB Process using Preferences and Needs

This process is all about the conversations that you have with your learners. The PLB is the place to include what you both discover to support learning. If a learner has indicated in the LP that he or she would like to learn how to use a tool or app to support a challenge or a strength, then this can be included in the PLB. Let's first review the learner and her preferences and needs for Access, Engage, and Express that we described in Part 1 on the Learner Profile.

When the teacher and the learner sit down together to review the preferences and needs, they build a story around how her strengths, challenges and interests impact how she learns from their conversations. This is where they can design the PLB based on her talents as an artist and her passion for drawing along with her aspirations to become a teacher or business leader when she grows up. She also mentioned that she would like to learn about social media and create a logo to showcase her artwork. These types of conversations validate her as a learner and confirm that the teacher really listened to about her strengths and challenges and her love for art.

Empowering Learners™ to Build their PLB with the
UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™

The PLB is where the teacher and learner pull together ideas for resources, tools, apps, and learning strategies and skills to support learning. Below is a chart with examples for tools, apps, learning strategies and skills that could support Access, Engage, and Express for this learner.

To determine what skills or strategies the learner needs to acquire, she had to really think about both her strengths and challenges. She loves to draw but needs help with taking notes. So the teacher helped her decide to use her strength (drawing) to help her visualize what she was capturing using different note taking tools. As soon as the learner started sharing what she wanted or needed to learn, she opened up about needing a speech to text tool to help her with writing. Dragon Dictation can help her write down her thoughts. This process guides the learner to determine what she wants and needs to build her skills to become successful as a learner.

Every conversation the teacher has with learners can open a new door or bring up new ideas that may reduce any barriers they may have and can maximize learning for them so they can become independent, self-directed learners with agency.

This post is one example describing a process for the LP and PLB for an older child with higher executive functioning. This same process can be adapted by changing the language for a younger child or any learner who is at-risk or been identified with learning challenges. It is all about the conversations between the teacher and learner. If there is a language barrier or confusion about the process, this is an issue that the teacher can address by revising the LP and PLB with audio options, graphics, simpler language, or even translations. A young child may need help in understanding what he or she is being asked. A teacher can invite a parent to join in the discussions.

Developing Learning Goals

The PLB is the first step in identifying learning goals. Each of the learning strategies and skills the learner wants or needs to learn can be developed into learning goals in a Personal Learning Plan ™(PLP). In the PLP, learning goals with action steps to develop independent learning skills will be illustrated along with college, career, personal and citizenship goals. These steps and the PLP will be explained in more detail in Part Three of this series.

UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express, Empowering Learners and Personal Learning Backpack and Personal Learning Plan are trademarks of Kathleen McClaskey.

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Part One describes the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express ™and introduces the Learner Profile (LP) and how it can be used by both teacher and learner to discover the learner.

Part Two explains how to take the Learner Profile and develop a Personal Learning Backpack ™ (PLB) that includes tools, apps, resources and the skills the learner needs to become an independent, self-directed learner.

In Part Three, I will take the LP and PLB and demonstrate how to help every learner develop agency with an effective Personal Learning Plan ™ (PLP).

All of this along with similar templates are in Chapter 4 of our new publication, How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper.

Personalize Learning, LLC designed Continuum of Voice adapted from "Motivation, Engagement, & Student Voice" by Toshalis & Nakkula from Students at the Center @StudentCntrHub - Visual designed by Sylvia Duckworth @sylviaduckworth. © 2016 by Bray & McClaskey, How to Personalize Learning.

Voice gives learners a chance to share their opinions about something they believe in. We adapted the Continuum of Voice chart we used from research from Toshalis and Nakkula at the Students at the Center in our post Learner Voice Demonstrates Commitment to Building Agency. We added examples that illustrate each level to support implementation using a design by Sylvia Duckworth.
Read more...

Thank You to Sylvia Duckworth @sylviaduckworth ( http://sylviaduckworth.com) from Crescent School, Toronto, Canada for designing the graphic of the Continuum of Voice 1/10/2016.
Cross-posted from http://www.personalizelearning.com/search?q=continuum+of+voice References

Toshalis, E. and Nakkula, M." Motivation, Engagement, and Student Voice " Students at the Center.

This page including the chart was created by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey of Personalized Learning, LLC (c) January 10, 2106 adapted from Students at the Center. For permission to adapt, distribute copies, or to use in a publication, contact Kathleen McClaskey at khmcclaskey@gmail.com.

Part 1 of the 3 Part Series on Using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage, and Express to empower learners.

The excitement in starting a new school year is happening across the country. Educators have spent the summer preparing for the beginning of the school year, attending workshops on new curriculum, understanding how to use data with their new learners or getting acquainted with competency-based report cards. But stop there! What about the information that tells you how to engage and motivate your learners? How do you discover the learner in each child from the beginning of the school year so this is the best year yet? What about how each learner learns best and how to develop agency with each of them?

The Process to Develop Learner Agency

This post is part one of a three-part process that uses the UDL Lens to Make Learning Personal for all learners. If we want to create learner-centered environments where the learner takes ownership to their learning, then we need to empower each learner to understand how they learn.

Part One: The Learner Profile (LP) helps learners discover how they learn best.

Part Two: The Personal Learning Backpack (PLB) identifies tools, apps, resources, skills, and strategies for learners to support their own learning.

Part Three: The Personal Learning Plan (PLP) guides learners to achieve the goals and skills they need to be self-directed and independent along with pursuing their passions and aspirations as they plan for college or career.

The UDL Lens: Access, Engage and Express™

Universal Design for Learning® (UDL) is a researched-based set of principles developed by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) in the 1990's to help guide the design of instruction and learning environments. The idea behind UDL is to reduce barriers to learning and optimize the level of support and challenges to meet the needs and interests of all learners in the classroom. In December 2015, UDL was included in ESSA where it was it indicated that it was the scientifically-based approach to personalize learning.

UDL is the lens to understand how learners learn as it is based on the research in the neurosciences in how we actually learn. The three principles of UDL are:

Multiple Means of Representation

Multiple Means of Engagement

Multiple Means of Expression and Action

Educators wanted to understand these terms so that they could apply these three principles in daily teaching and learning practices.

In 2013 the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ was created to do just that; to empower the learner with the UDL Lens so they could understand how they learn. All learners are unique and have variability in how they access and process information, engage with content, and express what they know and understand. Access, Engage, and Express™ is the UDL Lens to help learners how they learn and to guide teachers in universally designing their instruction.

Discover the Learner Using The Learner Profile

Each learner comes to school with strengths and challenges along with a set of interests, talents and aspirations. We often discover some of these qualities through the course of the year by having conversations, by how each learner responds in class or through a set of data that has been collected from standardized testing. But what if you could discover the learner in every child at the beginning of the school year using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™?

Every learner can benefit from creating a Learner Profile. It tells us about a learner that learning styles or an Individual Education Plan (IEP) does not tell us. Here is an example of a learner that may have similar challenges as some of your learners, but we want you to look closely at this learner's strengths along with his interests, talents, passions and aspirations.

Now think about the learners in your class and in your life. What are their strengths and challenges in how they Access, Engage and Express™? How do they need or prefer or need to access information, engage with content and express what they know and understand? What are their talents, interests, passions, and aspirations? Who are you as a learner?

Using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ to understand learners can not only help a teacher to better design instruction and learner materials, but first we need to empower the learner to tell their story and how they learn best.

Your Learner's Story Leads to a Partnership in Learning

This learner has reading, writing and organizational challenges. Children with this profile often do not see themselves as learners. In this case, when this learner uses the Learner Profile, he can now tell his story and have a conversation with his teacher about who he is and what he may prefer or need to support his challenges and enhance his strengths. He can also share what his interest and talents are, what he is passionate about and what he aspires to be. It is really clear from his LP, that art and drawing means a lot to him.

Let's take a closer look at his strengths where he visualizes what he hears, likes to teach his peers and present in class. Now we understand this learner's strengths and challenges, preferences and needs including what engages him about being an artist. With this first conversation, the relationship between teacher and learner begins.

When learners use the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ to share how they learns, it helps them tell their story of who they are as learners. Above all, it validates them as learners and listening to them says how much you care. Telling their story helps them develop self advocates of their learning and ultimately it builds a strong partnership in learning between the teacher and learners.
What a great way to start of the school year! It is going to be the best year yet! This post was adapted from a previous post published at http://www.personalizelearning.com/2016/08/the-learner-profile-get-up-close-and.html
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This is Part One of a three part on using the UDL Lens of Access, Engage and Express™ to develop a learner with agency. We have introduced you to the Learner Profile (LP) and how it can be used by both teacher and learner to discover the learner.
In Part Two, we will take the Learner Profile and develop a Personal Learning Backpack (PLB) that includes tools, apps, resources and the skills the learner needs to become an independent, self-directed learner; a learner with agency

In Part Three, we will take the PL and PLB and demonstrate how to help learners develop agency with an effective Personal Learning Plan (PLP). In the PLP, learning goals with action steps to develop independent learning skills will be illustrated along with college, career, personal and citizenship goals.

All of this along with templates can be located in Chapter 4 of How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper.

Universal Design for Learning is a registered trademark of CAST, Inc. Access, Engage and Express is a trademark of Kathleen McClaskey. Empowering Learners is a trademark of Kathleen McClaskey.

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During the past six years there has been a volume of articles written about ownership to learning, personalized learning and personalization with some saying that it should be called "personal learning".

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Proficiency-Based Learning | Professional Learning Network

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With the shift towards personalization first articulated in Act 77, which included the requirement for every student in grades seven through twelve to have a Personalized Learning Plan that outlines an individualized path to gaining proficiency over a new set of broad categories of knowledge and skills.