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What are some takeaways from this professional development that you will implement in your teaching.

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What are some takeaways from this professional development that you will implement in your teaching.

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A version of this post was originally published on August 13, 2020, in Open Access Government.

The ideal learning process for a student is one that adapts to that student's every need: the surrounding environment, the actual content of the lesson, the method of delivery, the types of assessment - and everything in between. When this happens, the student has the highest chances of understanding the concepts being taught and later remember what they learned.

As with all things ideal, this doesn't really happen in the classroom. With one-to-one instruction not being a viable solution, adaptive learning systems come to the rescue. The surrounding environment may remain unchanged in the context of online classes, but the learning content, its form, and how the student is assessed can be personalized based on a student's online learning behavior.

How adaptive learning works

Let's take an example: Sam, the student, has just enrolled in an intermediate Geography course through their school learning management system (LMS), which has a few key features of adaptive learning.

The first thing the system does is assess Sam's previous knowledge of Geography through a series of questions clarified in the beginner level of the course. If Sam answers all questions correctly - or the majority of them, depending on the rules set beforehand by the teacher - they can then proceed to the first lesson. If not, Sam will be prompted to enroll and pass the beginner level of the Geography course.

Throughout each online lesson, the system records Sam's activity: how much time is spent on each page, if an existing video is played, what extra resources are accessed, if the search bar is used and with what terms, if the chat tools are activated, and so on. At the end of each lesson and the end of the course, Sam must go through one or more types of assessment to test the newly acquired knowledge.

Automatic rules are set every step of the way so that the system is able to make suggestions based on Sam's activity. For example, if Sam repeatedly plays a video in a lesson, the system can suggest checking the transcribed text of the video, playing a related video, checking a different resource, or even enroll in a related course. Likewise, depending on the assessment score, the system will make recommendations on what Sam should do next: revise or move on.

An adaptive learning system is an artificially intelligent one. It constantly gathers, parses, and outputs information. Its quality depends a lot on the quality of input information, both at the beginning and during the students learning process.

Read more: What every adaptive learning system should have

How to use adaptive learning to personalize learning experiences

With the rise of artificial intelligence within ed-tech, the educators' human intelligence is more important than ever. Because it's still the teachers who teach, not the tech tools. Here's how teachers can harness the power of adaptive learning to create personalized online learning experiences:

The learning content

To meet the needs of all students, educators need first to adapt the learning content. Some students respond better to video since this format better stimulates attention. Others will find that just listening to someone talking about a new concept is just enough. Still, others will go the old-fashioned way of reading and taking notes, sometimes highlighting important pieces of information on printed handouts.

It is, therefore, best to have the same lesson or learning module in different formats. Doing this may require some extra time and resources, but online courses can be reused over and over again, and this variety of formats will come in handy when setting the automatic rules in the adaptive learning system.

Read more: Why teachers should consider differentiated instruction

The content delivery

Traditional face-to-face instruction is out of the question in the online learning environment. However, it is still possible, thanks to video conferencing tools. The main decision when it comes to the types of instructional delivery online revolves around the asynchronous to synchronous spectrum.

Teachers can opt between remote synchronous learning (both the students and the teacher are online at the same time), a completely asynchronous delivery (the time of the learning content delivery is not the same time the students learn), or a hybrid method (students are allowed to go through the content at a pace they establish, but some video conferencing or deadlines are set synchronously).

Read more: Adopting the asynchronous mindset for better online learning

The assessments

If no two Sams learn the same, it's only natural that they are able to prove their mastery over the newly acquired knowledge in different ways.

Depending on how they prefer to learn, students should be assessed differently. They could write a paper, create a presentation, shoot a video of themselves explaining some new concept, fill in a quiz, etc. Again, creating various types of assessments instead of one means extra work from teachers, especially since some correlations between assessment types and skills acquired need to be made. Yet again, these efforts are not in vain.

Read more: Teacher tricks: Grading & assessment

Wrapping up

Customizing the content and assessments is the basis of delivering personalized learning experiences for all students. With the help of the right ed-tech tools, educators of all levels can create and deliver instruction that adapts to the learning needs of each and every student, thus putting them on the track of great academic outcomes.

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Using adaptive learning to personalize learning experiences | NEO BLOG

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A version of this post was originally published on August 13, 2020, in Open Access Government. The ideal learning process for a student is one that adapts to that student's every need: the surrounding environment, the actual content of the lesson, the method of delivery, the types of assessment - and everything in between.

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Administration & Leadership

Technology can be an incredible resource in personalizing education, but it isn't sufficient-teachers need proper support to implement it.

As a second-year English teacher, I had a problem: I wanted to teach my sixth-grade students the wonders of English via a robust, recurring series of highly engaging grammar lessons designed to ensure that they would never conflate "their" with "they're," but their skill levels were in vastly different places. To be effective, my lessons needed to be personalized for each student.

Back in 2003, personalizing meant curating a library of individual lessons, developing a diagnostic assessment, and handwriting personalized pathways for each of my students. I spent the better part of a year putting my idea into action, assessing and reassessing students, refining lessons, and running around like a mad man during classes to reach all 96 students.

Since then, I've been lucky to be part of multiple personalized learning implementations using different platforms at a variety of schools. I've seen all angles of technology-based personalization-as a teacher, an administrator, a consultant, and a student.

Personalized learning at its best 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 learning while also developing deep, personal connections with each other, their teachers, and other adults at school.

In short, personalized learning should free teachers to meaningfully connect with students because strong relationships with kids are the heart of teaching.

While technology has caught up with my aspirations for personalized instruction, a new challenge has emerged: Some administrators think that because technology is a big part of a particular program, it can mask challenges teachers have with management or expertise. This just isn't true. Strong tech needs strong teaching, and great teachers need great support.

4 Key Points for Administrators

1. Everyone needs to believe in the why: In a famous TED talk, Simon Sinek argued that everyone in a school or district has to understand the why of personalized learning. This should be a given with any new school initiative, but it's especially true with personalized learning because personalized instruction sounds like something teachers and leaders should already know-and on the surface it looks familiar to the instruction happening in traditional schools-but in practice it's radically different from traditional teaching.

To that end, it's imperative for administrators to go beyond their mission statement and dig deep into whatever foundational research underpins the personalized learning program so that teacher buy-in is based on a clear understanding of the magnitude of this shift.

2. Define mastery for teachers: Teachers need to know what student mastery looks like, but it's equally important to give them a clear picture of what their own mastery will look like. Without a clear definition of proficiency, teachers can either feel overly confident or-more likely-be overly critical of their own progress. Having a clear timeline with a flexible scope and sequence that allows for "just in time" training is key to articulating a vision for professional growth and avoiding burnout.

Good personalized learning requires just as much training for teachers as traditional teaching, but with different emphases: Planning and assessment are de-emphasized so that relationships, social and emotional learning, and context can be the focus.

3. Encourage teachers to make it their own: While a lot of personalized learning relies on a curated set of lessons and projects, it's still vital for teachers to leverage their experience within the platform to maximize student learning. This means incorporating best practices for teaching and learning into daily routines rather than simply using provided lessons as a script.

This includes marrying the overall school culture with the culture desired for the personalized learning space. The personalization program should not dictate the culture of the learning environment-the program needs to be flexible enough to enhance the mission and vision of the school. The best implementations are those where educators can say that their school has a specific vision for learning and the given program is an element of that vision. The weakest implementations are those that are reliant on the program to define or redefine the vision for learning at the site.

4. Prioritize mentoring: The single most important by-product of personalized learning is that it allows teachers to focus less on creating curriculum and assessments and more on the students themselves. Students who have an adult mentor on campus and meet with them regularly are far more likely to go to college and graduate.

Mentors can be cheerleaders who celebrate student success, sounding boards for student frustrations, guides who help students stay on track, counselors who keep students focused on long- and short-term goals, and most importantly companions on the learning journey. If you ask teachers why they wanted to teach in the first place, most will identify one of these roles as a driving force behind their desire to educate. In a traditional environment, however, it's challenging to balance these roles with concerns around planning and assessment.

Helping teachers leverage their time to prioritize mentoring work is vital. They aren't doing less work in this new space-they're doing different, and perhaps more important, work.

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Technology can be an incredible resource in personalizing education, but it isn't sufficient-teachers need proper support to implement it.

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Teachers watch this video and post tools that you already implement in your classrooms that would be considered personalized learning