Education needs to be personalized. Yes, there is basic knowledge that needs to be conveyed to all students. Students can share broad overall educational goals. However, that does not mean that the learning can not be at least co-planned with the student. In nursing education, for example, the students must learn specific content in order to pass the National Council Licensure Examination and practice safely. Yet, allowing the students to explore specific interests, collaborate, order content, select media that accentuates their learning and individualize their approach can allow them to go above and beyond the requirements. Personalized education better prepares students for the workplace by facilitating their critical thinking skills and developing their own lifelong learning strategies.
Online education excels at allowing students the academic freedom to create their own learning program within the umbrella of the course requirements. Of particular note, is the ability of the student to overcome any unique obstacles to learning. Say, the student is unable to attend a F2F class due to illness or disability; or perhaps is a strong visual learner but has weaker auditory skills, is a slow processor, needs additional resources...guiding the personalization of a student's education gives the student the ability to improve the educational experience and meet his specific needs. Personalized education can even motivate underachievers by making them a greater stakeholder in their own learning.
What if the computer could recognize the student's interests, motivation, strength's and weaknesses? This continual assessment could aid the personalization of the student's learning. The machine would provide immediate and individualized feedback. Frustrations in learning would be limited while the ability to excel would be unlimited. The role of technology in the personalization of education requires more research and data mining, but it is obvious that learning in the 21st century will be dramatically different from the traditional didactic experiences of the past and that it needs to be personalized.
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| Retrieved from http://www.cra.org/ccc/docs/groe/GROE%20Roadmap%20for%20Education%20Technology%20Final%20Report.pdf |
If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.
John Dewey, Democracy and Education, New York: Macmillan Company, 1944, p. 167.
Hi Linda,
ReplyDeleteI like the question you pose about a computer's capability to recognize strengths and weaknesses for individualized instruction. As a special education teacher, I've worked with some specialized programs and software but it tends to be expensive and students have to first qualify for assistive technology. It is eye-opening to watch students struggle with content until it is presented using technology-they almost always prosper!
The whole notion of learning analytics is just starting to emerge. About all I can do in this class is get aggregate hit data, but even that is interesting, in that I know that "Wally" spent the most time in Blackboard, that Thursday was the day of most use last week, and that the heaviest use of Blackboard last week occurred between 9pm and 10pm.
ReplyDeleteI like what you say about allowing students to focus more on what they're interested in. In my memories of K-12, education was very specific and the same for everyone, but I loved how in college I was able to select exactly what I wanted to study, even a concentration, and was encouraged to learn outside of class.
ReplyDeleteI think this project is also an exercise in personalized learning: it's less structured and therefore we can do research and activities that play to our strengths.
There's a lot to think about here!
Hey Linda, You always find the neatest stuff to blog about, and your posts are always so well written. Loved the video - it was a good tangible example of how different people learn and experience the world around them. I wonder how applicable personalized education will be in the future. I think we'll need computers and technology to determine who needs what, but I hope that personal interaction can still play a role. Already with the level of technology these days, it makes you wonder what people did before, say, the telephone was invented. Is the world getting larger, or is it getting smaller?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good read :)