In my role as an instructional leader, I’m thinking about agreements that we can make as a school team about using personalized learning. Our goal is to use student inquiry as a stance for instruction. If we design units that create the conditions for students to ask multiple questions, then this is a great way for students to pursue their individual inquiries in the context of a class or school-wide central idea or theme. Students can use technology not only to do research but to organize their thinking and discoveries in a way that can be presented to their peers or outside audience. As Varatta mentions in her article, this requires a classroom culture that is flexible and supportive of students ideas and questions.
Another way we could incorporate personalized learning is through self selected collaborative groups. One of the things that always strikes me in videos or presentations about students using technology tools in their learning is that you almost always see them individually in front of a screen or device. About 90 percent of the images used in the youtube video we watched were of students sitting at desks or tables focused on a screen. If students can work together using tools like Padlet or Flipgrid, they can share their thinking and construct meaning together. The Varatta article talks about the challenges of planning for a classroom of 30 students. But if they are able to group themselves around areas of interest or areas of need, the teacher can be supporting and/or challenging students as a group and they can do this for one another as well.
I’m also considering adult learning for our staff since I plan and/or facilitate a lot of our professional learning as a group. We have tried doing flash chat style sessions where teachers select the topic/practice they want to learn more about or one they can offer expertise in. I’m thinking about how (especially in a virtual setting) we could use technology to design some ongoing conversations that stay active for that group’s learning. I love the approach that Herold shared in his article, about High Tech High asking, “Whose life have you made better?” For us as teachers, that’s always our mission. How do we improve the life and learning of our students? If we focus our learning on choices that lead us to answer that question, I think we’ve made learning not only personal but individually purposeful.