In 2017 I was lucky enough to be able to travel to San Diego, CA and visit the campuses of High Tech High. As described in the article, “What does personalized learning mean? Whatever people want it to.” HTH is an amazing demonstration of what fully realized personalized instruction could look like. During my visit I was able to witness student behavior, and teacher instruction that looked worlds apart from what was taking place in my classroom. During my visit I saw students in a digital arts elective working on the creation of a virtual reality framework where they could complete in games of skills with other schools. I saw history classes building boats, actual 10 person boats, with the end goal of having those boats carry students across a body of water. I saw students working in traditional classroom settings, I saw students working in wood and metal shops, I saw students working in open studios and stairwells; despite all of the distraction around them, they were all working hard.
Interviewing students at High Tech High they spoke about how important it was that teachers allow flexibility in demonstrations of understanding. Students highlighted that being able to work collaboratively with their instructor to determine learning goals and unit objectives added to their feelings of relevancy in reference to the required learning materials. I had a million questions about standards, supervision, safety, the transition from high school to college, budgeting and of course CAASPP. How could something like this ever exist in a traditional public school? I was left with the feeling that despite my current feeling of inspiration, back at my site, to many limiting factors would prevent instruction like this from working effectively. Thinking specifically about math, the subject I teach, elements of personalized learning have always been necessary. It is common for some students to excel at the procedural aspects of mathematics, while others fall behind. For every student that understands why we move variables to one side of our equation, why we follow the rise and the run of slope, why we factor and reduce, there are 5 who do not understand the concept of negative numbers, how to undo multiplications or how to add fractions. Most math teachers must create a system of interventions that allow students who need more practice with basic skills the time and space to do so without slowing down the pace of the remaining students. When I think of personalized learning the first thing that comes to mind is Khan Academy. This amazing service includes tutorials and practice problems for a variety of subjects in STEM and beyond. Khan Academy even has the power to create personalized lessons for students who create profiles, tracking their progress through various courses. Khan Academy is a powerful tool and one that many of my colleagues use in their classes to help students who need remediation. If I were to incorporate competency based learning or personalized learning into my curriculum I would absolutely begin with creating student profiles on Khan Academy. Students would be able to access online tutorials as well as additional help when they are not able to work directly with me. Khan would also allow students to track their progress on skills, allowing another way for them to demonstrate mastery of content. I could also incorporate standards based competencies. I would break down units into skills that must be mastered before a student can move one and then allow students to choose how they demonstrate proficiency to me. I imagine that for most students they would opt in to passing a quiz related to the competency but others might want to do a project or report related to the content of that competency. This would allow me to continue with whole class instruction while also allowing student voice and choice. Lastly, knowing that teaching content is the best way to ensure that you fully understand content I could incorporate small group instruction where students who have already demonstrated proficiency in a certain skill work with students who have not. The students leading instruction would have to plan a lesson that incorporated some element of technology. I believe that each students progresses at a different rate. Our current system of education prescribes topics and makes learning all subjects mandatory. Students have limited motivation to study subjects they find boring and without flexibility in assignments their teachers get frustrated by a student’s lack of motivation. Personalized instruction is something I am very interested in and I hope to learn, implement and experiment with it soon.
7 Comments
1/25/2019 02:27:31 pm
Hi Brandon
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Catalina Goldstein
1/26/2019 12:11:17 pm
It's so crazy. I always talk to my students about how one day their third grade skills are going to help them in the real world. But building an actual BOAT. We figured out how many felt stickers I would need for 24 chairs. That was a huge accomplishment for us. I could only imagine how gratifying it would be to lead your students in something that grand.
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Caitlin Mitchell
1/26/2019 12:58:31 pm
You raise a lot of good points. I think that achieving a version of personalized learning is achievable, but it will not look the same in every classroom. You also have a good point about CAASPP. I mentioned in my own blog that coming up with a feasible way to assess students given this type of learning model is challenging. It kind of overthrows everything that we know. I think that it takes training for teachers to begin to use this model but even more training to teach students how to use and not abuse the model.
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1/26/2019 03:36:18 pm
Wow! What an incredible school you got to visit that clearly demonstrated personalized learning. I agree with what you wrote about how we all have students that will quickly pick up a new concept, along with students who require support and additional practice to find success. Khan Academy is a great resource. It provides a way for students to access content to support their learning, as well as take part in lessons that provide valuable feedback to the teacher. I also like your idea of peer support through student- led instruction.
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Jona Sandau
1/26/2019 04:39:37 pm
Brandon, your visit to HTH sounds so inspiring. I also was able to visit a HTH, but it was the elementary version in Chula Vista. It was also VERY motivating to see so many teachers and administrators so dedicated to innovation in teaching and learning.
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Scott Marsden
1/27/2019 08:02:51 am
Brandon,
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Julie Lovie
1/27/2019 08:45:57 am
Brandon I would love to visit High Tech High I have attended a conference for the past 3 years where a group of 300 teens come together to share their videos they created to prevent problem gambling ( its a grant through Friday Night Live) and those HTH students are amazing. Their videos are so professional I am in awe of those students work, professionalism, and behavior.
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