Is “Personalized Learning” in Danger of Becoming Inherently Impersonal?by Kristi Levy, Principal, Washington Elementary, Oshkosh Area School District In 2016, the Oshkosh Area School District found itself facing a challenge that was not altogether unique. In a community driven process to create a cohesive vision and strategic plan for our schools, our stakeholders came forward with five key priorities. At the forefront of those priorities was a renewed emphasis on improving student learning for all. In short, our community wanted instructional practices and opportunities provided to support individual learners so that when we said all students learn, we really meant ALL. They asked for extra support for struggling learners, enrichment and accelerated opportunities for high-achieving students, programs of choice at all grade levels and career/interest based pathways through the curriculum. In essence, they asked for Personalized Learning. As such, the Oshkosh Area School District faced the same community “Ask” so many districts around the nation did -- make learning personal. So how is it, two years later, we ask ourselves: Is “Personalized Learning” in danger of becoming inherently impersonal? There’s a Program for That
When difficult demands are placed on organizations, there is a back pressure that builds behind that demand. In 2016, when our community asked us to become more personalized in our practices, we had already begun some of the work. The framework for becoming more personalized in our practices is laid out in a previous article, “Personalized Learning: From Tech Equity to Pedagogical Evolution” (2016).It is due, in part, to our pre-existing efforts that the community even knew what to ask for in regard to teaching and learning. However, there is something about putting a priority on paper that changes the urgency and the formality of the work at hand. With a school board monitoring the strategic plan and a community invested in its success, arriving at a solution can be a siren call to those at the helm and districts can be tempted to latch onto quick answers while forsaking lasting, meaningful pedagogical changes. As an organization, we were fortunate to have leaders in place who recognized the value of under-defining a concept for which our community wanted tangible results. However, it comes as no surprise that districts all over the country answered this same ask by hastening to develop Personalized Learning programs. In a dash to provide their community with results, districts have rushed to production with programs geared toward showing stakeholders that every box is being checked. Students in schools across the country can be found taking learner profile inventories, completing personality tests and logging into personalized learning platforms such as Edmentum and Epiphany to name a few. In Louisville, KY teachers lamented the implementation of an online reading platform that reduced teacher involvement to monitoring and checking-in with students who worked independently. Teacher, Paul Barnwellacknowledged some struggling readers made gains and students were gaining in their ability to progress through the lessons, but he felt marginalized in his role and had a nagging feeling that teaching was being “de-professionalized” (2017). Most notably, Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School, a charter school in Yuma, AZ, brought the programmatic approach into the spotlight. NEA Today reports that, “Although the school initially received widespread praise for improved test scores... students were online, they sat in cubicles, plugged into headphones, seemingly cut off — for at least a good chunk of the school day—from their peers and the few teachers hired by the school” (2017). As a result, in 2017, Carpe Diem fell apart because, much to their dismay, students did not like being taught by a computer. Furthermore, both examples highlight the dark underbelly of online platforms for teaching. In each instance, students made gains based on rote performance standards. The lack of interaction and engagement created a false positive of sorts. Students could learn to perform in online lessons, but veteran educators, much like Barnwell, couldn’t help but feel essential elements of learning were completely missing from the new practice leaving it inherently depersonalized. The process of finding problems to solve, researching, collaborating and making meaning of your work is the essence of what makes it personal. What districts like Louisville and charter schools like Carpe Diem are learning is that there is nothing authentically personal about an algorithm. Meanwhile, teachers from varied states and districts share frustrations about time spent updating personalized learning plans for students and completing other transactional work that has little to no impact on teaching and learning. While less overt than disengaging online platforms, this practice can be just as insidious. Plans and paperwork can often create the illusion of personalization, while instructional practices reveal little to no change in how students are interacting with the curriculum. Personalized Learning Plans can be put in place and learner profiles can be created, but if students are still attending classes which rely heavily on legacy practices, no meaningful change has occurred. When the paperwork becomes the focus, the instructional practices can take a back seat to the “plan” and any experienced educator can tell you, once an initiative is reduced to paperwork, the chances of it having any meaningful impact are significantly diminished. In the early stages of our strategic plan, our district leaders in personalized learning came to an early, critical consensus -- Personalized Learning is not a program that can be reduced to an algorithm or a transactional checklist. If we are going to improve learning for ALL, it has to be an instructional evolution that puts teaching and learning at the forefront. Autonomy By DesignIf schools are to move forward and take meaningful steps toward making learning a more personal experience for students, it goes without saying, work must be done to define what attributes make learning personal. Recognizing we do not need a program in order to personalize does not negate the important work that needs to be done in creating and leveraging shared meaning. Previous articles have highlighted the shared work Oshkosh has done around defining the three critical components of making learning personal: Voice, Choice and Pacing Options. However, it is by design that we have not systematically or programmatically defined what that looks like in our classrooms and at the practitioner’s level. When the words personalized learning first appeared in our 2016 strategic plan there was a wave of questions and concern from teachers. What did this mean for teaching? Was every student going to need a personalized plan? Is the computer going to replace me? Their trepidation was palpable, and in truth, their fears were warranted. Many districts had gone before us and, in their haste to answer their community’s ask, they had done just that. Oshkosh has taken a different approach -- provide ubiquitous access to staff and students, set the vision and give teachers autonomy by design.  Todd Rose addresses the evolving role of the teacher in his book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in A World That Values Sameness (2016). He argues, moving toward a model of education that takes individuality into account, and uses technology as a means to support it, does not negate or undermine the importance of the teacher. Rose contends, when done properly, a move toward personalization elevates the role of the teacher and frees up his/her time for only the most complex and critical of teaching tasks. We must simply move beyond a model of teachers as a vehicle for content delivery and disseminating directions and re-engage them in their most vital roles as practitioners. As we look at our current practices, one undeniable truth presents itself -- every truly innovative practice in our district, that has had meaningful impact on teaching and learning, has been the result of teacher autonomy. By establishing a vision and creating an environment of support we have allowed teachers to lead front and center. In doing so, we have made learning truly personal for both students and teachers in ways that plans and programs cannot account for. If we want to elevate our practitioners, then they have to be at the forefront of all efforts to create personalized pathways for student learning. Summarily, Personalized Learning must be people-driven; not paperwork driven and certainly not software driven. 
The Evolution of PedagogyThis process of organic, teacher-led change takes time. It is a complex system for change that requires optimal conditions for success. Organic change takes a commitment to professional learning, it takes coaching relationships, it takes trust and it takes failures. However, the dividends for that work are seen in both teacher and student creativity. As teachers in Oshkosh have worked toward this community priority we have seen a variety of innovative practices a recipe could, simply, never yield. In the early stages of our work teachers, who were eager to begin, regularly asked us: “What should I do?” and “Can you show me what it looks like?” These questions were valid and there was more than a time or two when our response frustrated teachers because we placed the questions back in our teachers’ hands saying, “We don’t know, exactly. How do you think we could make this more learner-centered?” Some teachers leapt over this hurdle in an instant and others took more time to deliberate and examine the hurdle. But, once that contemplating was done, they all came up with something amazing and no two teachers’ work looked alike. There were no profiles, and no formalized plans; just really fine exemplars of what learning could look like if we focused on the individual learner. As you read through just a few of the emerging practices below, you will notice they exist on a spectrum. Not all are highly personalized and certainly they are not all complex. However, they all provide pathways to learning that make a connection to the individual. Anatomy and Physiology
English 1 & 2:
Teachers have worked to create student pathways through the curriculum that focus on mastery and emphasize students’ ability to master content and skills rather than focusing on student seat time. Teachers use Canvas (our LMS platform) to build custom coursework and provide students with options for face-to-face workshops and seminars or independent work as they move through the curriculum at the pace that is most suited to their needs. One-on-one or small group sessions can be scheduled with the teacher or assigned to students as needed and there is a emphasis on “just in time” instruction rather than a predetermined pacing plan. Online lessons are leveraged to deliver straightforward content and directions which frees up teachers to work with students on the more complex skills related to reading comprehension, writing, information synthesis and more. Students also use class time to form small discussion groups and collaboratively problem solve or work through challenging texts. Instructional practices are based heavily on formative assessments and students are provided with targeted lessons and instruction. Biology 1:
Students are asked to immerse themselves in the concept of the popular Discovery Channel show Naked and Afraid. The show features contestants who are left to survive in an inhospitable environment with nothing but a few items and the land itself. In order to learn about climates, metabolic rates, natural predators, diseases and more, students are asked to choose a remote location and write a survival guide for their chosen environment using the parameter of the television show. This project is the culminating experience for the semester and encapsulates and brings to life many of the concepts students learn throughout the semester. During the unit, students choose how they learn and determine what product they will create to demonstrate their learning. All of the directions and requirements are delivered to students via Canvas along with tutorials that walk students through using a variety of resources available to them. At any given point, teachers can be found supporting students through the research process, asking probing questions to helps students see the complexity of the connectedness between the human body and its surrounding environment, teaching mini-lessons pertaining to various project components and more. Grade 5 Science:
Students in 5th grade competed to solve an authentic problem in our school by using the “Claim, Evidence and Reasoning” method which is part of our Science curriculum. Students collaborated to identify a problem that matters to them and worked through the process to determine the best solution. Students then used WeVideo and GSuite tools to prepare a presentation that contained their findings along with their recommendation for solving the problem. Problems students addressed as part of this experience included drafting proposals for reducing the time spent in the lunch line and plans for how we could reduce the amount of food waste in our building, all of which were presented to staff for feedback at the end of their work. Students were also asked to reflect and comment on the work of their classmates and ask clarifying questions or suggestions for how students could have improved their results. Grade 1 Literacy:Students were provided with a “book tasting” where stations were designed to help young learners discover who they are as readers. Students began to have purposeful conversations about their reading identity and what types of books they preferred. They also reflected on personal strength and challenges related to each genre presented and began to think about author’s purpose and intent. Students moved from station to station and began the important work of understanding themselves as learners and readers which is a skill that will help students make more complex decisions about their learning in the future. What Does Our Future Hold?In Oshkosh, 2016 brought forth a renewed emphasis on improving student learning for all. Our community’s Ask is clear and learning needed to become more personal for our students. However, we have learned that true personalization has to be a partnership between teachers and their students. It is an experience that is meaningful to both and has its roots in pedagogy and bears all of the complexities that come along with high quality teaching and learning. In Oshkosh, we have given our teachers the license to use their talents and creativity and that has allowed us to move beyond a single definition of Personalized Learning. Our youngest learners will graduate in the year 2030 and it is only through the ingenuity of our teachers that we will prepare our students for their life beyond high school. For us, our continued progress toward more personalized pathways is about continuing conversations and supporting innovation; no formal plan, no programs and no taglines or computer generated learner profiles. Our practices will continue to evolve and every ounce of our success will be based on one simple premise -- give teachers what they need, support them in their endeavors and amazing things will happen.
References Rose, T. (2015). The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness. New York, NY: Walker, T. (2017, June 9). As More Schools Look to Personalized Learning: Teaching May Be About to Read more at: Elementary Edition - Secondary Edition - District Level Edition |
In Anatomy and Physiology, teacher 
