Colleagues,
EdSurge, an organization which connects educational tech entrepreneurs and educators, recently published an article about why personalized learning matters to college students. The article connects to EdSurge's e-Literate TV series on personalized learning, which looks at several post-secondary institutions with pilots or programs organized around students' capabilities and needs. The focus of these videos is not on the technology, but rather on the institutional and personal aspects of creating more personalized learning environments.
These interviews with students, faculty and staff on the idea of differentiated instructional approaches brings to light the challenge of helping students that come to class with a range of knowledge and skill levels, and suggests that personalized learning/differentiated instruction presents a strong case for institutions to directly support student success.
At Essex County College, one of the institutions profiled in these interviews, 85% of incoming students start in the lowest level developmental math course. The College's President explains how the low pass rates in these developmental math classes necessitated change, because the developmental math results are the primary driver in the school’s low graduation rates. In response, the institution's faculty and staff developed a new program based on "self-regulated learning wrapped around adaptive learning with multiple levels of support." Check out the first video interview on Essex County College's program here.
Questions: What are you already doing that resembles personalized learning/differentiated instruction? What do you see in these videos that looks replicable in your own program?
Best,
Mike Cruse
Disabilities in Adult Education Moderator
michaelcruse74@gmail.com