Personalised Learning and Curriculum-aligned School Learning: Not A Dichotomy
Schoolnet India Limited
Bringing world-class learning within every student's reach.
The last decade has witnessed tremendous growth in online education, especially in the K–12 segment. Lately, this growth has been outpaced by the expansion of blended learning environments, leading to the emergence of “personalised learning’’ (Watson, 2008). The current operational environment requires schools to follow a prescribed curriculum, thereby posing the questions:
Are personalised learning and curriculum-aligned learning dichotomous? How can students learn according to their needs and preferences while synchronising with the curriculum?
Contrary to this positioning, we firmly believe that the two concepts are not at opposing ends of the spectrum. Personalised learning is an educational approach prioritising each student’s needs, interests, skills, and strengths while collaboratively developing lesson plans. Self-paced curriculum-aligned learning allows the student to remain connected with the school yet be more thorough and allows for personal differentiations. With the advent of technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, there are educational apps that adapt to the unique learning disposition of students based on their displayed learning behaviours and competencies. For instance, while one student may prefer auditory styles, another may prefer visual material to learn the same concept. One may revise a concept several times before moving ahead, while another may cover a few topics at a stretch. This allows each student to personalise their style and pace of learning while still learning the prescribed concepts, material, and curriculum.
Achieving true personalisation inside the classroom requires much preparation by the school, with the judicious use of technological tools. It requires a highly self-regulated environment, transparent and actionable data, feedback loops and weekly meetings, integrating the learner’s voice and multiple means of taking action or demonstrating understanding. Schools need to understand high-volume, high-velocity and high-density data and disaggregate it to support learning profiles at the individual student level. Achieving personalisation at schools requires a robust engagement framework focusing on learner profiles and concomitant scale development. Specific strategies and protocols are needed to help support teacher and student decision-making in established personalised pathways.
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Personalised learning not only advocates but allows a self-regulated design where the role of the student is omnipresent and visible. It leads to students being active participants and assuming responsibility for their learning, unlike in traditional classrooms where instruction delivery is a teacher’s primary responsibility. The teacher designs and continuously maintains an environment with tools and resources to support self-regulation and scaffold the students for success. Additionally, an inquiry framework is required for the curriculum supported by staff development materials.
At Schoolnet , we synchronise in-school and after-school education with cutting-edge technology. Our multimedia content, provided to schools through KYAN and students through Geneo , follows the prescribed syllabus and curriculum yet allows students to learn according to their styles and pace, setting them up to thrive and excel. Education has been evolving rapidly globally and nationally. In the context of the recent policy-level and technological developments, the future of education will leap further away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a world where each student has tailor-made education with both personalised content and curricula.