{"id":1297,"date":"2012-01-07T13:36:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T21:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2013-04-26T22:17:56","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T05:17:56","slug":"individualized-learning-pre-packaged-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1297","title":{"rendered":"Personalized Learning = Pre-Packaged Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1297\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>Last year, when the notion of \u201cpersonalized learning\u201d started to become a popular topic here in British Columbia, <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/231\" target=\"_blank\">I questioned its practicality<\/a>. I asked how a secondary teacher could possibly create, supervise and assess 200 or so separate learning programs for his or her students. I concluded that teachers couldn\u2019t possibly pull off such a feat &#8211;\u00a0 a feat that would almost defy the laws of physics &#8211; and that schools would have to offer pre-packaged curriculum from providers such as local distance education schools, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openschool.bc.ca\/k12\/personalized.html\" target=\"_blank\">Open School<\/a>, or private sector education companies like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pearsonschool.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pearson<\/a>. At best, students would get photocopied worksheet packages from their teachers&#8230; but how is that progress?<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timescolonist.com\/opinion\/Individualized+learning+many+pitfalls\/5956062\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">interesting letter<\/a> was published in the Victoria Times-Colonist. The writer, a teacher named Werner Liedtke, explained his observations of a\u00a0personalized\u00a0learning program in Alberta. The program used a \u201ccanned\u201d program from the United States called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ascd.org\/ASCD\/pdf\/journals\/ed_lead\/el_197203_yetter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Individually Prescribed Instruction<\/a> (IPI), a program that dates back to the 1960\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Liedtke\u2019s opinion of the program is not positive. He argues that teachers are reduced to clerks: \u201cThe teacher and four volunteers that I observed in one classroom did nothing but mark tests, record results and direct students to the next tests.\u201d He concludes that students lose out as well, since the possibility of group interaction is eliminated.<\/p>\n<p>And, really, how can it be otherwise? If learning is personalized, teachers can&#8217;t possibly create (or co-create) individualized programs for each child; they <em>have to<\/em> rely on pre-built curricula. And teachers\u2019 time <em>has to<\/em> be consumed by the administration of a very inefficient system, because a student\u2019s particular program needs to be administered, by definition, on a one-on-one basis. One-on-one sounds great, but how can it compete with the efficiency of one-on-thirty?<\/p>\n<p>If my prediction is correct, and the government doesn&#8217;t change its mind about &#8220;net zero&#8221; funding, then we arrive at a very attenuated conception of personalized learning. Students might learn at their own pace, but they would still be learning from the same packages as everyone else (unless the school system, or parents, can afford supplementary curriculum). In addition, unless we open the deadlines for course completion beyond the standard end-of-June finish date, even individualized pacing really isn&#8217;t significant; all we\u2019ll see is a massive crush of students desperately trying to finish in the last few weeks. In the distance education world\u00a0 this last minute &#8220;jamming&#8221; is a well known phenomenon. On the whole, pacing doesn&#8217;t come close to the promise of personalized learning, and may itself be cancelled by deadlines and the lack of interaction inherent in any system where students learn at their own pace.<\/p>\n<p>So thank you Mr. Liedtke. You have provided another example of why the allure of personalized learning doesn\u2019t satisfy the demand for realism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, when the notion of \u201cpersonalized learning\u201d started to become a popular topic here in British Columbia, I questioned its practicality. I asked how a secondary teacher could possibly create, supervise and assess 200 or so separate learning programs for his or her students. I concluded that teachers couldn\u2019t possibly pull off such a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,10],"tags":[22,76,122,123],"class_list":["post-1297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc-politics","category-education","category-experiences","tag-education-2","tag-learning","tag-personalized","tag-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1301,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions\/1301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}