As a learner, I believe personalized learning could have been a huge benefit for me as a child. In elementary and middle school, I was the student with a library book in my desk for prolonged escapes from the classroom. Class content was avoided for one of two reasons, either because I had already made the connections and felt as though the instructors were beating me over the head with information I already firmly understood, or I was drowning and did not know how to disappoint my instructor and therefore would dive into my book and dismissed myself from the majority of my academic day.
With personalized learning, I could have advanced to the point of being challenged in the areas where I was bored and could have been given the missing support I desperately needed in those areas where I struggled.
It was not until I reached my second high school and was well into my sophomore year that a teacher caught me. He was a recent college graduate, and his fresh eyes were quick to see through my feigned indifference. Working with the guidance counselor he pulled all the needed strings to have me moved to honors classes and later Advanced Placement courses.
My heart and mind flourished in these challenging classes. The change in confidence is evident when looking back over photos.
As a teacher, I believe I have utilized and embraced personalized learning in several ways, though I am coming to learn there are more aspects which I have not previously considered or had the opportunity to employ.
When I was actively in the Deaf Ed classroom, my first concern was to ensure I understood the type of hearing loss impacting a student’s learning, then ascertaining how a student’s language development skills were progressing, and lastly, I reviewed a student’s documented success regarding the academic standards. Each set of weekly lesson plans were differentiated by student need, strength, current success, goals: both personal and IEP. Ultimately in my mind, how I taught was the difference between sitting down and asking, “What do I need to teach for 4th grade?” and “What do I need to provide to ensure Susie has all she needs to be successful?”
As a Reading Specialist, I carried the same individualized learning mentality from my Deaf Ed background into my reading intervention activities. On one of his daily rounds through the halls, my Superintendent came into my room and wanted to know just what the writing was all over my floor. My classroom floor tiles were covered with dry erase markings. With a smile, I promised it would clean off. He informed me he was not concerned with the clean-up, he wanted to know the reasoning. I then explained I was working with students who would greatly benefit from engaging with Elkonin Sound Boxes. However, they just could not sit still long enough to reap the benefit. So, I made the boxes on the floor and the students would jump through the tiles thus decoding words and isolating sounds or phonemes by using their entire body and staying on task. This full body version of the Elkonin Sound Boxes was the activity these specific students needed to obtain success and move toward mastery. And, as an aside, it was a just plain fun.
As a leader, from Reading Specialist to being the only Deaf Ed certified teacher in the building, I work to craft the opportunity for my colleagues to feel comfortable sharing their endeavors and struggles. When we are able to share candidly about ideas and difficulties, fresh perspective can sweep in and open the door to authentic collaboration. In this atmosphere I can freely advocate for my colleagues to extend their efforts toward individualization and the rapport supports the advocacy.
Despite these experiences with and desires for personalized and individualized education, I have never experienced the opportunity to authentically provide a personalized competency-based education as I could not decline the traditional Carnegie time structure of units. I have always been bound to the prescribed set of time. In the book, A Handbook for Personalized Competency-Based Education: Ensure All Students Master Content by Designing and Implementing a PCBE System discusses how the Chugach School District in Alaska made several out of the box choices for their students’ success including declining to adhere to the traditional Carnegie structure. They shook off the traditional Carnegie unit and embraced Performance Based Learning, where students progress as they demonstrate mastery rather than progressing based on a prescribed set of time. There were several critical components to the overhaul of the Chugach School District.
“Empowering student ownership of learning success” was established as the district’s purpose and anchors their wheel of Shared Vision.
Source: Chugach School District Website
After reading about the Chugach School District, I was curious to see if any Schools for the Deaf had adopted similar models. I was excited to also discover the Utah State Schools for the Deaf and Blind has also adopted a Proficiency Based Education system. It is quite new, and I am intrigued to follow this new endeavor in a Deaf and Blind educational setting.
Leading a Competency Based Elementary School briefly introduced the Marzano Academy model to me. My interest piqued after reading the brief overview of the academy model and sent me to review the Marzano Resources website to learn more. There I discovered this model can be implemented (with extended training) at any K-12 school: public or private.
“All Marzano Academies include the following elements:
- Competency-based education
- A personalized, focused curriculum involving the critical concepts in mathematics, science, and the English language arts
- Direct instruction in cognitive and meta-cognitive skills
- Personalized projects each year for each student
- A high engagement emphasis
- A focus on student inspiration and self-agency
- High reliability management”
Source:
The Marzano name carries the weight of extensive research; and I was pleased to see the smaller scale individual districts pulled on some of the same specific strings to establish students as stakeholders in their own success. When such endeavors in education can organically come to the same, or certainly similar conclusions, it leads me into deeper reflection of the emerging conversations. I reflect on how these emerging conversations could impact my teaching and educational leadership. While the academy model is intended for districtwide implementation, as are the Chugach School District and Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind, I can see several implementation options beyond the K-12. I can see the benefit of embracing personalized learning within the homeschool environment, tutoring, and even within a well-defined faith-based curriculum environment such as Sunday School and Vacation Bible School.
Teaching Hands 
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