Targeting professional learning for educators is important to foster strong pathways of instructional strategies, skills and tactics that offer students’ the opportunities of learning and development. Teaching staff require education or professional learning development that is tailored for them yet there are myths about the personalization of professional learning. France (2019) notes that personalization does not equate to individualization whereby the learning should be ‘meaningful and relevant to any given learner’ (France, 2019, np.). It can be personalized in a collective sense where collaboration and meaningful professional learning meets individual educators’ personal and professional goals.

 Teacher Interest and Collective Purpose

As France (2019) states, ‘personalized learning blends teacher interests with a collective purpose (France, 2019, np.); it is striking a balance between the individual and the collective. What helps foster an effective personalized professional learning atmosphere is the connection between individuals, the educators themselves who will each have their own aims for engaging in such learning. The craving for human connection is instinctual (France, 2019, np.) and without a productive culture of pursuing connection and meaning along with pedagogical strategies and methodologies, personalized professional learning may be stunted.

Making Mistakes

Making mistakes in instructional methods is not necessarily a negative thing unless it severely impacts upon students’ wellbeing. Leaders of personalized professional learning can help educators realize that by taking certain calculated risks in their teaching, they can dabble in curiosity for learning strategies to see what works and what doesn’t. Innovation, creativity and lateral thinking are at the core of effective teaching practices beyond the traditional pedagogical approaches.

 The Three Dimensions of Personalized Professional Learning

Personalizing encompasses three dimensions according to France (2019). They are as follows: First dimension - we honor the collective consciousness of a professional learning environment, uniting all teachers under one common vision for teaching and learning -, Second dimension - we support professional learning in small groups or teams, fostering a collective consciousness and purpose in smaller, more intimate settings -, Third dimension - we leverage coaching models to nurture the inner dialogues of educators toward professional goals and personal satisfaction’ (France, 2019, np.).

 The aforementioned three dimensions form an encompassing and supportive sphere for personalized professional teaching to be a success for educators regardless of their personal and professional interests and goals. It is a collective “one vision, many paths”. The first dimension, the collective consciousness, is based on the concept coined by Sociologist, Emile Durkheim and is grounded in ‘the values, beliefs, and knowledge that any given group of people share’ (France, 2019, np.). Equitably-speaking, educators need to feel part of the collective energy of instruction and education while being part of the learning community of professionals.

Codes of Conduct, professional standards, educational institution vision and school-wide initiatives form part of the collective consciousness, all the while simultaneously balancing individual targets. The second dimension, small group learning, is achieved by providing personalized professional learning with a group of educators who share an aim; this might include a “Flipped Classroom” approach where students are exposed to the learning material, generally online, prior to the classroom learning experience. It could also include a group of Teachers who wish to foster PBL – Project-based Learning – into their learning activities. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) will guide educators through questions such as ‘What do we want students to know and be able to do? How will we know when they know?, What will we do if they don’t know? [and] What will we do when they do know?’ (France, 2019, np.).

The inner dialogue, or third dimension, entails the ‘voices inside each of us as learners’ (France, 2019, np.) and can involve motivation to explore new student experiences, innovation, and creativity with learning activities and purpose for aiding students to master concepts. Within the collective consciousness, different realms of independent or autonomous decision-making will be personalized for each educator; the third dimension also includes the mastery of concepts and pedagogical methods salient to the individual are tackled within contextualized collective consciousness and the purpose for each educator and how they belong to the ‘shared knowledge, beliefs, values, and initiatives within the school’ (France, 2019, np.).

 Personalized professional learning is integral for educators to bring forth new innovative strategies that are conducive for their aims and particular interests that drive them to be educators while sharing knowledge and pedagogical methodologies.

 Source:

France, P. E. (2019). ‘One vision, many paths’. The Learning Professional: The Learning Forward Journal. Vol. 40. No. 4. Learning Forward.

https://learningforward.org/journal/personalizing-learning/one-vision-many-paths/?fbclid=IwAR23_vv5Yzr3hBTQmsyFQnruvDgZUlmb8PereAd3QavTi5DhneVD6GNQnrM. Accessed 05/02/2020.