I doubt that there are a lot of people who have an in-depth knowledge of what this term means. Personalized learning is essential for teachers because it helps to change the perspective of how they handle students. 

A Beginner’s Guide To Personalized Learning

Personalized learning, also known as personalization, is quite different from differentiation. With differentiation, teachers use specific instructions to tweak processes and products to meet students’ abilities, willingness to learn, and all-round interest. Delivering this type of learning always starts from the content, which is usually unchanging for each student. The differential mode of learning is school— and curriculum-based, and it seeks to address the mode of delivery of every lesson to meet the needs of students by assessing their strengths and willingness collectively.   With personalized learning, it is quite different. The teacher first has to ask the question: in this lesson, what is important for the student to learn, and how am I going to make it work? The personalized mode of teaching is student based and it aims to understand the differences between each and every single student and how they adapt to teaching procedures.

Definition of Personalized Learning

Personalized learning is the diversification of educational programs, instructions, approaches, teaching, experiences, and support programs used to address peculiar learning interests, needs, desires, and cultural orientations of different students on an individual basis.  Personalized learning opposes the generalized approach to education in which teachers dish out to all students the same type and mode of learning, instruction, assignment, and assessment without considering the scope of each student. Personalized learning is also known as “student-centered learning”.Personalized learning has been in existence since the early 1960s with the concept growing widely. Ideally, technology is used to enhance the idea of personalized learning because it is a strong tool for research, information and communication between students and teachers. Some of the instruction and assessment employed in personalized learning are computer software driven. Hence, stating the importance of technology in classrooms.

5 Tools and Strategies That Support Personalized Learning

Implementing personalized learning is not rocket science. However, it should be inculcated when forming the curriculum for the students. The tools that can help to drive personalized learning are:

• Project-based learning: one of the best ways to make students participate in class is by making them active in class projects which are relevant to the topics being discussed in class. They learn to take responsibility by choosing research topics, designs and models that can help them become better students.

• Continuous writing: this is another way of encouraging students to read. They have to write in all forms from formal, informal and personal writing to assessments, essays and term papers.

• Choice boards: this is a way of using multiple ideas to drive home a single point. A couple of choices can be written down where if each of them are treated individually, they collectively address the issue being discussed. Furthermore, students can be told to develop their own ideas to assess their level of understanding.

• Tiered learning targets: this point can be used especially in cases of overcrowded classrooms and there is a need to follow up on all students. This approach helps to track the progress of students by breaking down assessments for them to tackle.

• Mobile devices: the use of technology in classrooms have now come to stay. This makes them privy to a lot of information that they can even source for by themselves. So on their own, they start to access information that will make them better students.

Conclusion

Learning is way better when it is personalized. Students do not all have the same intellect, therefore it is the duty of teachers and facilitators to encourage personalized learning to try and meet the needs of students individually.

References:

https://www.teachthought.com/learning/beginners-guide-personalized-learning/https://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-definition-of-personalized-learning/https://www.teachthought.com/learning/5-tools-and-strategies-that-support-personalized-learning/https://www.edglossary.org/personalized-learning/https://www.edelements.com/blog/six-examples-of-what-personalized-learning-looks-like