Personalised learning – fostering student ownership with technology

Personalised learning has been at the very forefront of the education world for quite some time.

Striking the right balance in addressing the unique needs of individual students in the classroom was a great challenge until just a few decades ago. Tables turned with the advent of digitalisation in primary and secondary schools.

Ever since, technology has not stopped providing new opportunities for personalised learning! Read on to learn more about EdTech’s essential role in fostering student ownership.

What is personalised learning? Why is it important?

Personalised learning is an educational approach leveraging students’ individual needs, interests, aspirations, strengths and skills through customised learning experiences. Needless to say, the benefits of personalised learning are countless. 

If you’re asking yourself how to personalise learning, that’s a tricky question to answer. There aren’t standard steps or specific strategies for delivering personalised learning. But you can start personalising instruction through a combination of best practices tailored to specific needs that will set you off in the right direction.

First of all, keep in mind that it’s a dynamic approach that foresees formative assessment throughout the whole learning cycle and places students at the very centre of their instruction. This way, they can take ownership of their learning while setting personal goals.

Beyond helping students meet academic standards, implementing personalised learning actually helps them achieve more! It’s also far more engaging than traditional methods because it offers a connection between their in and out-of-classroom lives.

To sum up? It’s perfect for developing essential 21st-Century skills, including collaboration, self-direction and technology proficiency!

Technology and personalised learning

Before digitalisation, customising instruction for students’ needs required great effort and lacked supportive tools. EdTech now provides those tools that are so crucial for meaningful, personalised learning experiences. Let’s take a closer look.

Personalised learning plans

Planning is critical. For a successful transition to a personalised instruction, teachers must lay foundations to keep students at ease with the shift. For example, setting a student-paced personalised learning environment with open-ended assignments and careful feedback collection. The result? Teachers can quickly and easily adjust lesson plans along the way to continually meet students’ individual interests!

Freedom to establish learning objectives

While planning lessons in a personalised learning scenario, it’s important to both establish general objectives for your class and allow students to set their own goals. This way, they’ll develop not one but two specific skills by the end of the term!

In this context, tech equips pupils with specific, excellent resources for creating projects, accessing media and carrying out a whole range of creative tasks. You need only to spark their interest! In the end, you’ll have helped boost students’ enthusiasm and helped them take ownership of their learning!

Instant feedback and customisation

Because each student learns in their own way, feedback is one of the most effective tools in today’s classrooms. Thanks to the seamless interactivity of Windows 11 SE and ChromeOS, students receive one-to-one support during hands-on activities. Adaptive technology is becoming crucial in achieving this end and will undoubtedly broaden the opportunities in this field in the future!

The importance of data

A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is fast becoming imperative in countless contexts, the classroom being among the first. Digitalisation has furnished access to data not only on students’ performance but on their preferred learning styles. Tracking pupils’ performance provides a clear window into their progress while giving teachers room to have insights into how they might improve!