Personalised learning is a progressive idea and gone is the notion that there is a body of knowledge which should be passed on to the next generation. In place of that, attention is paid to what the learner already knows, including what they have learned outside the classroom. Learners set goals for themselves, create their own hypotheses, take risks, monitor their progress and with their teacher identify their next steps. So each learner is set on a different pathway through their own learning. According to these progressive ideas, learners will be fully engaged in their own learning and all can succeed.
Sound good ?
David Miliband, in his 2004 conference speech, describes personalised learning as:
"High expectations of every child, given practical form by high quality teaching based on a sound knowledge and understanding of each child’s needs. It is not individualised learning where pupils sit alone. Nor is it pupils left to their own devices - which too often reinforces low aspirations.
It means shaping teaching around the way different youngsters learn; it means taking the care to nurture the unique talents of every pupil." http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/http://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DfES%200919%20200MIG186.pdf
Of course, in a classroom full of pupils on their personalised learning journeys there are bound to be important questions about how this is to be organised.
Leaving that aside for the moment, what can we learn about personalised learning in relation to Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) in Scotland? Curriculum for Excellence Briefing 5: Personalised Learning tells us that:
Personalised learning means tailoring learning and teaching to learners’ needs.
So far so good.
Recall that personalised learning includes the learning that the learner brings to the situation from outside the classroom. If knowing learners well is beginning to sound a bit GIRFECy, that is because it is:Staff do this by knowing learners well and building on prior learning so that all learners can participate, progress and achieve.
Personalised learning focuses on the individual learner from the earliest level through to lifelong learning. It is key to taking forward the ambitions of CfE and Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC).
Further into the document:
Just as personalisation means a broad range of approaches to learning and teaching, it also means a variety of approaches to assessment. Assessment approaches within qualifications are being broadened to reflect personalisation more directly.
They are not exactly clear about what they mean by "assessment approaches are to reflect personalisation more directly," but it does not look good if you value a private life.
For learners to experience personalisation within their learning, it is essential that they are known well and that their learning is recognised and valued, including where feasible their learning beyond the classroom. Wherever learning is taking place, the day-to-day interactions between staff and learners are vital for personalised learning. It is likely that a key adult has a holistic overview of a learner’s progress and personal development.
Key adult with an overview? Named person perhaps? Whatever this is, one thing is certain: it is going to be highly intrusive.
To get a clue to the real motivation behind personalised learning the Global Education Leader`s Program (GELP) offers some insight. It says a lot from the systems and organisational point of view which is going to be a problem if personalised learning is part of the government`s vision for education. Here is what they have to say about themselves:
The Global Education Leaders’ Program sets out to transform education, effectively and sustainably, at local, national and global levels. It envisages education systems that equip every learner with the skills, expertise and knowledge to survive and thrive in the 21st century.
The Program is a partnership of thought leaders and consultants from world-class organizations, collaborating in a global community with teams of key education leaders who are seriously committed both to transforming education in practice and to developing the personal skills they need to lead the changes required.
At the heart of GELP’s vision is the fostering of new pedagogies, curricula and assessment methods that enable every student to develop higher order capabilities. For this to be realised, appropriate technology, leadership, professional development, policies and governance also have to be in place.
[The Scottish Government have all systems in place]
When GELP discuss appropriate technology and systems they are talking about computers, Big Data and the standardisation of these systems across the globe. In order to justify the tracking and monitoring of every global student and their associated adults, it is essential that they have a concept to push like `personalised learning`; otherwise this project would be seen for what it is. There is a fortune to be made when all systems are in place by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who are supporters of GELP - and fortunes to be made by other big corporations.
To achieve real and lasting progress, education systems must also innovate and learn. This is a problem, because the measures that currently dominate educational assessment do not allow education systems to learn as they strive to improve. Without the right measures, and the ability to apply them coherently and systematically in thousands of locations simultaneously, educational achievement will be held back.Our collective progress depends on creating and using new measures of success in keeping with today’s expectations of learning.Greater transparency can combine with richer information to support students, teachers, schools and systems as they learn. We need new measures that can provide rich and rapid data about what is working in our efforts to innovate.
While this Orwellian nightmare continues to evolve here is a quote from the Giants Report which brings back a bit of sanity.
The emphasis these days is on ‘personalised learning’ – a programme of learning to suit each individual child. This ignores the fact that a body of subject knowledge cannot be personalised. Fundamental building blocks, such as axioms in mathematics or grammar in language learning, cannot be personalised for an individual learner.
Whole class teaching is efficient and effective, tried and tested. It runs against the prevailing fashion in this country for personalised learning but is central to successful education systems across the world. The growing fashion for ‘personalised learning’ in our schools has led to a great surge in reliance on technology. It is through computers that learning can be made truly personal. It allows pupils to proceed at their own pace under loose supervision by a teacher. Technology certainly has an important part to play in our schools but its effectiveness over more traditional resources is very much open to question.
http://www.cre.org.uk/docs/5-Giants-Report.pdfSee the cooperation agreement set up between UNESCO and Microsoft. (UNESCO Headquarters Paris, 17 November 2004)
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/strategy_microsoft_agreement.pdf
For anyone who would like a sense of what personalised learning in the digitised classroom might be like have a read at the following: Robotic, sterile, empty - are some of the words that come to mind.
http://www.siia.net/PLI/presentations/PLI_ELEM_scenario.pdf
This should be compulsory reading for all teachers!
ReplyDeleteIn Scotland, many teachers are confused by CfE but most are totally unaware of where this wolf in sheep's clothing and associated policies and systems are actually taking us.