Here's why Mark Zuckerberg is dumping billions into 'personalized learning'
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes personalized learning is the answer to many of education’s current woes, and is one of the four key areas that he and his wife Prescilla Chan’s US$45 billion Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will fund.
While some argue whether this isa philanthropic act or a shrewd business strategy, others will ask: what is personalized learning anyway? Because despite somepoliticians' enthusiastic endorsements of personalised education, there’s still no clear definition.
Many in education would argue that personalised learning is what all good teachers do as a matter of course – modifying learning materials and teaching styles to accommodate the different ways pupils learn. Others see it as an antidote to top-down, centralized school bureaucracy, with the term “personalised” used interchangeably with individual, learner-centered or customized. It’s far from clear how teachers are supposed to support such personalised learning with personalised resources on a per pupil basis, nor who should bear the costs of doing so.
Zuckerberg has a clear definition in mind, however. For him, personalised learning is about teachers “working with students to custom ise instruction to meet the student’s individual needs and interests”. Although the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Personalized Learning Platform is not part of Facebook, the underlying principles are the same: human work is replaced by technology, algorithms provide users with content based on an analysis of their past behavior and demonstrated interests. This is similar to how Facebook’s news feed works, and other commercial personalization models based on text and behavior analysis.
There has been much hype about the potential for new technology or approaches to disrupt education and, not unreasonably, there’s concern that investment in personalised learning may be a boost for Silicon Valley but a kick in the teeth for teachers.
The dangers of personalised learning
Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
Zuckerberg’s idea of personalised learning has three major flaws. First, education has always been about acquiring knowledge and skills relevant to a profession, but also about acquiring general knowledge. By feeding children only the content they’re interested in, we may end up with many specialists and few generalists.
Second, while learners may cope poorly with trying to learn in a way that’s not suited to them, in the real world life will not always be so accommodating. Their lack of ability to compensate Here's why Mark Zuckerberg is dumping billions into 'personalized learning' - Business Insider: