Never Mind The Personalized Learning. Let's Do Personalized Learning Instead
As the education world scrambles to figure out what next fall will look like, many, many voices are speaking up for reimagined schooling. One particular model has surfaced repeatedly, and it’s not at all new—but it could be.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has set aside some of the stimulus fund for a competitive grant that would reward state-wide virtual schools, much like the model she admires in Florida. Many commentors are arguing that now is the perfect time to “innovate” and shift to personalized learning, or its twin sibling, competency-based education. One clue to what these folks are really talking about is the market research, which focuses on education tech companies. But Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a clear signal when he was announcing that Bill Gates would be helping reimagine New York schools:
The old model of everybody goes and sits in the classroom, and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms — why, with all the technology you have.
What most advocates have been selling for years is not actually personalized at all, but is a system in which content delivery and assessment are handled by software. An algorithm, often touted as Artificial Intelligence, decides which assignments to deliver to the student. There may be a human “mentor” available to the students, but the computer manages most of the “educating.” The CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Never Mind The Personalized Learning. Let's Do Personalized Learning Instead.