How do you move from “standardized” to “personalized” learning opportunities for your students and staff?
One of the things I enjoyed most about our last class was the practice at making online learning modules and how they focused on responsive instruction tailored to the needs of the learner. I feel that as a teacher, I utilize formative assessment often to help personalize my learning opportunities for my students. Formative assessment takes many forms. One way that I formative assess to personalize learning opportunities is through pre-assessment. Our math curriculum provides “Check Your Readiness” assessments that provide data on prerequisite standards that the students will need for the upcoming new learning. This data provides an opportunity for me to personalize the lessons by creating groups based on the data from the Check Your Readiness. Another way that I use formative assessment to personalize learning is through student surveys. These surveys give students a voice on how they prefer to learn, such as in groups, individually, synchronously, or self-paced.
Fortunately, our LMS – Schoology – provides easy ways to individualize learning opportunities. We can create choice folders, assign folders to specific groups or students, we can turn on the student completion folder, or publish folders as students move through coursework. The online platform makes individualizing instruction very manageable as well; however, the LMS can also make differentiating easier in the physical classroom as well.