Introduction to the Three Pillars of Personalized Learning

Guiding Questions

1. Why personalized learning?
2. How do Flexible Pathways, PLPs and Proficiencies fit together for Personalized Learning?
3. How can Flexible Pathways, PLPs and Proficiencies be leveraged in the interest of young adolescents?

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Standards/Tags I & A - 4.4 Student-Centered, Org - 3.1. Concepts & Theories

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This module should take you approximately 90-120 minutes to fully complete.

Introduction

Welcome to Introduction to the Three Pillars! This is the right place to start on a journey personalized learning plans, flexible pathways, and proficiency-based assessment.

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Watch

3 minutes

Listen to what some of your Vermont colleagues are saying about personalized learning.

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Discuss

Free Write

5-10 minutes

Take a few minutes to free write about a student you’ve known who struggled to engage with school.

• How did you know them?
• How was their disengagement manifested?
• In what ways are the engaged in life, perhaps outside of school?
• What are some of their assets and strengths?

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If possible, share the story of this student with a couple of colleagues and hear their stories. Listen for common themes such as how these students struggled and how in some contexts they likely thrived.

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The Problem 2 minutes

Act 77, “Flexible Pathways Initiative” establishes three goals for personalized learning:

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1. Encourage and support the creativity of school districts as they develop and expand high-quality educational experiences that are an integral part of secondary education in the evolving 21st Century classroom;
2. Promote opportunities for Vermont students to achieve postsecondary readiness through high-quality educational experiences that acknowledge individual goals, learning styles, and abilities; and
3. Increase the rates of secondary school completion and postsecondary continuation in Vermont (Act 77, p. 1).

These three goals didn’t arise from out of the blue. Rather, they respond to key challenges facing Vermont educators. Prevailing practices in too many schools are out of step with the world beyond school and the needs, abilities and interests our youth. It’s not surprising, then, that many students disengage from their secondary learning and withdraw from the educational pipeline at a time when postsecondary learning is more important than ever.

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Reflect and Document

Take a moment to document in your PLP your own moral imperative for successfully implementing personalized and flexible pathways in your practice. Perhaps recall the struggling student you considered earlier.

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Example:

My moral imperative: The dire consequences often associated with disengagement, combined with the disproportionate impact on lower income and other vulnerable students, drives my moral imperative for implementing Act 77. All students have a right to learning opportunities that allow them to thrive. The current structure of schooling means too many students are denied such opportunities. This must change! We can do better!

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Be sure to tag your standards or goals accordingly!

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10 minutes

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The Proposed Solution: Act 77 and the Educational Quality Standards 15 minutes

Act 77 and the new Educational Quality Standards paint a revealing picture of the new kinds of learning opportunities Vermont students and their parents have a right to expect. Here are a few tidbits straight from the documents (with emphasis added):

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• Each school shall ensure students are able to access academic and experiential learning opportunities that reflect their emerging abilities, interests and aspirations, as outlined in the student’s Personalized Learning Plans (EQS p. 9).
• “Applied learning” means the presentation of subject matter in a way that integrates a particular academic discipline (such as mathematics, science or English) with life experiences both in school and out of school and with personal workforce applications (EQS 2114.2, p. 4).
• “School” means an organizational structure designed to facilitate student learning. This could include an individual public school building or a combination of public school buildings with one administration, either of which could include learning opportunities both within and outside of the school building and school day (EQS 2114.11, p. 6).
• Further, students may receive credit for learning that takes place outside of the school, the school day, or the classroom. (EQS 2120.8, p. 10).
• Students must be allowed to demonstrate proficiency by presenting multiple types of evidence, including but not limited to teacher- or student-designed assessments, portfolios, performances, exhibitions and projects (EQS 2120.1, p. 7).

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The Proposed Solution: Act 77 and the Educational Quality Standards

In summary, students now appear to have a right to a number of rarely offered approaches to learning:

• personally meaningful experiential learning,
• applied in ways that integrate academic disciplines,
• outside of the school building or day,
• and can demonstrate their readiness for graduation with student-designed projects, portfolios and performances

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The Proposed Solution: What Personalization Is and Is Not

Personalization is often confused with differentiation and individualization. The following chart describes personalization in greater detail and distinguished it from individualization and differentiation (click on it to enlarge).

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Bringing Order to the Chaos: Three Pillars of Personalization 20 minutes

Flexible Pathways, Personalized Learning Plans, and Proficiency-Based Learning are the three pillars of Act 77. Although sometimes identified by other terms, they are essential elements of all prominent programs aimed at personalized learning. Each has a unique role to play in the system. Without each, the system is likely to collapse. As James Rickabaugh warned,

“The three core components of such a system are comprehensive learner profiles, customized learning paths, and proficiency (or competency) based progress. Competency-based learning is a key piece of the puzzle; however, in order to tap its full potential, educators must do more than give students clear competencies and support to meet them. While learning targets may be clear and rigorous, unless students are given voice and choice in their learning, opportunities for personalized, real time feedback as they progress, access to a personalized learning path, and opportunity to build toward real independence as a learner, they will not build key capacities to survive and thrive in the rapidly changing work and life world where they will spend most of their adult lives.”

James Rickabaugh, The Importance of Competency-Based Learning in a Personalized Learning Environment, , July 15, 2013.

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Three Pillars of Personalization: Flexible Pathways

The concept of Flexible Pathways opens up new possibilities to address a number of challenges:

• It greatly increases the array of potentially authentic and engaging learning opportunities
• It invites more collaborators, teachers, and mentors with whom students may learn
• It expands the possibilities for postsecondary preparation for college and the workforce
• It embraces the rapidly expanding opportunities for online, blended, and anytime, anywhere learning
• It introduces opportunities for individualized pacing, choices, and programs of learning
• It creates new and more authentic contexts for powerfully engaging pedagogies like Project-Based Learning, Service Learning, and Design Learning

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Three Pillars of Personalization: Personalized Learning Plans

Just as Flexible Pathways addresses a number of challenges, the concept of Personalized Learning Plans addresses others:

• It introduces a system by which educators may come to know students well enough to guide them along an engaging, personalized and flexible path
• It creates a framework for goal setting, action planning, evidence gathering, and reflection that informs a student’s pathway and keeps it on track
• It places students at the forefront of the design of learning and models key skills for lifelong, self-directed learning
• It establishes a platform for communicating and collaborating with families and other relevant adults so that they too can inform the design of personalized and flexible learning

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Three Pillars of Personalization: Proficiency-Based Assessment

Proficiency-Based Assessment and Graduation Requirements address a number of problems:

• It removes seat time and required coursework from requirements for graduation, opening the way for more personalized, flexible, and student-directed learning
• It provides a new language to discuss learning goals, progress, and formative and summative assessment
• It values authentic and varied evidence of learning regardless of when and where the learning takes place
• It helps translate authentic evidence from complex, interdisciplinary projects into a shared understanding of progress toward proficiency
• It yields data to inform a reporting system better suited to engaging, purposeful, and real-world learning

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Reflect and Document

On your own or with colleagues, brainstorm ways in which the three pillars of personalization, if perfectly executed, could make school more engaging for the students you discussed above. Brainstorm the possible pitfalls as well. For instance, add to this list of concerns teachers have expressed when considering personalized and flexible pathways to learning. Copy and edit the table and add it to your PLP. Be sure to tag your standards or goals accordingly!

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10 minutes

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Reflect and Document

Use the Possibilities and Pitfalls table you created in this module to map out how you and your school can implement the Three Pillars of Personalized Learning. Be sure to tag your standards or goals accordingly!

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10 minutes

Collaborate and Plan

In consultation with your team peers and/or facilitators, review the Contributions of the Three Pillars of Personalized Learning table above and note that most of the contributions are closely related to essential middle grades practices and can be explored further by following the links to other modules. Consider how these possibilities could inform a coherent plan for your project work. You can also dig deeper into the other personalized learning modules: Introduction to Flexible Pathways, Intro to Personal Learning Framework & PLPs, and Introduction to Proficiency-Based Learning.

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20 minutes

Related Modules

Congratulations! You have now completed the module

Introduction to the Three Pillars.

Please take a moment to provide feedback on this module.

Dive: The History of Personalized Learning in Vermont: 1968-2017

Take a deeper look into the history of personalized learning in Vermont. The three goals of Act 77 didn’t arise from out of the blue. Rather, they respond to key challenges facing Vermont educators. First, in too many cases, prevailing teaching practices are out of step with the opportunities and demands of our current and emerging society. Second, prevailing educational practices are out of step with the needs, abilities and interests of too many of our youth. Third, these and other factors cause too many students to disengage from their secondary learning, leading them to withdraw from the educational pipeline at a time when postsecondary learning is more important than ever. Yet these have been concerns for decades, evident in the Vermont Design for Education* (1968), High Schools on the Move (2002), and Middle School Is Not A Building (2009).

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Other Resources:

• Full Text of Act 77 Flexible Pathways to Secondary School Completion
• Vermont Current Educational Quality Standards

Dive: The Honeycomb of Personalized Learning

Vermonters are not the only folks exploring personalized learning. Peruse these highly regarded frameworks and consider the following questions:

1. How do these frameworks overlap with the outline of Vermont’s approach to personalized and flexible pathways?
2. Reconsider the teacher concerns raised above. How are these concerns addressed by these frameworks? Which concerns remain for you?

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The Honeycomb of Personalized Learning (click for the interactive version)

Dive: The Stages of Personalized Learning

Dig deeper into the stages of personalized learning to identify steps you can take toward implementation in your school and classroom.

Modules Related to Flexible Pathways

Modules Related to Personalized Learning Plans

Modules Related to Proficiency-Based Assessment