I'd be the first or second person in line to advocate that schooling needs to be more personal and relevant for our students. A key premise behind Disrupting Class speaks to the opportunity we have to provide customized learning for all students. The time is ripe. Of course this is not a widespread phenomena and in reality, we're a long ways off from making learning about the learner. It's still largely about the content and curriculum developed by folks far, far away from schools. In spite of that, there are great teachers who either usurp some of their curricula requirements or masterfully make learning personal and relevant for students. Those teachers are magicians and that's more or less what I believe every teacher ought to strive for. But it shouldn't require as much voodoo as it does.
Our current system and structure fights personalized learning with nearly every new policy and protocol it can generate. The system craves standardization while we desperately need customization. These competing ideals butt heads constantly and for those teachers who do believe in personalizing learning, they live in perpetual frustration. Typically these are the teachers you'll find roaming around blogs, Twitter, Delicious and other spaces searching and asking how to create the type of learning that honors students' passions and allows them to own the learning. In the end, without a restructuring of time and current curriculum requirements the best we can hope for is small pockets of success or the .02 percent of students whose passion happens to be trigonometry or Shakespeare.
When I read posts from Karl Fisch, I can't help but think he's a perfect example of a teacher trying to make the most of his situation. He tells his algebra students what they need to be successful.
...to be successful you're going to have to be a learner, you're going to have to learn how to learn, and go after things on your own. You're going to have to be independent, curious, passionate learners, who don't just sit back and wait for someone to tell them what they're supposed to know, but who go out and try to figure things out for yourself. Who pursue your interests, your goals, your passions with intensity, and who actively participate in everything you do. Who go out and find other learners who are passionate about what you are passionate about and learn from them -- and alongside them.
Wonderful goals and yet I can help but wonder if algebra is the best vehicle to accomplish these goals. Why algebra? I'm not suggesting it has no value but it seems very arbitrary. Karl later confesses,
I'm trying to get you to be actively involved in your own education, to be independent and curious learners in mathematics, even if algebra is never going to be your favorite subject.
Why not study Numismatics or Ogham Divination? (For the record, I had no idea what Ogham Divination was but did a search for obscure courses.) My point is that it seems like Karl might accomplish these broad goals in better, more personal ways but he's working inside a system that isn't all that flexible and so he has to work all that much harder to achieve his goals.
But here's the thing that I'm grappling with. While I'm busy advocating for changes that might support an education that fuels and fosters students' passions, I worry that we lose sight of what a liberal education is all about. They don't know what they don't know. Providing students with broad experiences that invites them to develop a variety of skills, understand and appreciate diverse perspectives and potentially uncover hidden talents and interests speaks to a fairly well accepted purpose of school. Perhaps this is how many see our current model and justify it's existence assuming it's accomplishing this goal. I'm not convinced however that our intent is always to provide a broad experience but we can conveniently label anything that's boring and irrelevant part of this experience. There's lots of work to be done when it comes to getting this part right and it requires as much revamping as the personalized learning does. The back to the basic folks are forgetting the basics, whatever that means, isn't enough anymore. There's also the "life's-not-always-interesting-suck-it-up" camp which once again helps to justify marginal teaching practices and curriculum. If we were truly starting education from scratch today, I can't imagine we'd build the same system we have. There would be lots of discussion as to what types of content all students need. Even if core content and skills could be determined, we'd never teach them all as segmented subjects taught in isolation in 45-minute increments.
So I'm still having a difficult time envisioning this kind of education. One model that seems to be address the "they don't know what they don't know" part is Think Global School. Students get to experience 12 countries in 12 trimesters. Not really a scalable model but the concept of new experiences in interesting, meaningful contexts is worth examining. The personalized approach seems to be the attempt of the German education system which tries to identify student aptitude very early and provide a more direct path. This isn't really the kind of personal education I'm envisioning as it still revolves primarily around vocation as opposed to passion. The uncovering or pursuit of passion becomes a very interesting question as we see young people, even many adults struggle with this discovery. Sadly, many never find their passions. Yet many of our students have passions and interests that simply don't fit into the academia of school and students are left to pursue them outside of school.
So while it may be possible to provide both, I've not seen it done to any degree. Once again our system fails us. So I need to know if my ideas about a balance between passion based learning and a liberal education has merit or perhaps I'm missing something in this equation. I'd also be grateful if any can share some examples of people or institutions who are getting this balance right.
Follow Dean Shareski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Shareski
we're thinking if we focus on and master the process, the topic doesn't matter. so personalization can happen - choice can happen - learning can be per passion. this creates the perfect setting for Coyle's deep practice. changing passion later is fine because the process has become 2nd nature. self-construction, self-automation, but most important, ongoing hunger for learning results.
the benefits:
we can prune out what a learner doesn't need - making learning more humane, and
we can amp what he/she does need - making the learner more remarkable.
we're attempting to experiment and explain it all here:
http://redefineschool.wordpress.com/
What you're describing above -- what Karl Fisch and countless other teachers deal with as a regular part of their job -- is a disconnect teachers feel between several factors, which are often opposing: e.g., the stated curriculum vs hidden curriculum; philosophy vs. reality; content vs. skills. This disconnect manifests itself in many, many ways. But standards themselves aren't the evil here. What you've described with Karl's situation has little to do with standardization -- it has to do with school structure and curriculum. They are related but not synonymous.
Compounding the problem is that in the U.S.A., standards are measured via poorly constructed tests, and further, those test scores are tied to so much - they are a political monster more than an educational one. Maybe what's *in* the standards is the evil, or the way they're assessed, reported, and used.
To return to my definition: if we simply change and adjust what it is we want students to be able to do, know, and understand, personalization can be built into that.
I struggle with this every day. Like Bill Ferriter's district, ours has a very specific pacing guide and day to day lesson plans. In addition, the required minutes to teach every subject does not allow for transitions, unexpected events or teachable moments. Although the lessons are not mandatory and the pacing guide is "recommended," I find myself behind daily and have to constantly answer questions about why I'm not where everyone else is on the pacing guide. Teaching gifted, I also have the pressure of some asking why I'm not as "far along" as the non-gifted classes on my same grade level. My philosophy has always been (regardless of what I'm teaching) to make sure the students really understand before I move on. I aim for breadth, not a faster pace. However that's not the culture here.
AND YET... if a student is projected to not do well on the upcoming standardized test, we are expected to make time during the school day to individualize and differentiate. What resources are provided? Worksheets in the form of PDFs. This is what is called "technology."
Don't get me started. Oops, too late.
http://reading-sage.blogspot.com/
I've no where near nailed this but I can tell you I offer my students (currently teaching pre-service teachers) the opportunity to develop broad outcomes using a variety of tools and providing choices. I realize that differentiation goes beyond student choice but that's a pretty easy way to begin. My call in this post suggest that students, at some point can determine how outcomes will be achieved as well as defining some of their own outcomes. Part of this comes as teachers relinquish control. Again, the dilemma comes in constant battle with attempts to standardize and script curriculum as a few folks have already discusses. Not sure if I've answered your question but I do think that offering students a personal learning experience is possible but my point is more about how much we as adults should be asking/telling students they must do and learn.
We just had a meeting about this at my school yesterday. I teach at a small alternative school in Nebraska. Most of our students come to us as 11th or 12th graders, but only have the skills of a 7th or 8th grader. Our discussion was centered around the question of whether we should continue "teaching to the test" (which we have found does not improve their test scores because they do not have the foundation to begin with) or do we focus our curriculum on helping our students develop basic life and social skills (which they don't have, but desperately need). We also discussed using the online classes we have created to help customize a plan of study for each student. We have the ability to do it, but talking about it and doing it are two very different things. Over the last few years I have created a number of online social studies classes, but in our current system I can only teach four of these classes each year (one every nine weeks). In the plan I envision I would offer four or five classes at a time. For example, in a class of ten students five of them might be working on US History, three could be completing a World History class, another might opt to take Geography, and the last one could take History of the American West. Each of the classes could offer a variety of options for completing assignments.
The system craves standardization while we desperately need customization. These competing ideals butt heads constantly and for those teachers who do believe in personalizing learning, they live in perpetual frustration.
I ran into this face first this week, Dean.
Our district---which has rolled out a very specific day-by-day pacing guide and required, district wide formative assessments that must be delivered in math, reading, social studies, grammar, science and health every three weeks---also sent out a presentation on 21st Century learning that encouraged teachers to create the kinds of classrooms where students could take more ownership over their own learning.
My first thought: How am I supposed to provide students to take ownership over their own learning when I've got a script to follow and required exams to give?
While the district's push for standardization will likely result in some students---those in classrooms with struggling teachers or with those old stalwarts who ignore the curriculum with a passion---doing better than they otherwise would have, it actively discourages the same kinds of student-centered classrooms they're promoting.
And I'm stuck in the unenviable position of trying to figure out which directive to follow!
Welcome to the confusing world of the classroom teacher....
Bill
Every child gets instruction based on individual interest, learning preference, learning style, readiness level, ability, preferred mode of learning and thats just to start. Wow, that works for home school but looses its effectiveness in a class of 30! One teacher with 30 students and they want all that plus amazing results is impossible. Differentiated Instruction sounds like a wonderful idea or an Orwellian promise designed to keep teachers bouncing around like pinballs doing senseless retort with all students suffering mediocrity. I have a very simple educational philosophy "Teach to the TOP" and bring everyone, no matter the learning style along for the ride! Individual interest, learning preference, learning style, readiness level, ability, preferred mode of learning, is useless if you can't read! Sean Taylor M.Ed Tired Teacher
http://reading-sage.blogspot.com/
I would take exception to your position around differentiation. No question it can be challenging but at the same time technology can offer a multitude of ways to provide varying instruction and engagement for students. It's not a silver bullet but if you read Disrupting Class, you'll get a pretty good idea of how it might look. Challenging but possible.
I also think the idea that learning is predicated on reading is a bit narrow. That assumes that no one learned anything if they couldn't read. I'm not suggesting reading isn't valuable, even essential but it's not the only way in which one can learn.
In terms of personal learning, take a look at this video from Science Leadership Academy.
http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/science-leadership-academy/#video-sla
It's not exclusively about differentiation but does demonstrate that learning can center around the student, not the teacher and students can, in some ways personalize, customize and differentiate their own learning.