July 19, 2017
There are many glitches and problems within our educational system in the United States. The issue is that there are no “black and white” answers as to what is right and what is wrong in education. Teaching styles all vary drastically depending upon the needs of students and their environment. That’s where the wicked problems come in. An educational wicked problem is a problem that truly doesn’t have a specific solution.
Our wicked problem that we dug into was how personalized learning is so difficult to implement in classrooms. Personalized Learning has been somewhat of a buzzword in the education system recently, but what exactly is personalized learning?
To start, Kristen and I came up with many great questions about personalized learning and why or why not teachers should integrate it into their own classroom. By collaborating with our lengthy planning document, we were able to start the planning process. We read the personalized learning portion in the 2016 Horizon Report, which helped us understand what exactly personalized learning looks like.
“Personalized learning refers to the range of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic support strategies intended to address the specific learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students” (Horizon Report 2016).
We found a lot of research why personalized learning and why it is so successful with student growth.
However, the wickedness comes into play.
Personalized learning is expensive and requires a lot of changes within school districts.
This chart explains that in order to successfully and appropriately use personalized learning in districts, it’s a gradual shift. Personalized Learning takes time and a lot of patience.
Based off of our research, it was up to us to come up with potential solutions to this wicked problem with personalized learning.
- Redefining roles of teachers and students
- Using educational technology tools to ease personalized learning
- Integrate authentic and project-based learning that gives students the opportunity to explore real-world problems that are personal to them
Check out our full presentation here.
If schools do not use personalized learning, teachers should always have their students at the center of their planning and preparation. The more knowledgable teachers are of supportive teaching methods, the more successful their students will be.
NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Higher Education Edition. (n.d.). Retrieved July 19, 2017, from http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2016-higher-education-edition/
Helen Fountain 