Personalised Learning: How it works, Implementation, Benefits and Challenges

Twenty years ago, it was common to find schoolchildren memorising facts and dates from drab school books until they could recite them like parrots. Those who could repeat the words written in books exactly were rewarded with better marks. But schools and educators have come a long way from there.

Schools, colleges, and universities now recognise the need for a tailor-made learning process. Every student has unique learning needs and their own method for absorbing and remembering information. Personalised learning is finding the right learning path for every student, catering to their strengths, skills, and learning needs.

What is Personalised Learning?

Personalised learning is based on the premise that all learners have a unique pace and style of learning. The method of education is moulded to suit the learner’s intelligence, interests, and perceptions. Schools and educators analyse their students to understand their preferred learning styles. Then, they adopt different mediums of instruction to suit their students. Thus, empowering them to learn better and enjoy the learning experience.

How Does Personalised Learning Work?

Personalised learning connects a learner’s previous knowledge, skills, and experience with the new concepts to learn. In personalised learning, instructors should know about the student and their background. Then, they link the learners existing knowledge to the new information. It helps learners receive the new information in the proper context and remember it without effort. Instructors must mould their content delivery to suit the learner and their understanding of related concepts.

For example, physics concepts can be linked to childhood games and the principles students have witnessed while playing these games – to create a connection for the learners. Extramarks helps schools and colleges scale the personalised learning approach for large batches of students. Our school solutions assist teachers in facilitating personalised learning for all students with efficient school management and parent collaboration.

How Does Personalised Learning Affect Student Achievement?

Personalised learning has a positive impact on student achievement. Credible research has proven that students who follow the personalised learning method are more engaged, motivated, and responsible towards their education. Modifying the instruction method per each student’s skill and interests gives students a sense of ownership, leading to better academic outcomes.

Benefits of Personalised Learning

Let’s discover how investing in Extramarks for personalized learning can transform educational outcomes through tailored, student-centric strategies that drive success:

1. Increases Student Engagement: One of the most significant benefits of personalised learning is that it helps educators improve student engagement. Students feel more interested in the lessons if they are connected to their experiences. Extramarks Smart Class Plus equips your classroom with interactive learning aids – to help improve student engagement and attention span.

2. Increased Productivity & Motivation: Students are intrinsically motivated to learn only when they enjoy learning. Tailoring the learning process to their strengths and knowledge makes the new concepts relatable and meaningful for all the students. Extramarks School Solutions offers engaging content mapped to the school curriculum for all students.

3. Allow Students to Learn at Their Own Pace: Personalised learning allows learners to set the pace and learn more when they excel at a subject and take more time if they struggle to understand a concept. Extramarks offers students unlimited practice questions and doubt-solving in every topic to help them strengthen their understanding.

4. Ensure Better Results: At the end of the day, students, parents, and educators all want better results through a robust learning process. Personalised learning ensures that students pursue concepts until they are memorable and actionable, leading to better performance. The diagnose, learn, practice, test and evaluate methodology followed by Extramarks helps students get a personalised and holistic learning experience for the best results.

5. Hones Students’ Self Advocacy Skills: Personalised learning gives children a certain degree of autonomy over their education. They take responsibility to learn more and speak more openly about their challenges. Extramarks School Solutions include detailed and personalised feedback to allow students to voice their opinions.

Challenges of Personalised Learning

Most educators strive to create the most conducive and customisable learning environment for their students. However, moving from a traditional education method to personalised learning has some challenges. Here’s a look –

1. Challenge: Allowing students to learn at their own pace while ensuring they meet grade-level requirements

Solution: Create a flexible framework that combines personalised learning with grade-level requirements. Use assessments to track progress and allow students to move ahead when they’re ready.

2. Challenge: Integrating data in the school’s IT systems.

Solution: Invest in a user-friendly Learning Management System (LMS) that can easily connect with other school systems. This makes it easier to collect and analyse student data for personalised learning.

3. Challenge: Conducting teacher training for personalised learning.

Solution: Train teachers with workshops and resources to help them use personalised learning methods effectively. Encourage teachers to learn from each other through peer support.

4. Challenge: Timely development and deployment of personalised learning plans.

Solution: Establish a clear process for creating and implementing personalised learning plans. Provide teachers with tools and templates, and use technology to speed up the process.

5. Challenge: Monitoring and evaluation of personalised learning.

Solution: Set up a system to regularly check if personalised learning is working. Collect data on student progress, engagement, and feedback from all involved, and use this information to improve the approach.

How Can Educators Implement Personalised Learning?

Educators should remember that moving from traditional pedagogy to personalised learning is evolutionary. Start with a vision and plan for change, use the tips below, and encourage the development of feedback channels. If you wish to implement personalised learning in your school, we have listed some practical suggestions below.

1. Embrace EdTech: Leverage modern edtech resources such as Extramarks School Solutions to dynamically track and manage the personalised learning experiences of all your students.

2. Revise Evaluation Techniques: Experiment with different evaluation methods. Some students are comfortable proving their newly learned skills in a pen-and-paper test. Others may do better with projects, presentations, and experiments instead.

3. Change the Seating Arrangement: Flexible seating arrangements help students work together and discuss their thoughts in the classroom. Instead of rows and columns, try the horseshoe seating arrangement or a circle cluster for better interaction.

4. Leverage Online Lectures: Make all lectures available online to enable students to pause, rewind, and watch the lecture at their own pace. Include assignments to help students practice the application of the concepts they learn.

5. Use Personalised Learning Playlists: Make personalised learning playlists wherein students can choose the activities they wish to pursue and complete them at their own pace.

6. Benefit from Multi-Format Content: Offer different formats of educational content. Extramarks Learning App offer multiple formats like videos, detailed presentations, and flowcharts. It allows students to choose the format that suits their intelligence and learning style.

7. Utilise Formative Assessment: Adopt a constructive assessment method that uses the assessment as a learning method. The Extramarks Assessment Centre makes creating, administering, and evaluating tests hassle-free for teachers. It also helps track student progress with comprehensive analytics and learning suggestions based on the student’s performance.

8. Understanding the Four Learning Styles: Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing—helps you tailor your teaching methods to meet diverse student needs.

Learn more about Different Types of Learning Styles.

Technology is critical to the success of modern educational institutions. As school leaders and educators, it is essential to leverage the best in edtech to enable personalised learning in your school. The best strategy would be to partner with expert organisations like Extramarks to start your journey from a traditional to a personalised learning approach.

Last Updated on September 9, 2024