Personalized learning is the current buzzword for self-directed learning. I am using it to title this post asking how we are preparing students to have more control over their learning time, place, content, creation, and communication, especially when using technology.

Jeff and I spoke many times on the Shifting Our Schools (SOS) podcast about the process of “schooling” that can, on occasion, lessen the curiosity, joy, and natural inclination to learn from our students, especially as they move from elementary through middle school. The elementary model of learning stations and teachers facilitating small table groups sometimes morphs into rows of passive receivers of information as students move on from ES. Passivity grows, and less personalization occurs as the attitude of “just tell me what is on the test” is sometimes the norm for the full range of students, including those in the high-pressure pathway to IB and AP courses.

Now with a shift towards “student-centered learning” and advances in web-based instructional tools and modular learning along with inquiry and project-based learning being more prevalent, what are ways schools starting in elementary expand on their life skills curriculum to help students learn the Habits of Mind and gain the needed dispositions so that they can direct their learning, especially when using technology and multiple information sources? The shift is wonderful. Let’s make sure our students are in the groove to handle it. 🙂

And as we see more and more high school hybrid programs of students designing some of their classes (see podcast interviews 1 and 2 with Sophia Pink) to include taking classes online and at the community college. In that case, students need the personal responsibility, know-how, drive, and skill set to manage their learning experiences.

So thinking with the end in mind, I am guessing that there are elementary and middle schools where instructional technologists, librarians, classroom teachers, and other interested educators are partnering with the guidance counselor to construct and teach a curriculum that incorporates ICL, citizenship, life skills and various dispositions that help grow our students into being further self-directed and skilled in managing their learning especially when it comes to interacting with technology and digital information sources. 

Growth in self-management (regulation) is central to students’ natural development. Technology used effectively can enhance learning and become a tool for distraction while also becoming a barrier to students interacting face to face. Giving them a device without helping them understand and learn how it can affect their lives negatively and positively is unacceptable. And I am talking much more than digital citizenship here.

I see many students before school, at lunch, and during breaks with their faces glued to devices instead of being present with one another. An additional thought for this program development is that some schools are bringing parents into the development process and offering parenting classes in the digital age to carry the curriculum into home life.

I see the counselor leading out in the development of this curriculum. We must remember that instructional technologists and librarians help students learn how to use technology and information sources. The counselor partners with teachers to provide learning opportunities for social, emotional, and general life skills growth.

Besides a robust guidance program of counselors as teachers in the classroom, another avenue to structure and implement this curriculum is through advisory/morning meetings. Advisory from ES through HS can be an excellent home base for students and a learning place with carefully articulated lessons guiding students to command their learning journey.

I won’t go further here, but a lot comes to mind regarding components in what might be called a “personalized life learning curriculum” or some variation. Just as teachers start the year with discussions around expectations, rules, and goals, this curriculum should incorporate lessons on class and whole school culture wrapped around core beliefs laid out in a mission statement. This process of pulling from the Habits of Mind, various dispositions, mindsets, character strengths, and other life skill collections is a part of my belief that we should help students construct their personal learning system by the time they leave elementary school. And the more that the personalized life learning curriculum is entirely constructed and on the “digital shelf” for teachers to pull from, the better.

One last thought. If schools are looking at historical personalized learning models, read Audrey Watter’s post on The Histories of Personalized Learning. Seeing her point out that Montessori has always been about personalized learning is nice. It definitely can be a model to apply. I plan to write a few posts about one local Middle School Montessori team of teachers using an Information and Communication Literacies (ICL)approach to support their program.

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Habits