What is a personalized learning plan?
Personalized learning is about tailoring instruction or learning to meet the needs of the student. When referring to creating a personalized learning plan for students, generally it relates to a teacher customizing instruction methodologies within a classroom to meet the individual needs of each student.
For students, this is an opportunity to develop a plan for learning. This plan includes the best learning environments, how learning occurs, the best methods in learning, the ways of taking in information and even using strengths of learning.
There are great benefits to developing this personalized learning. First, it gives control to the learner. It will permit you, as a learner, to modify your learning, enabling a superior intake of knowledge.
It will give you the tools you need to learn different topics, despite your preference for one subject or another. For instance, if your strength is languages, mathematics may be difficult. But if you could envision math and numbers as a different type of language?
A learning plan builds critical thinking and problem-solving skills by developing independent learners. The individual takes control of the learning experience which promotes these skills.
In creating and maintaining a learning plan the student is continually invited to observe, analyze and adapt their learning as well as their plan. Why is the maintenance required? Because the learner is fluid, constantly changing and growing. Due to this growth process, the personalized learning plan needs to be adapted to meet the changing growth of the pupil.
A learning plan focuses the vision on the learning process instead of focusing on the result. How many times have you completed a homework assignment, project or assessment simply to check it off your list of things to do? By having a developed learning plan, the learning occurs while the activity is being completed. It is not simply finishing the task.
Lastly, it doesn’t emphasize the instructor. The learner is the center of the plan. It moves toward a more interdependent learning style where the learner chooses to step in or out of collaborative and independent learning.
Sources:
Atkinson, T. (2017). The Successful Scholar.
This book, The Successful Scholar, is filled with the tips and necessary information to aid the student through their first year. It contains graphs, pictures and diagrams. There is information on learning personalities and how to identify the best methodologies in relation to these learning personalities. All of which are in color.
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By Tracy AtkinsonTracy Atkinson, mother of six, lives in the Southwest with her husband and spirited long-haired miniature dachshunds. She is a teacher, having taught elementary school to higher education, holding degrees in elementary education and an EDS in higher education. Her passion is researching, studying and investigating the attributes related to self-directed learners and learning styles. She has published several titles, including MBTI Learning Styles: A Practical Approach, The Art of Learning Journals, Calais: The Annals of the Hidden, Lemosa: The Annals of the Hidden, Book Two, Rachel’s 8 and Securing Your Tent. She is currently working on a non-fiction text exploring the attributes of self-directed learners: The Five Characteristics of Self-directed Learners.
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