I'm skeptical. My kids go to a school that's pretty serious about individualizing education for each student, and they have to limit enrollment in order to be able to do this. Even so, it's not easy.
I suspect that "personalized learning curriculum" means something like "watch videos and work online at your own pace." There are problems with an approach like this: first, it requires a lot of motivation from the student, which kids aren't exactly known for. Second, it requires that kids have an ability to be autodidacts, because you can't ask the video a question when you don't understand something. So you have to find the answer yourself. IMO, this is asking way too much. Note: Experience makes me dubious about claims that you can ask the teacher --- teacher is already answering someone else's question and another kid is waiting. Like I said, it's not easy, and yet my kids' school is very small.
Third, students learn what the video decides they should learn, and not much else (barring high motivation). Fourth, you can't have a conversation with a video regarding your thoughts on whatever it was talking about. Class discussions led by a knowledgeable teacher are essential to learning. That can't happen if everyone is working on his own video and the teacher is running around answering a dozen different questions.
It might work as a system for imparting discrete skills, such as performing mathematical algorithms or identifying linking verbs. But as a tool for providing a meaningful education that includes problem-solving skills? I doubt it.
Not to mention that personalized learning systems risk becoming excuses for cutting teaching jobs. I may be critical of the overall poor quality of the US teacher corps, but the solution is to improve the teaching corps, not to buy software licenses.
Last edited by Val; 10/01/16 02:59 PM.
