Is Personalized Learning Merely a New Name for Differentiated Learning?

Personalized learning involves the teaching, curriculum or school organization being designed to reach as many pupils as possible with diverse needs and experiences for as much of the time as possible. Personalized learning and differentiation are linked, but not the same thing. Personalized learning is an approach to teaching and learning that stresses deep learning as an active, social process and which is explicit about learning skills, processes and strategies (such as information processing or reasoning). It's not about individualized learning, but about building independence through interaction, intervention, stimulation and collaboration. Guided group learning would be a good example of how personalized learning can be developed in the classroom, but so would effective teacher questioning in whole class interaction.

Personalized learning places a limit on how far differentiation in teaching objectives should be taken and sets high expectations for all pupils. Individualized learning risks the weaker students most, for they are the ones who benefit from a well-structured learning environment. Moreover, individualized learning weakens the broader curriculum experience of any child, by reducing the social, moral and intellectual dimension that is an inevitable part of learning together.

So personalized learning places a strong emphasis on high expectations, teacher and practitioner intervention, group learning, social interaction, using language for learning and developing the language of learning. In personalized learning, whole class and group interaction, supported by tailored, focused intervention for pupils who are underachieving at any level, become the keys to accelerate the progress of the individual beyond what she or he can do alone, ensuring best progress for all.

KS3 National Strategy – Personalised Learning handout – SM meeting November 2004 © Crown Copyright 2004