Part 2
How can we personalise learning (and
why might we want to do so)?
© Curriculum Foundation
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There are some very different interpretations of the term ‘personalised learning’. One
was part of the 2004 “Five Year Strategy”, and the subject of various publications such as:
http://www.tlrp.org/documents/personalised_learning.pdf
This saw five elements to personalised learning:
1. Assessment for learning
2. Teaching and learning strategies to develop competence
3. Flexible pathways, entitlement and student choice
4. A student-centred approach
5. Strong partnerships
These ideas are still influential ten years later.
Although effective in
many ways, these were
not directly about the
curriculum (apart from
pathways).
© Curriculum Foundation
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Another interpretation of ‘personalised learning’ is to see it as having every pupil working
on something different at the same time – a sort of infinite ‘differentiation’.
This is not only impractical but is probably counter-productive as well. Some very
successful countries strongly oppose the notion of differentiation because they see it as
denying entitlement to some pupils.
Interestingly, the original notion of personalisation came first from research into effective
learning. It is not to do with infinite differentiation at all – or even the five aspects from
2004.
Did you recognise the people below when we saw them earlier?
© Curriculum Foundation
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This is David Hargreaves, author of “A New
Shape for Schooling?”. You can find it in the
link below.
http://www.myecoach.com/online/resources/13
729/a_new_shape_for_schooling
_11.pdf
“When personalisation is well
developed, the learner is articulate,
autonomous but collaborative, with
high meta-cognitive control and the
generic skills of learning, gained
through engaging educational
experiences with enriched
opportunities and challenges, and
supported by various people,
materials and ICT linked to general
well-being but crucially focused on
learning, in schools whose culture
and structures sustain the
continuous co-construction of
education through shared
leadership.”
© Curriculum Foundation
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This introduces the notion of the “co-construction of learning”. In co-construction,
students:
•
•
•
•
Are engaged with learning
Take responsibility for their own learning
Show independence and have control over learning
Enjoy confidence in themselves as learners
This is put forward in a model:
© Curriculum Foundation
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Some schools see co-construction as asking pupils what they want to learn about a
particular subject aspect or topic. In this way, the teacher and pupil shape the learning
between them. For example, the teacher asks, “What do you want to find out about the
Romans?” Then some joint planning ensues. This is much more common in primary than
in secondary schools.
The approach needs clever shaping on the part of the teacher to ensure that there is
sufficient challenge and coherence, but it does start the process of co-construction, and
does give the learner a stake in their own learning.
This approach can often be helpful, but it raises the issue
that people (especially young pupils) don’t know what it is
they don’t know, so they are not always in the best
position to say what it is they need to learn! (Do you
remember the former UD Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfelt and his “unknown unknowns”?)
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Did you recognise the second picture?
She has written extensively about (as you might expect) how the
brain operates in learning.
The connection here is that the brain is always active in learning
anyway, as the learner seeks to make sense of new information.
The more we can frame learning within the learner’s own context
of understanding, the more powerful it will be. Therefore, the
more we can involve the learner in the process of co-construction
as learning develops, the more likely we are to enable the learner
to make sense of the new material. It must make sense in their
own terms.
Goswami U (2006).
Neuroscience and
education: from
research to practice?
Nat Rev Neurosci
7(5):406-11
It’s Professor Usha Goswami, Professor
of Cognitive Developmental
Neuroscience at St John's College,
Cambridge
© Curriculum Foundation
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The ‘design triangle’ approach makes this much easier to achieve, because we are not
just trying to plough our way through a set amount of content. We are using the three
elements as parameters within which to design learning. There is therefore scope to
design the experience in such a way that it meets the present understanding of the
learner, and is set within their frame of meaning. This is personalised learning.
In a sense, the ‘Assessment for Learning’ aspect of the five elements would do this as
well, insofar as this seeks
to explore the learner’s present understanding, and then build
In this model, the na onal curriculum Programmes of Study (PoS) supply the
‘subject content’. The present Secondary PoS also supply the Key Concepts – but
on that.
these will disappear in the new na onal curriculum. The Key Skills will come from
the skills element of the competencies that you listed in Unit 2. The PoS will, in
this model, provide the knowledge context for the competencies. Between these
three, the learning experience is defined.
Subject content
Learning
experience
Key Concept
Key Skill
© Curriculum Founda on
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This does not always have to be individual. There is a difference between ‘personalised’
and ‘individualised’. Learning is a social function, and at its best involves a corporate
endeavour. We need to make learning make sense to the group in the first instance and
to provide support to individuals where necessary within the group. The
personalisation comes from interpreting the national curriculum expectations in terms
of key concepts and competency skills and so framing it for a particular set of pupils.
So the key question is how to design a learning experience that meets the three criteria
and makes sense in terms of our learners’ present set of understandings.
In this model, the na onal curriculum Programmes of Study (PoS) supply the
‘subject content’. The present Secondary PoS also supply the Key Concepts – but
these will disappear in the new na onal curriculum. The Key Skills will come from
the skills element of the competencies that you listed in Unit 2. The PoS will, in
this model, provide the knowledge context for the competencies. Between these
three, the learning experience is defined.
One way of doing that is to locate learning in a local setting.
Subject content
Learning
experience
Key Concept
Key Skill
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© Curriculum Foundation
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