Last week, I began to discuss an interesting article I’ve recently read called “The World Is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning.” I’d like to continue to grapple with its ideas and related ones, and suggest how faculty can leverage “personalized learning” to intrinsically motivate students.
One of the key takeaways from the article is that in our highly connected and information-rich society, we are not the least bit lacking in content to take in. It is everywhere and exists in infinite volume, such that “information, whether it be from radio, television, print, Web media, or social networks, is coming at us too quickly; [and unfortunately], all that most of us do is surface skim, rarely pausing to reflect or think quickly” (p. 15).
To be sure, we need to meditate on ideas and information, critically think about topics, and make connections between concepts, thoughts, theories, etc.
The hope of many innovative educators is that, at some point, personalized learning will be embedded in our usage of phones, tablets, laptops, and computers, such that much the way we click on friends to add, or on pictures, videos, gifs, and statuses to share, we will eventually click on buttons to learn information that is personalized to us based on interest tags.
For instance, if one is an English teacher or studying the humanities, tags of interest might be philosophy, culture, religion, literature, writing, romanticism, etc. Then, anytime that person reads an article about anything, if they want to “learn more,” they won’t just be presented with standardized more, but information, questions, and paths of inquiry that relate the article to English and the humanities. A person who tags marketing, management, & business law would be prompted with different information and questions about the article. A music major would be taken on a music-focused path.
Future e-learners might also be prompted with questions and information that their friends were given. This is because people take a natural interest in what their friends or social networks are up to and interested in. This influence has been seen a lot on social media, where people are prompted to like a page (and they often will) just because four of their friends have liked it. Or read an article that five of their friends have liked/read. Or sign a petition that several of their friends signed. The bottom line is that we’re all more influenced by friends and social networks than we’re usually willing to admit. This extends even to learning, where people will want to learn things that their friends have learned in addition to their personal areas of interest in a subject.
Of course, as a professor at UHCL, it is not your job to develop apps with friends-tracking “like,” “share,” and “learn” buttons for phones and tablets, or code tags of interest on websites. However, you can still pick up on the idea of personalizing learning by allowing students to take in your content and materials but allow them to demonstrate their learning in a way that relates to their problems/concerns, interests, current life circumstances, and work activities, professional path, etc. Students often feel satisfied and as if they’ve “killed two birds with one stone” when they were able to learn and be enriched by your content while at the same time reflecting on their own life—present, past & future—and possibly even solve a problem or begin to think about the solution to a problem that is very relevant to them.
By no means is it necessary to revamp all of your assignments, projects, and tests. Even if you tweak only an assignment (or discussion board prompt) or two that allows for some personalization, students’ thoughts that a class “feels relevant” can still increase dramatically.
Here are some other good articles on personalized learning. They may give you ideas on how to motivate your students.
Reference
Anderson, M.H. (2011). The World is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning. The Futurist, January-February 2011, 12-17.
