Personalized Learning: What’s Your Approach?
Implementing personalized learning in schools is on the rise, and for good reason. When schools take personalized approaches to their teaching, they are able to help students reach their optimal potential beyond the classroom.
The best personalized learning is multidimensional and is not grounded in one singular approach, such as assistive technology, or self-pacing, etc. As more schools start to embrace personalized learning, it’s critical to understand what approach to learning will work best for your student.
Here are some of our best tips on how to ensure a school is able to understand your child’s learning profile and work to implement a personalized learning approach for your student:
Complete an assessment to understand students’ learning styles
Having an understanding of how your student learns is the first step in creating an effective and personalized approach to student success. Without this data, you may be guessing at what will be most effective for your students and teachers.
We can’t recommend highly enough the value of having an independent neuropsych assessment done for your child! This will give you a baseline understanding of how they learn best, where their learning deficits are but most importantly, what their strengths are!
Understand the ways a schools students are currently learning
In order to improve how your child will be taught, you need to understand the ways in which your child is currently learning and how the schools you are considering are teaching students. This will further your understanding of where there is room for improvement.
To successfully take this step, it’s important to speak openly with the schools you’re looking at! Ask to speak especially with teachers in a variety of subjects, to get their perspectives and assess where there may be gaps. An adept admissions officer or head of school will welcome a discussion regarding neuropsych testing and your student’s learning profile, so don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask!
Experience student learning through their preferred learning style
Now that you know your student’s preferred methods of learning and understand how they are currently being taught, begin planning your school visits! Create a plan to visit schools that you think might incorporate and support a wider variety of learning preferences in your child’s academic courses. Don’t lose sight of the social-emotional piece of this process! How does each school provide enrichment beyond academics? What are the extracurricular activities available for a student with similar interests as your child?
We recommend starting with smaller to mid-size schools and getting to know them. They are often eager and open to these conversations and visits! The best way to know what you’re seeking and hoping for is to ask for feedback. Ask the students you meet on campus what they are enjoying, and how that school is different from their prior school. Poll the teachers, leaders, and coaches that you meet during your campus visit on what they think is working for them and where they see shortcomings. Ask them what kind of leeway they have in their role and what that looks like. Ask for illustrative examples to help you “see” the support they provide and their responses in action!
An exciting new program
In the Greater Boston area, there are many independent schools. The learning and academic support is offered in varying degrees, while many do not embrace diverse learners. But now, an exciting new program is launching south of Boston!
Cape Cod Academy has set the course of what personalized learning can look like in schools through implementing their Personalized Approach to Learning (PAL) Program. This program affects students in grades K-12 and is set to begin this fall, 2022.
Its purpose is to understand student’s learning styles, and help them reach their optimal potential, all while motivating them along the way. The program will help the Academy identify each student’s unique learning style and adjust their teaching tactics to align with the ways their students learn best.
At the Academy, students are given a profile which contains information such as their strengths, weaknesses, achievements, skills, etc. The Academy will use the data from this profile to inform their teaching tactics and methods. It’s important to note that this program is set to help all students, not just those who struggle academically, but also those who are gifted as well as their “traditional” learners, too. Every student will have a personalized learning plan!
Cape Cod Academy’s new program allows teachers to get an understanding of each student in order to better serve them in their current courses, but also set them up for success in the future. Who wouldn’t want that for all students?
Bright Future
We’re hopeful that more and more independent schools will start to take this same approach, as we all learn differently! It’s this inclusive approach to neurodiverse learning that we hope all schools will embrace so that every student in their population thrives. We know that creating a similar program or adopting a similar approach won’t happen overnight. Yet, with diligence and support from the community, a school willing to recognize neurodiversity can create a program that benefits each student, now and in the future.
These students are bright and talented, and will go out into the world to do BIG things. And we suspect they’ll remember, recognize, and give back to the schools that saw their potential, when maybe they themselves didn’t.