{"id":5965,"date":"2018-04-18T10:36:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T14:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/?p=5965"},"modified":"2019-06-11T14:20:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T18:20:20","slug":"skepticism-personalized-learning-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/skepticism-personalized-learning-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Skepticism of Personalized Learning Is on the Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you search \u2018personalized learning\u2019 today, you\u2019ll likely find a good deal of thought leadership-type articles on its merits. Even publications as rigorous as The Hechinger Report have unblinkingly praised its merits<\/a>. There is currently no shortage of educators either trying personalized learning or willing to do so.<\/p>\n

But among edtech leaders, some have grown skeptical of its uses and the way it is implemented today. Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify, has recently voiced a sobering argument about its shortcomings. In February, Education Week blogger Rick Hess published his written comments<\/a> in a post.<\/p>\n

“The Map Doesn’t Exist”<\/h1>\n

His argument and summary of personalized learning, reads, \u201cYou start with a map of all the things that kids need to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you measure the kids so that you can place each kid on the map in just the spot where they know everything behind them, and in front of them is what they should learn next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you assemble a vast library of learning objects and ask an algorithm to sort through it to find the optimal learning object for each kid at that particular moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you make each kid use the learning object. [The more kids use it, the smarter and better it gets.]\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere’s the problem: The map doesn’t exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, Hess published a response letter by Joel Rose<\/a>, CEO of New Classroom Innovation Partners. This week at the ASU + GSV Summit, the two were joined by Nick Gaehde, president of Lexia Learning, Joel Rose, and Phil Regier, a dean at ASU, along with moderator Phyllis Lockett (Leap Innovations co-founder) for a panel discussion on personalized learning.<\/p>\n

The ASU + GSV Summit Panel on Personalized Learning<\/h1>\n

Berger began. From an engineering point of view, he argued, personalized learning seems like a great idea. Classrooms, after all, aren\u2019t great systems. \u201cYou\u2019ve got 30 parallel processing kids out there and they each can think about things at different levels,\u201d Berger said. \u201cAnd you\u2019ve got one transmitter that is not parallel processing capable.\u201d (That would be the teacher.)<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the engineer says, this is great. This is something we can fix. We can replace that one transmitter with a range of parallel processing experiences that can solve that network diagram and make it rational. That\u2019s attractive at a structural level. The computer can multitask, the kids need multitasking, let\u2019s put it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a pedagogical and personal thing that comes along to support that view. A lot of educational research says that one-on-one tutoring is kind of the best thing we have if we want to make a big gain for a kid. There\u2019s nothing that has outperformed that as a teaching model.\u201d<\/p>\n