A personalized learning environment is characterized by the ability of students and adults in the school to develop meaningful, sustained connections to one another. In a personalized learning environment, students are treated as individuals; they are given responsibility, spoken to honestly, and treated with dignity and respect. Through these connections teachers get to know students well; they become familiar with students’ learning styles, interests, backgrounds, and goals. Knowing who their students are and how they learn, teachers can adjust instruction to leverage students’ strengths and build curriculum around issues relevant to their lives. The personal connection between teachers and students also allows teachers to push students farther. Teachers can demand higher levels of achievement because their expectations are based on a personal understanding of students’ capabilities. Because of their sustained, mutual trust, students grant teachers the authority to challenge them as learners.
In studies of successful small schools, students compare their schools to a family and credit their academic achievement to their supportive relationships with teachers. With reduced enrollments and lower daily student loads, teachers in small schools have greater opportunity to establish and sustain relationships with students and their families. Families appreciate the chance to contact and be contacted by adults in the school who know their children well. The result is a caring network of adults invested in the success of each student.
What are some strategies to realize a personalized environment?
- Cohorts. In a cohort approach, smaller groups of students are scheduled together to share a set of classes and teachers. This strategy allows teams of teachers who share the students in common to use a tag-team approach on student support, enrichment, and discipline. Integrated projects are more easily implemented within the cohort, as teachers know that all students in the group share certain classes in common. Cohorts also allow for students to develop positive peer relationships within a safe group of classmates that they see regularly throughout the school day. While the small school movement generally seeks to create schools of 400 students or less, most successful schools limit cohorts within these schools to 60-120 students.
- Looping. In this approach, students and teachers are scheduled together for multiple terms or years. Through looping, teachers get to know students and their families over an extended time, allowing them to tailor instruction to students’ strengths and interests. Looping also helps teachers maximize their time in the classroom. Once norms and routines are established, teachers can concentrate on instruction without having to get to know a new group of students every few months.
- Advisories. Advisories are another way that small schools provide student support and enable strong relationships. Advisories consist of 10 to 15 students who meet regularly with a faculty advisor for academic and personal support. Teachers often advise students they also teach in class, which increases their personal bond. At some schools students stay with the same advisor for several years to build strong relationships over time. Most successful programs schedule advisory groups to meet at least 2-3 times per week.
- Student Choice. Students are personally connected to school when what they are learning reflects their passions in life. Students who work with teachers to negotiate the curriculum, develop personalized learning plans, scaffold complex tasks, or structure internships are invested in their learning because they can see and explore the relationship between school, who they are and their goals for the future. In this kind of setting the purpose of learning shifts from “getting through the book” to capitalizing on students’ interests to go deep into challenging content. Students are motivated to study, research, question, reflect, write and present ideas when they feel that the content they are learning is personally relevant.
- Mentors. Mentors are powerful advocates, supports, instructors and role models for students. Mentors are adults in and outside of the school; they are teachers, administrators, advisors, internship supervisors, community service leaders and members of the community. Mentors play a wide range of roles in students’ lives—they instruct, serve on exhibition panels, give advice, counsel, or just listen. In short, mentors are caring adults who help guide students through decisions regarding academics, college, careers, personal issues that affect learning or whatever else relates to the students’ life and activities in school. In a personalized learning environment every student has a connection to a mentor who is able to help that student challenge themselves to achieve to their highest potential.
Review this element on the Oregon Small Schools Initiative School Change Rubric Self-Assessment Tool.
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