Individual Learning in a Room of Many Individuals

Individualized Learning in a Room of Many Individuals (Part One)

Reading Chapter 7 of our major textbook of study I can't help but find much of the lessons I am reading to be very relevant and informational for not just me but my peers when it comes to a major topic: Individualized Learning. 

First let us define individualized learning: learning through the work of individuals or small groups. This concept differs from group learning because of how it applies the usage. In Group Learning I as the teacher am feeding the information. In individual learning I may give information at the end but in reality it is student driven. The students preform the Learning themselves by working alone or in small groups to solve a problem. 

The first question I have to ask is this one:

Why Use Individualized Learning?

1. This individualizes the learning
2. It helps students learn to inquire into the subject matter
3. It promotes independence 
4. It helps students learn to make and use more than one opinion 
5. Students learn to apply and evaluate information 
6. It teaches students how to self learn

Let's Expand These A Bit

Individualize the Learning

"If there is one truism about learning, it is that each individual is different and should be taken from where he or she is to where he or she is capable of being." There is a great scenario of this in the Newcomb textbook which basically says that in a utopian educational system every student would be able to achieve the specific goals of the course consistently with his or her needs and abilities. Each learner would have the resources and support level they each need the entire time. Aka, the students will each be singularly taught by a singular instructor at their own pace best suiting their own styles of learning. Any educator knows that such one on one learning does no and most likely will not ever happen in the high school setting - but we can try our best to mimic it.  

When a teacher thinks about teaching students these are some things teachers need to think about: 

• Learning Styles
• Level of Aptitude
• Interest
• Energy
• Previous Experience / Knowledge 
• Opportunity to use Given Information
• Long-Term Goals
• Reading Level
• General Intelligence 
• Verbal Activity 
• Qualitative Ability
• Personal Disabilities (IEPs)

The most important point here is that students' personal goals differ. Some students will want to know the minimal amount of a unit. Some will want to dive in a bit. Others will want to know even more than you could possibly teach. Individualized Learning needs to satisfy as many of these differences in learning as possible. 

Help Students Learn to Inquire into Subject Matter

"Another goal of individualized teaching technique is that they help students learn to inquire into subject matter." Think about it this way: it's not you telling the students what to learn, students control their own learning. Students are involved and invested in the subject matter. As a teacher I may be trying to reach a certain level of learning in a topic but am I going to complain if my students reach a higher level of understanding themselves? Goodness no! This is the best part about such inquiry based learning it's on them to learn. The best part it's not lazy teaching it's each kid learning their own way. 

Promote Independence

"A primary aim of all teachers should be to help students become increasingly independent of the teacher." The main goal of individual learning is not make students think that the teacher is the sole source of knowledge, solves all problems, and makes all the decisions. The best way to prevent this from happening is to slowly introduce the idea to students that learning occurs in more ways than just the teacher spoon feeding information. Once students get use to the idea of independent learning then the magic can begin. 

Learn to Make Use of More than One Opinion 

This idea is easy to understand, each student has their own opinion, some similar, some different. So they will learn through this lesson style that each one will have different explanations or differing opinions. Therefore it is important for students to learn this valuable lesson that there are many different ways to get to the right or a right answer. "Thus, instead of functioning with one opinion or source of knowledge, students will learn to consult a variety of sources of information in arriving at important decisions and in solving the problems they encounter in life."

Learn How to Evaluate and Apply Information

"No teacher wants students to leave a program routinely accepting whatever information is presented." We want students to understand the difference between objective and subjective information. Objective information is information based on objective data and analyses. Subjective Information is information which is based upon opinion and not based fully upon fact. With individualized learning it is also important to teach students important lessons in identifying factual sources against opinion based sources. 

Teach Students How to Learn 

Students learn independently. Remember you are one person in your classroom, not a superhero/heroine that can be at twenty different sides at once. It is important that as you are individually working with a single student or a small group of students that you can feel confident that the rest of the turners are working while your head is turned. Remember you will not always be there so students need to understand that with you not always being there that they can still learn. "Otherwise, the class would always be in chaos because while the teachers help one student the remainder of the students ceases to learn until the teacher can attend to them." 

There are also seven really cool ways to use individualized learning in the classroom but I'll add those in a second blog post for later in the weekend. 

To Be Continued . . .