Brief finds Personalized Instruction is vaguely defined, isn't always boosting academic outcomes
11/25/2014
Schools are not immune to the pressures to innovate, change, and adapt to new technologies. The drive to increase technology use in classrooms has become more prevalent in recent years. Increasingly, practitioners and policymakers are investigating new ways to integrate learning with technology, from 1:1 iPads to Chromebooks and beyond.
Local school districts are asking voters for technology bonds that often result in the installation and implementation of new technologies in classrooms. Some schools are recipients of grants, such as President Obama’s ConnectEd initiative, which provides $750 million for schools to close the technology gap.
As we bring technology into our children’s classrooms for what many are calling Personalized Instruction with the goal of tailoring learning for each student, policymakers and educators should have a vigorous debate about this issue. And despite the rash of assumptions about the desirability of tech-assisted Personalized Instruction, we should pause and ask some questions, such as whether it is really helping our kids learn and whether it actually saves money.
A new policy brief finds that in many instances, Personalized Instruction through technology may not be the ‘magic bullet’ that its supporters say it is: Academic outcomes remain largely unchanged, and cost savings aren’t always materializing.
According to the brief’s author, Noel Enyedy, associate professor of education and information studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, Personalized Instruction as an educational method is too broad of an umbrella term and lacks clear definition that is critical to meaningful discussion, reliable evaluation and good policymaking.
While Personalized Instruction may sound like a wholly positive method for use in our classrooms, Enyedy cautions educators to be aware of the fact that it can cover different programs, each of them implemented in varied ways, that don’t always translate to improved academic outcomes.
Enyedy further cautions that tech-assisted Personalized Instruction also doesn’t lead to the type of conceptual understanding, problem solving skills and complex thinking that students need to learn and compete in a 21st century economy.
Without a clear definition of what Personalized Instruction is, policymakers and educators should be wary of rushing too quickly to embrace it.
Instead of rushing to adopt Personalized Instruction wholesale, Enyedy’s brief asks educators and decision makers to pause and weigh whether the academic outcomes justify the costs – especially in light of his findings that Personalized Instruction does not decrease costs.
The real measure of a program’s effectiveness is its impact on students’ academic outcomes. Here’s where Enyedy’s brief forces a double take: Students undergoing full-time online instruction saw very little improvement in outcomes even as this method resulted in very little cost savings.
And students in blended learning classes – a mix of online and teacher-led courses – showed some improvements, although this raised the question whether the improvement was the result of technology or face-to-face teacher-student instruction. Furthermore, blended models increased costs because traditional education costs, while reduced, are added to new costs such as licenses, technology infrastructure, maintenance and others, Enyedy’s brief found.
For Personalized Instruction to play a more fruitful and productive role in the classroom, Enyedy recommends researchers develop a better vocabulary for technology in education and a better definition of Personalized Instruction. In his brief, he suggests research on tech-based Personalized Instruction that focuses more on K-12 learning, an area that has been largely overlooked. In an era of national standardized testing, Enyedy also recommends that educators demand technology and software align with these tests.
While Personalized Education may be the trend in classrooms today, the facts show that educators and policymakers still need more information to ensure that it can improve students’ academic outcomes and yield meaningful savings at the same time. Only with more information can educators and students achieve the fullest potential of tech-assisted instruction that is truly personalized, customized and cost-effective.
This is a guest blog from the Great Lakes Center