PERSONALIZED LEARNING: Why my mother would have been overjoyed by today’s ed tech capabilities
Advances in educational technologies have driven amazing opportunities for educators and students. While there are still issues that we need to face and solve, the landscape of today’s education-focused solutions would have pleased my late mother. She earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Michigan in the 1970s, and fought her entire career to make education focused on the needs of the student.
As a market researcher, I have taken up her cause in my work, seeking to identify and then partner with those companies whose solutions will bring the greatest benefit to students and educators alike. I think she would be very proud of my work.
I am fortunate that through my line of work, I am constantly in dialogues with U.S. educators and leaders, as well as the bright, motivated individuals within technology companies that are working hard to develop new tools and capabilities to serve them.
I often hear about the achievements, trials, and tribulations experienced by our nation’s education system. While I am sometimes stressed by this, I am mostly hopeful for the future of our nation’s youth. That is because each time I come into contact with a new technology solution developed with the mission of improving teaching and learning, I find myself genuinely excited and impressed. I believe we have the perseverance and ability to succeed, with amazing educational technology helping to lead the way.
I can envision my mother up in heaven, pumping her fists with joy and cheering us on.
One area where ed tech has the opportunity to make dramatic and positive change is in differentiated learning. I hear frequently that the need for improvements in the personalization of learning is becoming increasingly important as classrooms grow more and more diverse. Educators indicate that they are seeing more English Language Learners (ELL) and a greater percentage of those living in poverty in the classrooms. Add into this the long-standing bifurcations related to disabilities and Gifted and Talented, and you easily see the complexity facing educators in the 21st century. In fact, it is well documented that the population of America’s students has changed dramatically within the past 50 years, with greater diversity in culture, linguistics, geography and socioeconomics.i
This increase in diversity will, in my opinion, eventually lead to a stronger America. Currently, however, it poses a serious challenge when it comes to teaching. Reading and math levels vary considerably within a single classroom, and teachers cannot always provide each student with the support needed for their level. According to a recent survey conducted by Freckle Education, 2018 Education Leaders’ Differentiation Survey, roughly three-quarters of administrators surveyed indicated that they have students in their classrooms with reading and math skills that are either 2+ levels above or below grade level.ii
As a gifted child myself – the third daughter of three gifted children, in fact – and the daughter of a mother fighting a crusade for Gifted & Talented education, I was keenly aware of the inequities in each of my classrooms. And not just for me, but also for the teachers. Sometimes I was forced to stay at the same pace as kids who were struggling mightily to read, which inevitably led to bad behavior (shocker!). Other times, I’d be given an opportunity to go read by myself at my own pace and level.
This disparity was not just in reading. There were usually at least two different math workbooks – and everyone knew who was in the “dumb” math group vs the “smart” math group. But sometimes, there needed to be an in-between, as I found myself drifting back and forth between these groups, depending on the year, my motivation level, and the teacher.
My mother was perennially vexed by our public education system’s insistence of grouping students together by age. Both of my sisters skipped a grade before exiting high school to start college early; with me, my mother planned ahead and arranged for me to start Kindergarten early at a private school. She was a constant voice speaking out for creating personalized learning, tailored to both achievers and strugglers. But, creating differentiated instruction that is tailored in this way tends to correlate to more hours spent by teachers per weekii – and this means the degree to which this is achieved will vary greatly, depending on the child’s individual teacher and that teacher’s own time constraints, ability, and motivation.
The development of software programs and applications makes the prospect of bringing well differentiated, personalized instruction into today’s classrooms much more realistic. It will only get better and better — as we become more effective at linking assessment results to the identification of needed skill sets, and therefore can more effectively supply resources designed to fill those gaps.
Jealous of today’s kids and the world of opportunity ahead of them? I am! I’m also happy and excited for them. And I hope to the bottom of my heart that somewhere, somehow, my mother knows and approves of my role in helping these companies bring this vision to life.
–Meredith Hall, MBA, Managing Partner and Co-Owner of rsEdge, Inc., a market research company
Meredith’s mother is the late Dr. Eleanor Grace Perry Hall, Ph.D., University of Michigan. Dr. Hall was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Auburn University, where she taught courses on Educational Psychology. She published numerous articles on the topics of women’s achievement and gifted & talented education, and created an IQ test dubbed the “Hall Screening Scale.”
i https://digitalpromise.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lps-growing_diversity_FINAL-1.pdf
ii https://s3.amazonaws.com/classroom-assets/marketing-assets/Freckle/2018+Differentiation+Survey+Results.pdf