Differentiation, Personalization, and Individualization

There are clear distinctions between personalization, differentiation and individualization when thinking about instruction. Understanding the differences is essential to developing positive educational experiences for students, as not all of them are truly learner centered.

When it comes to personalized instruction, it is often assumed that someone is personalizing a learning experience for the learner. Yet, the contrary is true. Personalization requires that the learner is the one who drives their own learning. The connections to the learning are derived from interests or aspirations originating in the learner. Therefore, the learner is an active participant in the design of the learning. There is choice of how and what is learned, including identifying goals and benchmarking progress towards those goals. Likewise, the learner has a voice in the technology and resources used to support the learning. With personalization, the learner is ultimately self-directed, continuously monitoring and reflecting on progress towards mastery of the learning. To that end, there is also active engagement in the assessment process. The student uses assessments to reflect on progress towards the learning goal while providing the teacher with data to inform their teaching. Simply put, there is more emphasis placed on having plentiful formative assessments rather than a single summative assessment at the end. Ultimately, it is much more powerful for the students to adjust their own learning throughout the learning process, than simply identifying areas of proficiency at the very end.

As empowering as personalization can be for learners, it can often be challenging to implement for every learning objective. This is where differentiation comes into play. Despite the student-centered intentions, this approach is more teacher-centered. The instruction is provided to groups of learners, so the learning is adjusted to group needs instead of specific individual needs. Unlike with personalized learning, the teacher is the one who designs the instruction for each group and identifies the objectives. However, the teacher selects the technology and resources to support the various needs of the group. Using a wide range of tools to maximize engagement is essential, yet the reliance of the teacher on the learning process ought to be minimized. With standard differentiation, both formative and summative assessments are used but the data from assessments is used mainly by the teacher to provide the feedback to students. Ideally, through engaging and student-friendly technology, students can be the ones to use real-time feedback to guide their own learning.

At the individualization level, learning is more passive and teacher-centered. All accommodations are done at the individual level and instruction is customized to the particular student. The objectives are the same for everyone, but the one-on-one support sets it apart from other instructional approaches. The learner is almost entirely dependent on the teacher to support the learning and the data collected on assessments helps to decide how to proceed. Yet, despite the heavy reliance on teacher input, there is merit to the impact such an approach can have on student performance. As unrealistic as implementing individualization in the classroom may sound, it is not entirely implausible thanks to technology.

Online videos, math sites with diagnostic capabilities, virtual manipulatives, and various other tools can allow for individualization, while still allowing room for other instructional approaches. I use such tools, in a flipped classroom model, to target some individual learning needs prior to class time or in conjunction with other class activities. I also use the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, to improve the quality of materials I create and use in the classroom. As Koehler explains, “At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content, Pedagogy, and Technology.” The interplay of what I teach, how I teach it, and what tool is used to interact with the content, is important to keep in mind. Evaluating the purpose for any technology use in the classroom is essential. It’s not good enough to simply use technology for the sake of using it. It needs to be meaningful. Accomplishing something that would otherwise not be possible without it or, at the very least, optimizing the instruction. Ultimately, technology should be used to empower and enhance learning, not just replace tasks.