What does personalized learning in action look like in the classroom? Sometimes it helps to see how others are successfully achieving changes in their schools.
As noted in this video of an AASA collaborative site visit to Fremont School District 79, the goal isn’t simply one big open space or a small space. It’s the idea that form follows function, and form leads function.
Space
Architects are responding to teacher requests — for flowing spaces, meeting places, alcoves, smaller space or elevated space — and educators are finding ways to repurpose existing spaces, incorporating furniture that is conducive to helping students focus on their work.
Collaboration
At the lower grades, you are able to see students in rocking in their chairs and working together, buddy-reading and group reading.
Choice
Students are given options for how they’d like to receive information, internalize it, and show mastery in a safe space. Teachers also have options: traditional classrooms, looping and multi-age classrooms. Some teachers are motivated to try certain elements within the traditional setting and traditional schedule.
Bena Kallick then poses the question:
In any classroom we walk in we would want to see purposeful learning. So then the challenge I think is, what would distinguish one classroom from another as they interpret what it means to have purposeful learning?