"Personalized" Learning - Article Reflection

Greetings, everyone... and Happy Valentine's Day!

One of the interesting things that has happened for me in this course is that I have developed a new appreciation for Twitter.  I find that the brief, to-the-point posts created by the character limit allow me to streamline communication in both what I put out there and what I take in.  Additionally, I had no idea what Tweetdeck was about and that has been a most welcome addition to my technology repertoire!

As I began to get more involved with Twitter, I followed a number of groups/organization, and have received numerous posts with some interesting information.  One article, in particular, really struck me - "Do Personalized Learning Programs Offer Authentic Choices?" from MindShift.  While the author presented a number of criticisms regarding the technology that is being touted as "personalized", he raised two points which I found worthy of discussion:

• Examine choice.  Lehmann's position that if students are choosing one set of preplanned computerized choices or even from a list of teacher-presented choices, then that's not "real choice" has some merit.  He states, "Build assignments for students that take learning as their goal, and provide students with the room to design and advocate for the choice of how that learning will be made manifest". While that may not always be practical, I thought it was something to keep in mind.  If a student is working on an area of learning that is not a strength or interest, engaging them in how they will present their learning might provide some motivation.  If we have students in a BYOD setting, might they have technology strengths that would allow them to personalize their learning?
• Open the calendar. Lehmann's reasoning is that "if students are choosing how they show their learning, it stands to reason that showcasing will happen on various timelines". He advocates for setting a deadline for submission of all materials, and working individually with students to establish timelines.  While, again, I question the practicality of that approach (especially with large class size), there may be some room to take that approach with a group project. Wouldn't students benefit from develop real-life skills of project planning and self-pacing?  Would they take more ownership of the learning process if they felt they had input in the planning phase?

While this project-based learning model may not be consistent with the approach most of us are working under, nonetheless, I found two of his points as potentially relevant as I look towards using technology to increase the level of individualized and personalized learning experiences I provide for students.

Thoughts?

References
Lehmann, C. "Do Personalized Learning Programs Offer Authentic Choices?". Retrieved from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/04/do-personalized-learning-programs-offer-authentic-choices/