What is the future of education? I am convinced that the future might best be described as individualization. Individualization is a way to understand other recent popular tactics. For example, interest in ‘genius hour”, “20% projects”, or some other way of carving out some school time for learner selected passion projects is a form of individualization. This tactic has generated a lot of recent interest in the K-12 community, but I would suggest has long been a staple in higher education – senior projects, honors programs, special topics and readings courses. I took advantage of all of these opportunities in my own undergraduate training and I have engaged with some students facilitating such projects as a faculty member. Frankly, I have been mystified by the general lack of interest among most college students in taking advantage of these opportunities. It is evidently just easier to follow the standard curriculum and meet graduation requirements by taking elective courses than exercising the flexibility students are allowed. I think students are missing out.
What other forms of individualization are being promoted? Differentiation is a popular concept. Like individualization I think differentiation could imply multiple ways of meeting several types of student needs. I prefer the term individualization because I have a longer history using this term and I often become annoyed when it seems a discovery pretty much amounts to using a new term for an older idea that has faded from familiarity. I mention “differentiation” to support my argument that meeting individual needs is a sensed need in education.
There is a long standing interest in learning styles or the notion that learners learn in different ways. This is a messy idea that is for the most part been rejected by researchers. However, it is an idea that is hard to operationalize and difficult to kill. I accept that each of us may prefer different learning experiences, but this is not the same as a position that different learning experiences are really best for categories of learners identified by some common attribute. If we could, would we allow different groups of learners to meet similar goals in different ways? In the grand scheme of things, I do not see this as a high priority or cost-effective, but I try to remain open to counter-arguments.
I have yet to identify the form of individualization I think should be more seriously considered in K-12. It is the change I think could make the biggest difference and yet is ignored because educators and/or educational institutions are reluctant to make basic changes that would be required. I think the most important type of individualization we could address is learning speed which also might be thought of as the pace of instruction. A common pace of instruction for all guarantees that some learners will be bored by a lack of challenge and others hopelessly lost because new content is presented before they are prepared. Personal tutors and technology allow approaches for providing this form of individualization. Only the wealthy can afford the tutors.
I have come to the conclusion that most see technology in ways that amount to nibbling around the edges. The ideas are interesting and worthy of implementation, but ignore the most important need. Allow some time to pursue personal interests. Encourage those so inclined to code or build robots. Engage students in some collaborative problem-solving tasks that involve critical thinking and are set within an authentic context encouraging a sense of meaningful contribution. Do these things. However, also recognize that we expect schools to develop in as many learners as possible certain core skills and core knowledge and that these expectations are to be accomplished with limited resources. Technology offers ways to allow students to take on these challenges as individuals by differentiating pacing and by identifying the specific difficulties each learner is facing. Technology-based systems that do these things are not replacements for teachers, they are ways to apply teacher time and talents to the specific needs of individual learners.
