Preparing teachers to implement personalized learning ¹

At-A-Glance

Current behavior:

Teachers use traditional frontal teaching methods, with limited technology.

Desired behavior:

Teachers use personalized learning supported by a laptop for each student.

Change approach:

A yearlong professional development program focused on the new pedagogical approach, asked teachers to test out the new approach, and provided embedded full-time coaches in each school.

Impact:

Teachers came to support and embrace the new approach and technology in their classrooms.

Implications for implementing partners:

When implementing technology that changes pedagogy, invest significantly in training teachers on the pedagogical shifts involved to build skills and gain their ideological buy-in; when rolling out multiple reforms, roll them out slowly to allow time for adjustment.

Implications for supporting partners:

Consider what other reforms a district has undergone when figuring out what additional changes are realistic to expect, and on what timeframe.

When the Iredell-Statesville district in North Carolina won a $20 million federal grant to support personalized learning, its leadership made clear that this was not going to be handled as a technology project.

Teachers were initially hesitant, worried both about their ability to successfully use the new technology and whether this changed the purpose of their job and outsourced teaching to automated technology. The district spent the better part of a year educating and training teachers on the philosophy and pedagogy of personalized learning – and not the technology. This helped motivate teachers around the pedagogical goals, and assuaged concerns that this would just throw expensive technology at an educational problem. “It’s understanding that this is personalized learning. It’s not just putting a student in front of a computer. I think that was the fear,” said one school’s coordinator, who used to be a teacher. The district helped teachers develop lesson plans around blended learning and trained them on better incorporating small-group activities in the class. Many teachers even started testing out these approaches before receiving the new laptops.

“It’s understanding that this is personalized learning. It’s not just putting a student in front of a computer. I think that was the fear.”

Then, right before students were to receive laptops, teachers were given their devices and the technology training they required. “We didn’t jump the gun and make this about devices,” the superintendent said. “We made it about blended learning, and then purposefully tailoring professional development to get our teachers ready for that. That’s turned out to be a very, very wise decision.”

The district invested heavily in ongoing, full-time staff to support this effort. It hired a full-time director to oversee the personalized learning effort and a full-time coordinator for each school. The school-based coordinator provided extensive technical assistance, observed classes, and provided personalized feedback on areas for improvement.

Finally, district leaders were mindful of the many recent reforms teachers were dealing with and deliberately rolled out the personalized learning changes slowly to give teachers ample time to acclimate.

These approaches may have helped the district avoid some of the major issues that larger, better-funded districts encountered when adopting personalized learning. Many teachers became strong supporters and urged the school to continue the program even after its grant funding expired.