As Dr Linda Darling-Hammond suggested in her talk at the 2016 Stanford symposium about learning, schools in modern days have to face a big challenge: to prepare individuals for the future workforce for jobs that don't yet exist, and who will have to use technologies that have not yet been invented in order to solve crucial complex problems, like climate change and many more. In this frame of new educational demands, the change regarding the learning experiences, the instructional approaches, and the academic-support techniques, is mandatory. As opposed to the one-size-fits-all approaches to schooling, the new approaches are characterized as personalized learning models or student-centered learning.

As personalized learning we define the learning designed and structured by teachers aspiring to meet each student's needs, interests and aspirations, and to facilitate the acaddemic success of all students via customized learning experiences.In other words all students work for the achievement of the same standards in their own pace, getting involved in various learning experiences that mostly fit in their interests and needs. There are many approaches to personalized learning and each school district adopts various strategies: (a) "Smaller learing communities" or "themed-based academies" [1] when distric academic programs around distinct disciplines,or career paths, are housed within the school. (b) "Differantiation" namely strategies to support the students of heterogeneous groups. (c) Alternative leaning pathways like interships, dual-enrollment experiences and independent-study projects. (d) Project-based learning. (e) Community-based learning. (f) Blended - learning. (g) Authentic learning "focused on connecting what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications" [2]. (h) Permormance-based model where learners follow their pace in the aquisiiton process of the skills and they progress only when they have demostrated mastery. [3]

But what does the implementation of a personalized learning model mean in practice? The Advanced Authentic Research Program stands as a paradigm of a program that enables students of the Palo Alto school district to participate in projects according to their interests and needs, and apply their knowledge in order to solve real life problems, and be engaged in real life experiences. The opportunities for the students to learn are not limited to the curriculum. Instead, the learning experience goes beyond the curriculum and the content covered in the class. The underlying effects of this personalized learning are many: ubiquitous learning, active learning (the design principle), collaborative intelligence (the collaboration principle), metacognition and student-centerd learning (the differantiantion principle) [4]

A next question is how technology could enable personalization of education in the school environment or in e-learning from distance? The following video shows Penn Hish School that implemented a platform called Edmentum to student-centered learning experience. 

As the students advocated in the video, this student-centered learning model used by their instructor offered them student-driven learning paths. Students can cover the same content and master the same skills but in their own pace, with "a wide array of modalities and instructional formats that correspond to their unique learning preferences", and with a  mix of activities that give students a richer and more meaningful educational experience [5]. Regarding the instructor's engagement and role in the personalized learning model, technology and the saying platform may provide the istructor with usefull data regarding each of the students  strengths, challenges, interests, and aptitudes. These data are vital for the instructors in order to hear their learners' individual interests, identify the appropriate instruction, and track their learners' progress. They may also reflect back on their teaching methods more effectively. Image # 1 visualizes how teachers using edmentum platform may have access to data regarding their learners' progress .

Despite all these good effects of personalized learning and the implementation of technology to faciliate that model, school leaders dont hesitate to raise the challenges. How may teachers collect and use students' data to personalize the instruction but at the same time safeguard these data? Are technology-based approaches to personalized learning always effective or are they nothing more than personalizing the reading of texts to students of different abilities? [6]

Regadless of the challenges and the broader aspects of the notion described above the personalized learning model seems to be an effective way to meet the 21st century demands and to prepare lifelong learners and capable individuales to enter the future workforce.

References 

[1] Edglossary: personalized learning

[2] Edglossary: authentic learning

[3] iNACOL: What's possible with personalized learning

[4] B. Cope and M. Kalantzis. Conceptualizing e-Learning 

[5] EdTech Update: How technology unlocks personalized learning

[6] Education Week: Personalized learning overview