https://www.coolcatteacher.com/quotes/education-cartoon-everyone-read/

Personalised learning is sometimes alternatively used as a term for differentiated learning yet is more of an externsion of it - whereas differentiated learning could be  seen to be achieved by designing learning activivites across difffernt streams or 'types' of learner, personalised learning takes this one step further and aims to achieve individual learning paths which are adapted and designed with an individual learner in mind. It is heavily influenced by the humanist school which focuses on individual needs and development, such as that of Maria Montessori. You can find a biography and explanation of her work here.

As mentioned by Cope and Kalentzis (2017) 'real' personalised learning was incredibly hard to achieve in a traditional classroom setting, especially with older children and adults (Montessori methods have traditonally only been used in primary education). Technologies now allow for students to follow personalised learning plans either through activity design or by allowing students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning through a wide range of resources and affordances. Data allows teachers to track students activities to indicate thier work and achievements. There has been some debate that personalised learning lead to individualised learning and therefore can be isolating - however this does not have to be the case and does not explicitly exclude collaborative learning (Campbell et al, 2007)

However, how achievabe is personalised learning without a major over haul of our assessment criteria and methods at school, national and international level? When 'success' continues to be norm or criterion based there will still be a necessity for students to 'achieve' a level, whatever their starting point is, and personalised learning design can be difficult in trying to achieve a balance between ipsitive assessment (which assesses from a starting point and a level of progress) and these more traditional assessment methods which still perpetuate.

References

Campbell, R.J., Robinson, W., Neelands, J., Hewston, R and Mazzoli, L.(2007) Personalised learning: Ambiguities in theory and practice, British Journal of Educational Studies, 55(2), 135-154

Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2017). Conceptualizing e-learning, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (Eds), e-Learning ecologies, New York, Routledge.