Lessons from Fifth Grade: The Importance of Personalized Learning

My fifth grade teacher owned a farm, but that is not why I remember the year so vividly. The fifth grade was a pivotal moment in my educational journey because it was the first year my education was my own. In previous grades I had some agency, such as selecting a book for a book report or choosing inspiration for an art project. However, by the end of fifth grade, I was not merely selecting the topic of a project, I was setting my weekly assignments. Fifth grade was the year I worked on pattern recognition by selecting function bot worksheets. Fifth grade was the year I honed my art skills by practicing observational sketching (images included below). Fifth grade was the year I got a better understanding of hunger in America by living on food stamps for a month. Fifth grade was also the year my appreciation for nature developed through visits to my teacher’s farm, but the field trips were really just the icing on the cake. The cake was personalized learning.

Personalized Learning Improves Student Achievement. RAND, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing solutions to strengthen public policy, researched the effects of personalized learning. According to their findings, students performing below national norms were approaching average after one year of personalized learning and surpassing average after two years. Their analysis also suggests personalized learning has improved achievement regardless of the students starting achievement levels. Since personalized learning considers the student’s pace, strengths, weaknesses, and learning style, the assignments are more appropriate for the student. For instance, I prefer visual learning, so in fifth grade the image of the function bot helped me understand patterns better than a formula sheet would have. My experiences with the function bot exemplifies how customization enhances comprehension which, in turn, improves results. However, personalized learning not only improves scores, it also improves the student.

Personalized learning helps students further develop intrapersonal skills such as goal setting and reflecting. Education Elements is an organization that strives to make school districts better. One of their services is implementing personalized learning. Education Elements has also published a report on the necessary elements to make personalized learning succeed. One of their key elements was student reflection and ownership. In my fifth grade class, we were constantly filling out self assessments in order to start developing our curricula. At first, there were minimum requirements, then as we considered our skills and areas of improvement we gained more control over our assignments. By rotating between working, reflecting, and goal setting, I gained more and more ownership of my education and gained crucial self development skills. I also gained a greater appreciation for education.

Personalized learning gets students more excited about learning. The 74 is a non-profit news site that covers education in America. They wrote about the enthusiasm around personalized learning. Specifically, they mentioned students eagerness for personalized learning and students preference towards not being told exactly what to do. Part of the fun of my food stamps project was that I chose to study poverty and hunger rather than being given a topic for my project based learning assignment. Similarly, when I was practicing observational drawing, I got to select the reference image. By learning and drawing about topics of interest to me, I realized that learning can be fun.

Personalized learning improves student achievement, further develops skills such as goal setting and reflecting, and gets students more enthusiastic about learning. In 5th grade, personalized learning changed my life by shifting my perspective on education. Now, as a tutor, personalized learning influences my teaching philosophies, and it is why my company’s slogan is committed to custom education.