Personalized Learning Is Bad For Students

With the added pressure to do well in school, standardized testing becomes a means to added stress, anxiety and further complicates the pressure to succeed in a student’s life. Rather than a focus on learning and understanding, school has become a massive rope skill memorization test designed to have students memorize subjects to pass the test, and forget the material the next minute for the next test. When asked to speak about standardized testing, education chairman, Larry Taylor, said “It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s also insanity when you see the level of achievement these kids are already doing and yet they can’t even pass this test.” (Smith). The utilization of standardized testing further exemplifies and validates the idea that no matter how hard or long you work in school, your work will never be worth the few answers you write for the

Zan Crowder and Stephanie Konle claim that programs like Common Core and the No Child Left Behind Act have been instilled throughout 95% of schools in America (286). This allows students in the United States to learn and understand basic academic concepts the same way. However, this leaves little to no room for teachers to instruct students in public schools their own unique way. Instead, they are given set criteria and material that the students have to meet and understand. Crowder and Konle also agree that one of the many downsides to Common Core is that it influences students to memorize answers for tests instead of actually learn academic material (285). Common Core and the No Child Left Behind Act paves the way for students to achieve higher scores on standardized tests because students, for the most part, are taught the exact same things in schools across

In educational and school settings the curriculum is constantly changing, as well as the different styles of teaching pedagogies that educators use on a daily basis to match the types of learning of each child within their classroom. Educators strive to bring out the best within their pupils and through using personalised learning this can be done efficiently supplying the child with the correct type

Tests implemented by Common Core have become an end in themselves as they have only increased-higher hurdles, being unreasonably difficult, creating a hostile learning environment and higher-stake and stress levels for children and teachers throughout the year. Proficiency from the percentage of students in both public and private schools dramatically dropped to the low 30s in 2015, with minimal improvement the next year (Singer, Results Are In: Common Core Fails Tests and Kids). The Common Core’s massive increases in standardized testing has not only seen a rise of resentment towards school, but a plunge in support among the general public.

In today’s classroom, it is common to see a teacher monotonously lecturing for the entirety of the class—only stopping to mention when something will be on a test and to list the long homework assignments due at the beginning of class the next day. With so much pressure placed upon teacher’s shoulders to teach the material on the test, very few interactive projects take place—making it easier for students to forget what they have learned. “As students put projects together, create crafts, or use familiar materials in new ways, they 're constructing meaning” (Cleaver). If the Common Core program were to revise its standards and create a more interactive classroom, students would benefit immensely and learn more than the provided test material. It is pointless for a student to go to school to learn, if they will eventually forget everything they were taught after completing the test.

Both opinionated articles, “The Goal of Education is Becoming” by Marc Prensky and “The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students” by Diane Ravitch, take the readers into a whole new perspective on this generation’s education system. Marc Prensky believes that the new system of education should focus on developing character traits in order to succeed, instead of becoming a good test taker and ending your education after college. In paragraph 14 he states that, “We spend so much time and effort looking at test scores, averages, and other petty measurements of "learning" that we have little time or energy left to focus on who our students are (or are not) as individuals, what they love or hate, or what drives them.” In other words, he believes that taking tests will not benefit

Launched in 2009, the Common Core state standards have done nothing to help students progress their learning abilities, and have even harmed their ability to be educated. With Common Core, teachers must follow strict guidelines on what to teach and how to teach it, but this one-size-fits-all ideal does not apply to the real world. Former teacher, Susan Rakow,

Ultimately, Common Core is not the education our children need. Students need a mixed curriculum of learning, with the intention that they will recognize what their passions are, and not just how well educated they are in general subjects. Having knowledge in these subjects are extremely important, however only emphasizing on certain subjects narrows the child’s ability to learn more. The Common Core standards prevent students from that excessive knowledge they would have, and only focuses on how well they can think on a test. Despite the elaborate plan Common Core presents to raise the educational standards in our nation, these same standards will diminish the student’s individualism, as well as inflict stress and anxiety on the child’s

Many educators operate their classrooms using a “learning theory” that they feel optimizes the best learning environment for their students. As an educator it is very important to create your own customized learning theory to use in your classroom. A customized learning theory is developed to create an optimum learning environment for students. Educators have to research and put into practice the ideas that they feel may work best in their classroom. In this paper, I will be discussing my own customized learning theory incorporating theoretical perspectives that I believe make an ideal learning environment.

You would need to hire a specialist to go over the tests results. Those specialists would then need to analyze what would best be suited for each type of kid. To determine what method would be best, you would need to put each student in a certain type or classification. These types could never encompass every child so it would defeat the purpose of a personalized education because they would once again be put in a box and expected to learn that way. Not to mention hiring these specialists would be very expensive because schools could not hire just anyone to go over the data, they would need to have someone who knew what they were looking for. The schools would also be unable to hire just one person and expect them to do all of the work, so you would need to employ several of these people (“Information, not

The practice of caring for the individual needs of each student should transform schools and society. The transformation is dependent on the market reaction to the personalized learning and care shown to students. As schools moved to an industrial model where bigger, impersonal, standardized learning became the norm, student’s needs became secondary. Kittay (2011) argues that all people have a need for dependency for care from others. Schools are built to provide care, but often fall under the category of being an institution. The impersonal nature of institutional schools has led to larger buildings, higher classes sizes, and curriculum geared for testing. This is not just a phenomenon in public schools where No Child Left Behind has left schools adjusting the curriculum to meet standards for continued funding. Standardization has also become wide spread within the independent school communities.

Introduction: Another important bill proposal is to get rid of Common Core, and instead replace it with a different system that will enforce individual growth and learning . In many schools across the nation, common core is damaging the student’s learning by stopping kids from getting a choice of what they want to learn. Common core also slows student’s learning by not focusing the child’s requirements and needs for education. In addition, parents no longer have much of a voice in speaking for their child’s education. This causes many parents to dislike schools, as it prevents their child from achieving what either the adult or child wants to achieve. In addition, Common Core forces a large group of kids to learn the same thing, the exact same

Addison recently co-presented at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) conference in New Orleans, LA with Allison Zmuda, author of Learning Personalized: The Evolution of the Contemporary Classroom. She has also presented at various schools and to the many visitors who come to Aveson each year to witness Personalized Mastery

Currently, instructors are pressured by state education department to adjust school curricula to meet the expectations of the standardized test. Educators alter the curriculum to “match the [standardized] test” (“How Standardized”). Therefore, instructors are limited and classroom instruction is focused around test preparation for the annual standardized test. Teachers are forced to abandon their creative lessons and “teach the test,” or concentrating only on the material that will be evaluated (“How Standardized”). This frequently involves taking multiple choice tests that are formatted identically to the standardized test and only memorizing facts, formulas, and items included only on the standardized tests (“How Standardized”). Even though test scores may improve, students are not learning how to think critically and perform better in other subjects that are not on the test (“How Standardized”). Instructional time is limited in the other subject areas such as science, social studies, music, and art. Instructors feel “handicapped” and plead to state officials abandon these standardized tests for the sake of the “quality of the instruction in American schools” (Zimmerman 206). School curricula are being modified only to prepare students for a single test, not for education the students need in the future.

With the realization that not every child is the same, or learns the same as another, teachers need to take the steps necessary to ensure that their students are all getting educational opportunities that work the best for them. The idea of personalized learning has been around for quite some time, yet not all teachers seem to have the same understanding of what it is and how it works. The article “What is ‘Personalized Learning’? Educators Seek Clarity”, mentions three important aspects of the problem; an outline of the general solution, emphasizes “essential elements”, and brings the problem into the hands of students. Teachers need to have a basic understanding on how to personalize their students learning because every child learns differently from the next.