Personalized Learning: How to tailor your approach to each student’s unique need

As an educator, you’re no stranger to each student’s unique learning style, interests, strengths, and pace. Consequently, adapting your teaching technique is critical in helping students reach their maximum potential. Personalized learning plays a significant role in this regard, as it has been proven to address the needs of each learner effectively.

A study by the RAND Corporation indicated that students who received personalized learning outperformed their peers who did not. Additionally, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation survey revealed that many educators believed personalized learning positively impacted student outcomes.

We conducted an expert interview with Sarah Davies, founder of successful direction tutoring, who shared valuable insights on developing a personalized approach for each student. Sarah is an experienced English teacher with over nine years of experience. She is committed to assisting young individuals in achieving their goals and realizing their full potential, particularly in obtaining excellent grades. Personalized learning is one of Sarah’s most effective teaching methods, and she works closely with her students to customize each lesson according to their specific requirements.

1. Know your students

To kick off personalized learning, you have to know your students. Identifying how each student processes information and their preferred learning style is essential. Some students may be visual learners, while others prefer auditory or kinesthetic learning.

Visual learners learn best through pictures, diagrams, and videos. Auditory learners learn best through hearing and listening. Kinesthetic learners absorb information best through hands-on experiences.

• For your visual learners, you can whip out pictures, diagrams, and videos to explain concepts. Encourage them to create visual aids like mind maps or charts to help them retain information.
• For those who like to listen (auditory learners), get your storytelling hat on and encourage discussions. Point them toward podcasts or audio recordings about the topic at hand.
• Kinesthetic learners love activities, so incorporate hands-on activities and movement into your lessons. Encourage them to create physical models or perform experiments to reinforce concepts.

If you need clarification on what style fits best, you can survey or have one-on-one conversations with your students to understand their learning styles, interests, and strengths. This will help you design the curriculum and lessons accordingly.

2. Flexible teaching and pacing are key

One way to make personalized learning work is to be flexible. Blending your teaching style to suit each student’s learning style is always great, especially if you’re holding group sessions. With this approach, you can cater to visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners all in the same class.

Let’s say you’re teaching a history class; try starting with a video, followed by a lively group discussion or debate. Then, take things up a notch with a hands-on activity like making a timeline or crafting a historical artifact. This kind of flexibility ensures everyone is learning in their style!

And don’t forget the importance of flexible pacing. Allowing students to learn at their own speed helps them understand difficult concepts better and breeze through topics they already understand.

3. Recognize and build on strengths and weaknesses

Read the full interview on our blog- https://workee.net/blog/how-to-tailor-your-approach-to-each-students-unique-need