Giving Compass' Take:

· Getting Smart discusses the benefits of personalized learning on youth development and how it promotes independence, risk taking, and learning by trial and error.

· How does personalized learning foster growth in students? How does it allow students to learn in their own ways?

· Read more about personalized learning and how these experiences can be beneficial for youths.

“Class, today we’re going to learn about the scientific method – please open your notebook and begin silently taking notes.”

Does this take you back to middle school? Remember your teacher standing in front of the room guiding your class through a rigid lecture on the principles of scientific experimentation?

I do. But now that I’m a middle school science teacher, I do everything I can to upend this traditional framework. My students are able to go at their own pace and often build a project according to their academic level. Likewise, my experience has taught me some valuable lessons about how to create innovative, student-led projects that give kids space and independence to own their learning.

For example, in a recent project on Chemical Reactions, rather than sit through a lecture on how chemicals mix with one another, I gave my students the flexibility to discover for themselves what materials induce chemical reactions and why. I encouraged students to make their own choices in everything from selecting which chemicals to mix (from a pre-set array I made available), to how to set up their experiment to test for specific variables.

Read the full article about the benefits of personalized learning by Brandy Holton at Getting Smart.