Personalized Learning requires educators to co-design and facilitate authentic learning pathways, experiences and assessments aligned to equitable supports around students’ needs, interests, aspirations and cultural backgrounds to foster meaningful connections to their learning. Learners are able to articulate what they are learning and why. Relevant learning experiences allow students to build skills toward post-secondary pathways to careers.
Indicators of Authentic Learning include:
3.1 Personal learning pathways and experiences are learner driven.
3.2 Learners engage in relevant experiences that build skills such as innovation, problem-solving and design-thinking.
3.3 Learners are provided with opportunities to demonstrate career-ready competencies in real-world settings by solving challenges that are relevant to their local community.
3.4 Learners are immersed in experiences that are connected to their cultural identities and community contexts.
Authentic Learning is a complete shift in how we view education. FOR decades, students have had to transform in order to be successful at school. Authentic Personalized Learning asked the questions and challenges the status quo of schools and how they can transform to meet the needs of our learners and our community. When we think of school, we think of the essentials: Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies with electives such as physical education, Ag, etc... for high school students. We transitioned to "College Prep" and began advanced classes that were suppose to prepare our students for college in the mid 80's. Then the next transition really became College Credit Plus where students could take college classes instead of their regular core classes or take both. This could be done sometimes on the high school campus or students became comuter students and went to their local universities or community colleges. At the same time, students could elect to attend the local career center or vocational school if they wanted to earn a skilled trade credential or certificatoin that allowed them to go into the workforce. For everyone else, nothing really changed. In some instances, Industrial arts and agriculture shops at our schools disapeered and eliminated as budget cuts happened and staffing was reduced.
Fast forward to 2024...and the need to transform our schools is more apparent than ever. No longer can we think only about prepping for college or sending students to trade schools. We have reached critical mass where skilled labor positions in all areas are in such high demand that we cannot produce enough candidates to come close to filling the demand. Ohio is in the middle of a transformation. We had a shortage of a skilled workforce before Intell arrived, and now it has only grown. Yet, many of our schools still look the same. We keep the status quo because it is what we know and it is what our community knows. It is easy to say..."But our kids" or "We can't get our kids there." The list of easy No's go on and on.
When you look at the indicators for being a STEM designated school or the indicators listed above for Authentic Learning, where does your school fall in trying to create an experience that exposes students to demonstrate career-ready competencies that are relevant to your community? How have you partnered with your local businesses to find the needs they have and work together to create those opportunities? With the transformation of the Ohio Department of Education to the Department of Education and Workforce...it is clear that the focus moving forward is going to be on transforming our schools to align Ohio with the needs of the future. We have to for our students transform NOW! We can no longer wait.
Personalized Learning and the framework Ohio has developed is designed to support this transformation. In order to allow our students to complete internships and externships in high school, the transformation has to start before they get there. In elementary and middle school, we can begin to provide authentic learning opportunities through problem-based learning (PBL) and reimagine our middle schools to begin to introduce and expose our students to potential career pathways in high school. In many instances...there is no playbook for this change. That should not stop us. That should not stop you.
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