Background: For the last century, the dominant practice in U.S. high schools has involved sorting students by perceived ability level, yet 40 years of research has yielded consistent evidence that these practices harm the learning of students placed in lower-level classes; evidence is inconsistent about benefits for students in classes designated…

Differentiation has gained widespread acceptance across the Ontario policy community as a mechanism that can improve the overall quality of the PSE system. Though much has been said locally about the supposed benefits of differentiation, including its ability to reduce programme duplication and boost institutional efficiency, little attention has…

There is a recent advocacy for students to experience their learning as personalised, but this expectation poses challenges for teachers tasked with addressing prescribed curricula. In this article, we draw on relevant literature and our analyses of three case studies to propose a framework within which teachers can achieve both goals. We first…

This topic brief is one in a series on personalized learning prepared for Conversations with Innovators, 2018. The term relational suasion describes a common, human phenomenon: a person is open to guidance from someone he trusts. Any relationship of trust has this potential, and within formal education, it describes a student's openness to a…

Current initiatives to personalize learning in schools, while seen as a contemporary reform, actually continue a 200+ year struggle to provide scalable, mass, public education that also addresses the variable needs of individual learners. Indeed, some of the rhetoric and approaches reformers are touting today sound very familiar in this historical…

The mathematics performance of students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is poor. Students identified with EBD require individualized instruction aligned with their unique academic and behavioral needs. One way that teachers can efficiently identify core mathematics deficits and provide individualized instruction is through…

It is well accepted that not only the ability but also the positive disposition of teachers towards various teaching practices (including differentiated teaching) can be largely traced back to their initial education and training. Therefore, the beliefs and experiences of future teachers for planning and implementing differentiated teaching…

When discussing mobile learning (or M-Learning), many educators tend to focus on the affordances of the technology. In this article, the authors feature the M-Learning Framework as a way to view the effective use of mobile devices. The framework includes three key features: (1) authenticity; (2) personalization; and (3) collaboration. These…

With a theory-driven interest in the factors that make some language learners more successful than others, this study attempts to measure the cognitive diversity level of EFL learners at a Saudi university. To achieve this purpose, the Ehrman and Leaver's questionnaire of learners' cognitive profiles (Ehrman & Leaver, 2003) was adapted,…

The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits to both organizations and individuals in adopting heutagogy within management education to develop individual capability. This conceptual paper is based on a systematic review of the literature relating to heutagogy and learning theory. This article calls for the adoption of heutagogic…

The amount of empirical research conducted in the area of differentiated instruction (DI) is overwhelming, necessitating this bibliometric analysis in order to produce an overview of literature on the topic. The objective of this study is to identify the characteristics of the most-cited educational research published on the topic of DI using…

This paper aims to provide parents and others resources to resist technology-mediated personalized learning. To develop these resources and make the case against technology-mediated personalized learning, I turn to the work of American philosophers Henry Bugbee and John William Miller.

With the start of the school year, educators are looking for instructional strategies that can be adapted for both in-person or virtual instruction at any moment due to the persistent and unpredictable school closures in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important that these strategies be able to meet every student's individual learning…

During spring 2020, educators quickly adapted to providing interventions and collecting data virtually despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents were critical partners in supporting opportunities for students with intensive needs to data-based individualization (DBI) Process practice and receive feedback and sharing what was working…

Aimed at the growing number of educators who are looking to move beyond covering the curriculum, "Designing Authentic Performance Tasks and Projects" provides a comprehensive guide to ensuring students' deeper learning--in which they can transfer their knowledge, skills, and understandings to the world beyond the classroom. Readers will…