Put the person back in personalization with a touch of humanity. It’s a paradox: technology to individualize curriculum has made classrooms less personal. Let’s instead trust educators to make learning personal by supporting student agency, self-awareness, and the intimate personal connections found in authentic learning experiences. In the second edition of this groundbreaking book—newly streamlined, and updated with insights from the pandemic—Paul France presents a vision of humanized personalization that rejects the corporate mindset and instead holds equity and inclusion at its center. France leverages over a decade of experience as a National Board Certified Teacher, education consultant, and education technology developer, sharing the following: Practical guidance on designing inclusive learning environments for diverse groups Sustainable applications for humanized personalization in curriculum design, assessment, and instruction Real-life stories from the author’s experience on both sides of the personalization debate A multitude of classroom tools, adaptable to a variety of instructional contexts Nobody understands the need for humanizing education better than teachers. While educators across the country have learned that inundating students with personalized learning technologies is not the way to go, many don’t know how to personalize learning without them. The time to humanize personalized learning and our classrooms is now—and this book will give you a place to start.

Gifted students can exhibit extreme variance in both their abilities and their interests, yet they are often treated within schools as one homogeneous, specialized population. Personalized Learning in Gifted Education helps educators strengthen their differentiation of both instruction and services for advanced students. This book: • helps educators develop the specific gifts and talents of the gifted students they serve • demonstrates how educators can utilize the wealth of data they have at their disposal • provides a rationale and blueprint for a stronger, more personalized approach to gifted education • offers suggestions for both elementary and secondary schools. Recommendations center around five features of personalized learning: personalized learning plans, project- or problem- based learning, competency-based progression through the curriculum, criterion-referenced assessments, and multi-year mentoring.

A tremendous amount of money is being steered toward personalized learning (PL) initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and it is important to understand the return on the investment in students’ futures. It is only through rigorous discussions that educators and policymakers will be able to determine if PL is a passing fad or if it possesses the staying power necessary to show a positive impact on student achievement. Evaluation of Principles and Best Practices in Personalized Learning is a critical scholarly publication that explores the modern push for schools to implement PL environments and the continuing research to understand the best strategies and implementation methods for personalizing education. It seeks to begin creating a standardized language and standardized approach to the PL initiative and to investigate the implications it has on the educational system. Additionally, this book adds to the professional discussion of PL by looking at both the advantages and disadvantages of PL, the teacher’s role in PL, creating a PL program to scale, the role of technology and PL, the special education population and PL, emerging research on PL, and case studies involving PL. Featuring research on a wide range of topics such as blended learning, preservice teachers, and special education, this book is ideal for teachers, administrators, academicians, policymakers, researchers, and students.

Skillfully shifting between online and in-person learning has become expected of teachers. In this essential guide, you will learn how to harness technology to enhance student learning in both realms. Combining theory, reflection, and personal experience, author Catlin R. Tucker equips educators with a wide variety of strategies and tools to support student and educator success in blended environments and beyond. K–12 teachers and administrators will: Gain insight on why blended instruction provides paths for effective, student-centered teaching Learn to navigate flexible learning landscapes Understand different collaborative and community-oriented strategies for successful blended teaching Utilize thoughtful reflection questions to examine your own school or district Discover strong theoretical frameworks and models for online and offline instruction Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Blended Learning Chapter 2: Building Your Blended Learning Technology Toolbox Chapter 3: Teachers as Designers of Learning Experiences Chapter 4: Teachers as Instructors and Content-Area Experts Chapter 5: Teachers as Facilitators of and Partners in Learning Chapter 6: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community Chapter 7: The 5Es Instructional Model and Student-Centered Inquiry Chapter 8: Taking Blended Learning to the Next Level Conclusion Appendix: Glossary References and Resources Index

"In some ways, shouldn′t we always be teaching from a distance?" Paul France asks this not as pitch for distance learning. But because part of the reason distance learning has been so challenging, Paul asserts, is that we’re replicating long-standing practices that promote dependent learning in our students. Why not use this unique moment of time to reconnect with the true purpose of teaching: to help our students become liberated learners and free thinkers? The next logical step in teachers’ months-long distance learning "journey," Humanizing Distance Learning describes how to center humanity and equity in our process of reimagining learning. Even while teaching and learning miles apart through screens, you’ll discover how to Build independence within your students so they’re better equipped to tackle challenges with persistence and learn how to learn Make collaboration and human connection essential components of your pedagogy, offering students the chance to socialize and learn from one another Center and unpack students’ identities, helping them develop a conscious knowledge of themselves, all the while using their self-identified strengths to overcome any obstacles Plan, prepare, and implement humanized instruction while teaching for student liberation—both digitally and in person. Investigate technology integration, including the Digital Divide, as well as ways to minimize EdTech integration so that our collective sense of humanity can continue to be front and center "The future," Paul writes, "may be unclear, the road may be rocky, and the story may continue to be long and winding as we push forward through this global crisis. But the answer will always be simple: We must teach and learn in pursuit of a deeper sense of collective humanity—and for no other reason." "This book is equal parts visionary and practical, courageous and invitational. It addresses foundational needs and wrenching challenges teachers faced during the recent time when U.S. teachers abruptly found themselves teaching remotely. . . . It is a deeply humanizing book." ~Carol Ann Tomlinson, William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia "Humanizing Distance Learning is a book for our times not only because it addresses how to build a culture of thinking and teach for understanding at a distance, but also because it challenges the status quo of education by offering a more liberated and humane vision." ~Ron Ritchhart, Senior Research Associate, Harvard Graduate School of Education "Paul France has produced a timely and necessary book that will help educators humanize distance learning. Recognizing incredible dimensions of complexity, this book will surely help educators traverse times of uncertainty in distance learning." ~H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education, Vanderbilt University

Learning design is an ill-structured process that must account for multiple stakeholders, contextual constraints, and other instructional needs. Whereas many theories outline learning theories, less is known about the formative design process and how it impacts the design and development of learning technologies. This is critical because a formative view considers the issues that educators encounter and how to overcome them during the learning design process. This edited volume provides a multi-faceted look at theories, studies, and design cases that employ formative design in learning across multiple domains. Topics include processes oriented around design thinking, design-based research, and others. Additional chapters provide contextual considerations, such as describing how formative design was used to design learning solutions for STEM learning and food banks, as well as overcoming challenges in emergency remote teaching. In doing so, the book provides an interdisciplinary view that explores how scholars and practitioners engage in formative practices that support a wide array of learners and contexts.

Through the lens of sensory affect, this book offers a new way of thinking about day-to-day teaching and student engagement within learning spaces in design education. The book examines the definitions, concepts, ideas, and overlaps of a repertoire of learning spaces prevalent in higher education and addresses the pedagogical gap that exists between broader learning structures and spaces, and the requirements of specialist design education. Recognising that mainstream teaching environments impact upon design studio learning and student engagement, the book positions creative learning spaces at the heart of practice-based learning. It defines the underlying pedagogical philosophy of a creative learning space in design education and reports on how practical strategies incorporating sensory affect may be implemented by educators to foster better student engagement in these spaces within higher education. Bringing much-needed attention to specialist design teaching and learning spaces in higher education, this book will be of interest to educators, researchers, and post-graduate students immersed in design education, pedagogy, and learning spaces more broadly.

"It is a pleasure to have a full length treatise on this most important topic, and may this focus on transfer become much more debated, taught, and valued in our schools." - John Hattie Teach students to use their learning to unlock new situations. How do you prepare your students for a future that you can’t see? And how do you do it without exhausting yourself? Teachers need a framework that allows them to keep pace with our rapidly changing world without having to overhaul everything they do. Learning That Transfers empowers teachers and curriculum designers alike to harness the critical concepts of traditional disciplines while building students’ capacity to navigate, interpret, and transfer their learning to solve novel and complex modern problems. Using a backwards design approach, this hands-on guide walks teachers step-by-step through the process of identifying curricular goals, establishing assessment targets, and planning curriculum and instruction that facilitates the transfer of learning to new and challenging situations. Key features include Thinking prompts to spur reflection and inform curricular planning and design. Next-day strategies that offer tips for practical, immediate action in the classroom. Design steps that outline critical moments in creating curriculum for learning that transfers. Links to case studies, discipline-specific examples, and podcast interviews with educators. A companion website that hosts templates, planning guides, and flexible options for adapting current curriculum documents. Using a framework that combines standards and the best available research on how we learn, design curriculum and instruction that prepares your students to meet the challenges of an uncertain future, while addressing the unique needs of your school community.

'Sarma's book may be the most important work on education written this century' - Skeptic As the head of Open Learning at MIT, Sanjay Sarma has a daunting job description: to fling open the doors of the MIT experience for the benefit of the wider world. But if you're going to undertake such an ambitious project, you must first ask: How exactly does learning work? What conditions are most conducive? Are our traditional classroom methods - lecture, homework, test, repeat - actually effective? And if not, which techniques are? Grasp takes readers across multiple frontiers, from fundamental neuroscience to cognitive psychology and beyond, as it explores the future of learning. For instance: · Scientists are studying the role of forgetting, exposing it not as a simple failure of memory but a critical weapon in our learning arsenal · New developments in neuroimaging are helping us understand how reading works in the brain. It's become possible to identify children who might benefit from specialised dyslexia interventions - before they learn to read · Many schools have begun converting to flipped classrooms, in which you watch a lesson at home, then do your 'homework' in class Along the way, Sarma debunks long-held views such as the noxious idea of 'learning styles,' while equipping readers with a set of practical tools for absorbing and retaining information across a lifetime of learning. He presents a vision for learning that's more inclusive and democratic - revealing a world bursting with powerful learners, just waiting for the chance they deserve. Drawing from the author's experience as an educator and the work of researchers and educational innovators at MIT and beyond, Grasp offers scientific and practical insight, promising not just to inform and entertain readers but to open their minds.