Personalized learning refers to the customization and adaptation of educational methods and instructional approaches to the needs of a learner.
Instead of adopting a “one size fits all” approach to education and training, personalized learning customizes the content and activities to a learner’s needs, interests and talents. Learning activities are made more meaningful and relevant to the learner depending on his / her unique learning style, and previous experiences.
Improving Knowledge Retention in Learning
There are many different aspects of personalized learning that engage learners’ interest and help them to “own” their learning, and improve knowledge retention:
Motivates self-directed learning and engagement:
Through personalized learning, learners take more ownership of their learning and are responsible to identify learning needs and create learning strategies to meet these needs.
Personalized learning promotes self-regulated behaviors that boost learners’ confidence to persuade them to engage with the training on a regular basis.
Enables personalized learning pathways:
Learning paths can be tailored based on the progress, motivations, and goals of learners’, and to fit their specific needs and preferences. Learning is optimized and customized as per the interest of each learner which keeps the learner engaged and makes the content more purposeful and relevant.
Enables personalized learning pathways:
Learning paths can be tailored based on the progress, motivations, and goals of learners’, and to fit their specific needs and preferences. Learning is optimized and customized as per the interest of each learner which keeps the learner engaged and makes the content more purposeful and relevant.
Benefits of Personalized Learning
There are benefits that go beyond knowledge retention; some of them are as follows:
- Saves time: Through it is a learner is responsible for choosing his / her learning path, and this removes content that is no longer relevant and in turn saves time that would otherwise be wasted on learning concepts that will not benefit the learner.
- Boost learners engagement: Learner experiences higher engagement from personalized learning as it matches their learning goals and they find the content relevant to their needs.
- Promote a learning culture: It helps to foster a culture of continuous learning, where learners can actively participate in their learning. Learners can build up evidence of their learning and reflect on their experiences that can be aligned to help learners enhance their skill levels by creating personalized learning pathways.
- Enables skill advancement and reduces skill gap: personalized learning helps learners to list their current goals and align them with their future objectives thereby enhancing and acquiring new skills that can help them grow.
Developing a learning content strategy and bringing personalization into the mix is an ongoing process that must be evolved over time to make the learning process more effective.
