Personalizing Learning Through Precision Measurement

Promising to “meet each child where she is and help her achieve her potential” (Wolf, 2010, p. 6), personalized learning has become extremely popular in K–12 education (Cavanagh, 2014). The U.S. Department of Education emphasizes personalized learning as fundamental for student-centered, future-ready, 21st-century learning (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). State and local departments of education in Tennessee, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, and others have created offices of personalized learning or launched personalized learning initiatives (Ventura, 2014). Several major foundations and national organizations are funding personalized learning programs, supporting personalized learning networks, or creating a myriad of resources and software programs. Personalized learning also seems to have some empirical support. A recent RAND study examining the use of personalized learning strategies across 11,000 students indicates promising results: While levels of implementation varied, in general, reading and math scores for students in schools using personalized learning strategies were substantially higher relative to national averages (Pane, Steiner, Baird, & Hamilton, 2015).