Summary: Designing Personalized Learning Experiences: A Framework for Higher Education and Workforce Training by Nada Dabbagh and Helen Fake

• Personalized learning is a hot topic in education and training, as it promises to provide more effective and satisfying learning experiences for learners. However, designing personalized learning interventions is not an easy task, as it requires a deep understanding of the learners, the content, and the context. How can we design personalized learning experiences that meet the diverse needs and preferences of adult learners in higher education and organizational settings? How can we leverage technology to support personalized learning and create meaningful and engaging interactions? How can we evaluate the impact and outcomes of personalized learning initiatives? These are some of the questions that this book addresses.
• If you are curious to learn more about personalized learning and how to design and implement it in your own context, this book is for you. The book will provide you with a comprehensive and practical framework that will guide you through the process of designing personalized learning experiences for adult learners. You will also find examples and case studies of how personalized learning has been applied in various settings and domains, such as online courses, blended learning, professional development, and workplace training. You will discover the benefits and challenges of personalized learning and how to overcome them. You will also learn how to use various tools and technologies to support personalized learning and create meaningful and engaging interactions. By reading this book, you will gain the knowledge and skills to design personalized learning experiences that empower learners to direct their own experiences and achieve their goals.

Recommendation

Most global workforce employees will need new skills in the coming years; acquiring those skills requires personalized learning. Learning technology professors Nada Dabbagh and Helen Fake address the challenges of engaging employees in training and development even as corporate training budgets remain substantial. Dabbagh and Fake’s strategies and guidance focus on improving personalized learning to boost talent development and retention, and on ensuring that organizations and individuals can adapt to evolving skill requirements.

Take-Aways

• Technology has transformed personalized learning.
• Personalized learning is highly effective.
• “Learner-to-Content Interactions” nourish learner engagement.
• “Learner-to-Learner Interactions” enhance learner empowerment.
• “Learner-to-Small Group Interactions” create community engagement.
• “Learner-Mentor Interactions” build long-term learning relationships.
• “Learner-Social Network Interactions” broaden the learner’s network.

Summary

Technology has transformed personalized learning.

Personalized learning began with John Dewey, a prominent educational philosopher. Helen Parkhurst put his student-centered learning ideas into practice in the early 1900s through the Dalton Plan, which sought to make learning personal. One method was the learner-mentor model, where learners learn from coaches and learner content.

“Personalized learning is not new.”

The Dalton Plan gained popularity internationally, but critics regarded it as resource-intensive. Many regarded its approach as unscalable. To address the scalability problem, researchers Sidney L. Pressey and B.F. Skinner developed teaching machines in the 1920s that provided immediate feedback and allowed students to learn at their own pace.

Pressey and Skinner’s innovations led to electronic-based teaching systems. The PLATO Project, for example, emerged in the 1960s as the first generalized Computer Assisted Instruction system. It offered personalized learning features, but proved expensive.

System-based approaches can scale, but may be resource-intensive. Learner-based methods offer flexibility but demand self-direction. Designing effective personalized learning involves a balanced mix of strategies and factors such as learning models, learner maturity and available technology.

Personalized learning is highly effective.

Personalized Learning (PL) inspires debates about what it entails, who facilitates it and how teachers should conduct it. Each context – such as K-12, higher education or workforce training – emphasizes different aspects of PL. The lack of a unified definition can prove an obstacle to incorporating PL into a learning environment.

“As research suggests, PL is an idea struggling for an identity.”

In higher education, PL focuses on three main elements: creating diverse learning experiences and curricula; empowering student learning with mentorship and knowledge of effective learning methods; and fostering community and collaboration.

PL workforce training definitions emphasize learner-centered approaches: flexible learning paths and assessments; integrating technology into teaching and learning; and focusing on meeting individual needs through diverse teaching methods and practices.

Varied approaches to designing a PL framework exist. Effective design comes down to what interactions the learner will experience and what technologies will best support a continuous learning environment.

“Learner-to-Content Interactions” nourish learner engagement.

Most learning begins with assessing the information the learner will digest. When creating PL content, consider:

• How you will present that information – for example, through text or video.
• How you will deliver it – for example, through email or social media.
• The nature of the delivery – whether it’s live, recorded, or a mixture of the two.
• Which activities will help learners most engage with the content – such as discussions or presentations.

“People learn best when they are learning actively.”

As you develop specific PL, you should also think about these factors :

1. “Multimedia modality of content” – Multimedia learning is a computer-aided teaching method that uses visual – such as pictures and videos – and spoken content. This method fosters understanding by actively involving learners and combining graphics with words. Most e-learning formats require this method.
2. “Technologies for content delivery” – Different technologies offer different learning benefits. For example, Web 2.0 technologies supported the development of blogs and wikis. These new ways of sharing content shifted learning toward greater learner-centricity by promoting interaction, collaboration and personalization, thus highlighting that the chosen medium shapes the learning experience.
3. “Instructional delivery modality” – The design of learner-content interactions takes into account whether the instructional delivery is synchronous – all learners are online at the same time; asynchronous – learners interact with content at their own pace; or bichronous – a blend of both. The latter combines the benefits and reduces the challenges of the other two modalities.
4. “Learning activities” – Use digital games or simulations to enhance learning. These activities support skills development and offer practice in a subject, as exemplified by learning tools such as Lumosity and Duolingo.

“Learner-to-Learner Interactions” enhance learner empowerment.

Learner-to-learner – or peer-to-peer – learning emphasizes cooperative, active learning through social interaction, during which learners share knowledge while playing the role of peer teachers. Learners come to understand how to create and construct knowledge in a supportive environment.

Teachers must define the context when implementing peer learning, which involves the setting, practices, learning needs, activities and technologies for learning. Learner-to-learner interactions also require a supportive organizational culture that encourages vulnerability and growth. For example, learner-to-learner interactions may include students collaborating on assignments or co-workers exploring new software solutions. Designs for these interactions – such as setting up peer discussions, debates or co-worker brainstorms – vary depending on whether the exchange takes place in a formal academic setting or a more flexible work environment.

“Designing opportunities for individuals to learn from other individual learners can empower the development of metacognition, collaborative learning, interpersonal skills, communication, as well as a multitude of other 21st-century skills.”

Learner-to-learner interaction proves beneficial during onboarding, performance evaluations and organizational learning experiences. During onboarding, for example, this interaction helps new members connect. The University of California’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) harnessed learner-to-learner interactions to increase employee satisfaction and engagement.

Continuously incorporating learner-to-learner interaction through activities such as pair sharing and co-working sessions fosters ongoing learning and connection. For example, the application Donut prompts regular meetups and discussions among peers. It has successfully connected millions of people across various companies by offering a flexible framework for learner interaction.

“Learner-to-Small Group Interactions” create community engagement.

Small group learning involves three to six members collaborating briefly and informally to master concepts and support each other. This approach differs from more dependent teams collaborating longer-term on specific projects. This learning style improves academic achievement, social skills, worker participation and learner self-esteem. Learners tend to prefer it over lecture-based teaching.

“Small group learning or learner-small group interaction is sometimes referred to as collaborative or cooperative learning.”

Designing learner-to-small group interactions requires aligning interaction types with suitable instructional strategies and learning activities. Choose strategies based on desired learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Facilitate these strategies through collaboration, communication, knowledge representation and content creation tools.

Peer collaboration proves effective during design thinking and collaborative brainstorming, which fosters creative problem-solving. Implement learner-to-small group interaction in virtual environments via tools such as Zoom, Slack and MURAL.

“Learner-Mentor Interactions” build long-term learning relationships.

Advising, coaching and mentoring vary in intensity and duration. Advising is low-intensity, one-time guidance; coaching focuses on achieving specific goals over time. The more personal and intense mentoring concentrates on long-term career growth and mutual benefits. Recognize these crucial differences to design beneficial personalized learning interactions.

“Researchers are beginning to experiment with a hybrid mix of AI and human coaches to leverage the scalable powers of AI while also capitalizing on the emotional intelligence of humans.”

When designing a learner-mentor interaction, consider coach-learner interactions. In addition to the traditional in-person model, e-coaching through video, phone or text can be quite useful. It particularly benefits remote learners who have social anxieties or are unable to leave their homes. Choosing the right communication and collaboration tools – such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom – factors into constructing lasting beneficial mentoring relationships.

AI technology has become a factor in the learner-mentor framework of personalized learning. AI coaching applications, such as Cultivate, analyze email and chat interactions to provide insights into leadership and managerial behaviors. This analysis helps leaders better understand how they engage with their teams.

PricewaterhouseCoopers utilized Cultivate to gain insights into how frequently managers praised or interacted with their direct reports. Those insights fueled improved workplace relationships. Pairing these AI tools with other feedback methods helps users improve interpersonal relationships, foster inclusivity and guide struggling employees toward better results. Combining human and AI coaching yields the best performance outcomes, especially for mid-level performers.

“Learner-Social Network Interactions” broaden the learner’s network.

The learner-social network interaction is a dimension of personalized learning that involves a community of peers. Designing learner-social network interactions – such as Communities of Practice (COP) and Personal Learning Networks (PLN) – can be challenging but crucial for self-driven and informal learning. Utilizing supportive instructional strategies such as scaffolding, modeling and coaching enable learning communities to make sense of, retain and use new knowledge.

Dialogic instructional strategies promoting conversation and interaction, such as articulation, collaboration and reflection, are central to learner-social network interactions. New teachers facing unfamiliar challenges and isolation will find COP helpful because it facilitates communication and collaboration across different schools and districts.

“Social learning (in contrast to formal learning) is a story largely written by the learners themselves.”

The modern internet, which enables users to read from the web and share content, was a revelatory development in the community learning arena, connecting people across the world and profoundly changing how individuals interact, do business, and learn. The developments wrought by internet technology emphasize how social networking and user-created content significantly affect learning environments.

For example, sites like Facebook and LinkedIn allow people to form personalized networks, share information and connect with fellow professionals in their fields, thus shifting learning from formal to informal. Social media has revolutionized social interaction and become a critical component of personalized learning in educational and workplace contexts.

About the Authors

Nada Dabbagh and Helen Fake are professors in learning technologies at George Mason University.

Genres

Education, Instructional Design, Learning and Development, Adult Education, Lifelong Learning, Technology in Education, Curriculum Studies, Management of Technology and Innovation, Open and Distance Education and eLearning, Business and Marketing

Review

The book aims to provide theoretical and practical guidance on how to design and implement personalized learning initiatives for adult learners in higher education and organizational contexts. The authors define personalized learning as a learner-centered approach that empowers learners to direct their own experiences and achieve their goals by leveraging a mix of technology-enabled social and content interactions.

The book introduces the Personalized Learning Interaction Framework (PLiF), which is a design model that helps instructional designers, learning and development professionals, and educators to plan, develop, and evaluate personalized learning interventions. The book also offers examples and case studies of how to apply the PLiF in various settings and domains, such as online courses, blended learning, professional development, and workplace training.

The book is a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in designing personalized learning experiences for adult learners. The authors draw on their extensive research and practice in the field of personalized learning to offer a comprehensive and coherent framework that can be adapted to different contexts and needs.

The book is well-written, organized, and easy to follow. The authors explain the concepts and principles of personalized learning clearly and provide relevant references and resources for further reading. The book also includes practical tips and strategies on how to use various tools and technologies to support personalized learning, such as learning analytics, adaptive systems, gamification, and social media. The book is rich in examples and case studies that illustrate how the PLiF can be applied in real-world scenarios and demonstrate the benefits and challenges of personalized learning.

The book is not only informative but also inspiring, as it showcases the potential of personalized learning to enhance learning and engagement, foster ownership and autonomy, and reduce attrition and dropout.