Personalised Learning - Essay Example

This research will begin with the statement that globalisation and the rapid changes and developments in the information and computer technology have created demands and challenges that necessitate the adoption of policies and programmes that will equip children with necessary learning and skills needed as they respond to the demands of the time. In this context, the government, through its various institutions, continue to come up with public policies aiming for the establishment and development strategies and course of action which are geared towards addressing these issues.

DfES recognise the insufficiency and ill-adaption of traditional educational structure in addressing the changing demands of the global society. The ‘one-size fits all’ approach in education is no longer appropriate in responding to individual needs and society’s demands for knowledge. As such, through personalise learning, students become engaged and empowered as they take the path towards learning. While at the same, time their parents and the entire community become partners in the establishment of an education that recognises and is built on the individual gifts and prowess of children.

In this regard, personalised learning is a learning system approach that caters to the personal and intellectual needs of the children and listens to their voices as it re-affirms the uniqueness of each child as they embark on learning. However, it has been observed that personalised learning is difficult to define (Pollard and James 2004). In fact, Beach and Dovemark (2009) in study have found out that there are teachers who find it difficult to distinguish between differentiation and personalised learning.

They have also observed that there are teachers who are not familiar with personalised learning. In addition, it has been claimed that most discourses regarding personalised learning are drawn from “commentary rather than empirical research, highlighting that there are limited studies providing evaluative data on personalised learning” (Sebba et al., 2007, p. 8). In these circumstances, this research will undertake a conceptual analysis of personalised learning. This is done in order to arrive at a clearer understanding and perception of the concept, and at the same time, contribute to the endeavour of establishing more comprehensible parameters for personalised learning.

Moreover, this research seeks to know how personalised learning has been concretely adopted in schools. Finally, this study aims to apprehend how personalised learning becomes the 21st century approach to learning. This study will address the following questions. (1) What is personalised learning? (2) How is personalised learning concretely adapted in school/classroom set-up? (3) How personalised learning becomes the ‘system of learning’ that can adequately respond to the challenges of 21st century global society?

In order to answer these questions, a documentary analysis of secondary materials relevant to the subject matter of the research will be conducted. For the library research, the electronic databases Academic Source Complete, Jstor, Google Scholar, PsycheInfo, Business Source Complete, and ERIC were searched using a combination of the following key terms: education, personalised learning, 21st century, customised learning, individualised learning, differentiation, multiple intelligence, policies and globalisation.

Articles written in English had been selected. Moreover, articles that provided a conceptual anal