What to Expect

By Laura Vitale, Digital Media Specialist

A personalized learning classroom is going to look very different than a traditional classroom. As you listen to the audio clips below, you’ll hear educators reflect on what to expect as you begin to bring personalization to your classroom. Things like allowing learners time to adjust to new expectations of them. Remember, they are not used to having voice and choice in what and how they learn. You’ll hear that older students might have a more difficult time adjusting since they’ve had a lot more exposure to traditional classrooms.

If you visit a personalized classroom, you’ll likely see students grouped flexibly depending on what they are learning and doing. You might see them “showing what they know” in different ways. It definitely won’t look like a traditional classroom – there won’t be rows of desks and chairs but instead you’ll probably see tables for small group collaboration, presentation space, comfortable chairs or sofas, and quiet reading nooks. Students will be working at their own pace and probably working on different things. It might look chaotic to an untrained eye, but when you look more closely, you’ll see how much learning is taking place.

The resources we’ve selected for this section will also give you some more context around what to expect in a personalized learning environment.

What to Expect (audio)