In today’s technology-driven world, teachers may no longer be the sole keepers of knowledge. But they are more important than ever in preparing students for an ever-changing workforce.

Learn about what drives educators to build personalized learning environments in the classroom in The Shifting Paradigm of Teaching: Personalized Learning According to Teachers^©. Based on interviews with teachers, instructional coaches and principals, it provides insight on how vision, culture and transparency have impacted personalized learning implementation. Our interviews focused on these guiding questions:

• How has daily work changed as a result of personalized learning?
• What does and doesn’t work in the classroom and during planning time when implementing personalized learning?
• How does classroom implementation align findings shared in District Conditions for Scale: A Practical Guide to Scaling Personalized Learning^©?

The Shifting Paradigm of Teaching: Personalized Learning According to Teachers results from interviews with individuals from more than 30 schools in 19 districts across the country. Of the 77 people with whom we spoke, 48 are teachers currently implementing personalized learning in their classrooms, and the remaining 29 work closely with teachers to support their work.

Inside the paper

The four sections of this paper include:

• An exploration of what drives teachers to implement personalized learning, framing a paradigm shift for the teaching profession. In a system that, for so long, has valued standardized curriculum and instruction leading to standard outputs, the drivers support a collective understanding that teaching is moving from an industrial, standardized profession—transmitting knowledge and assigning meaning—to a profession allowing students to pursue knowledge and make meaning based on their individual contexts and needs.
• Reflections from three teachers on how the themes from District Conditions for Scale—vision, culture, and transparency—have impacted personalized learning implementation in their contexts.
• Alignment of the findings from teacher interviews with the ten conditions to illustrate how those conditions play out uniquely in the classroom. While the interviews were not explicitly framed around the district conditions, the conditions provide context to the successes and challenges inherent in the shift to personalized learning. The definitions and descriptions of the conditions are based on the research done for District Conditions for Scale.
• Excerpts from the interviews with educators. Throughout the paper, we’ve included pieces of our conversations with educators. While these accurately reflect the ideas of those we interviewed, they are not direct quotes.