Personalized Learning Environment Design

I'm guilty of saying vague things like "AI helps us personalize learning", but we should get more specific. Here's a better framework: **Dimension 1: Personalize TO** - Persona (role, demographics, interest groups) - Individual (learner history, goals, preferences, skills, achievements) - Context (environment, situation, current activity/task, external conditions) - Dynamic Adaptation (real-time behaviors, emotional/cognitive state, immediate interactions) **Dimension 2: Personalize WITH** - Content & Resources (examples, scenarios, multimedia, exercises tailored to learner) - Instructional Strategies (methods such as scaffolding, exploratory learning, collaborative vs. individual tasks) - Pacing & Sequencing (rate of instruction, order of activities/modules, complexity adjustment) - Assessment & Feedback (adaptive quizzes, diagnostic evaluations, targeted formative feedback) - Motivational Elements (gamification, goal-setting, rewards, incentives, personalized recognition) - Interface & Interaction (UX design, modality—visual/audio/tactile, navigation paths, accessibility customizations) **Dimension 3: Personalization PURPOSE** - Engagement & Motivation (increase learner interest, attention, enjoyment, participation) - Performance Improvement (enhance learner outcomes, skills development, mastery) - Accessibility & Inclusion (address diverse learner needs, equity, remove barriers) - Efficiency & Time Optimization (reduce learning time, improve instructional efficiency, avoid redundancy) - Knowledge Retention & Transfer (long-term retention, real-world application, deeper understanding) We shouldn't fall for generic AI hype.... this type of framework can help us be specific about what we mean by personalization.

How can we create a dynamic and flexible learning environment that fosters personalized, competency-based learning, maximizes student engagement, and nurtures creativity and innovation both indoors and outdoors? #1 Learner-Centered Approach As Eric Sheninger states more emphasis on the “who” we are teaching than the “what” we are teaching! - Emphasize the individual learner's strengths, interests, and needs, shifting from a focus on content delivery to personalizing learning experiences. This includes fostering student agency and choice, where learners have a voice in shaping their educational journey. #2 Interdisciplinary Competencies What learning habits do we want life long learners to possess? - Develop transferable, whole-learner competencies that integrate content knowledge with real-world skills and dispositions. Move from teaching discrete grade-level standards to fostering higher-level competencies that prepare students for diverse challenges. #3 Mastery-Based Progression How are we moving from accountants of points to mentors of young people? Right Devin Vodicka! - Shift from traditional seat-time measures to proficiency-based progression. Students advance upon demonstrating mastery of key learning outcomes, allowing for personalized pacing and ensuring genuine understanding before moving forward. #4 Flexible Learning Environments How are we making education more geographically fluid? - Create adaptable learning environments that support individual learning paths. This includes flexible seating, schedules, virtual courses, and self-paced mastery, promoting a more engaging and accommodating educational setting. #5 Effective Pedagogy and Data-Driven Personalization How do we know if what we are doing is working? - Employ effective pedagogical techniques such as cooperative learning, differentiation, scaffolding, and innovative assessments like portfolios to empower learners. SpacesEDU uses evidence of learning data not just for collection, but to personalize and celebrate learning to meet each student's unique needs. Sierra Holtzheuser These five principles collectively create a personalized, competency-based learning environment that is flexible, engaging, and focused on the individual learner's growth and mastery. What would you add? What does your ideal learning environment look like? Your Friend, Danelle Almaraz InnovateEd #onthemove

🏫🔒Why do Schools Still Look Like Prisons when they should be a training ground for 21st-century skills nurturing creativity? Conventional schools work with a rigid system and structure. Students are not given the freedom to make autonomous, independent decisions. You have: 👥 A fixed group of people, 🎯 Doing one specific activity, 🏠 In one specific room, 🕰️ At a specific time. This system is reflected in the school's architecture. An architecture, designed to control, similar to the architecture and system found in prison. ## Designing for Trust The opposite of control is trust. Trusting students means allowing them to make choices by themselves. This significantly impacts their motivation and engagement in learning.🧠💡It fosters autonomy, which in turn instills a sense of responsibility for their own learning and nurtures their natural born creativity. ## Placing the Learner at the Center: 🎯 If we want to take advantage of our fantastic human ability to learn, we have to design learning environments based on a more flexible system that: 👩🎓 Puts the learner at the center of a differentiated, flexible, and inspiring learning environment offering different choices.👨🎓 This means that the learner has been given the autonomy to decide: 1. How many people they want to collaborate with (big group, small group, or alone), 👥 2. What they want to work on, 📚 3. Where to sit or stand while working, 🪑 4. How to sit (different bodily compositions), and 5. How to physically place themselves in the space. 🏋️♀️ It suggests a fundamental change in the current system and organization of how a school is run. This demands a tight-knit collaboration between the school, teachers, and the students.🚀 Creativity is our most important skill for the future. To develop our creative skills we need spaces that allow for different choices and variations. A creative learning environment is based on trust in it's students, and is open for experiments and new discoveries. #Creativity #LearnerCenteredApproach #Education #Innovation #Motivation #Autonomy #21stCenturySkills

✴️ New Learning Sparks Newsletter Alert ✴️ What if we could break free from century-old patterns and design physical learning environments that actively enable the development of higher order thinking and social skills? That's the challenge I took on with top notch learning designers and the brilliant architectural team at Fielding International. We've prototyped catalytic spaces – design patterns rooted in nurturing Purpose-Driven Expertise and fostering essential skills articulated in every school and state’s Portrait of a Graduate but rarely baked into the DNA of school learning spaces. In my latest newsletter, I can't wait to pull back the curtain on this exciting crossdisciplinarity collaboration and share some of these concrete design patterns: ✨ See how a "Cabinet of Curiosities" can become a vibrant space showcasing student interests, sparking curiosity, and reinforcing a sense of belonging that fuels purpose. ✨ Explore the idea of a "Celebration Stage" as more than a platform, but a place intentionally designed for students to build confidence, share breakthroughs (and breakdowns!), and develop their voice. Learning spaces can set the boundaries of the creative imagination of those who inhabit them. Designing for the future takes courage and vision. We all need somewhere to start. I hope these patterns can provide a spark for you. 🥽 Dive into the full newsletter to see these patterns and understand the thinking behind them. 📖To reward your engagement, I’ve provided a way that you can get your hands on a 25-page booklet that goes in-depth on each of the five design patterns. What are YOUR thoughts on how space impacts learning? Share below! 👇 Special thanks to my collaborators: learning designers Jennifer Brevoort, Joan Lee, & Michael Posthumus and architectural designers Justen Dippel, AIA, NCARB, Travis Pennock, & Jessica Sticklor-Lipson, AIA! And thanks to Curt Mould, Ph.D. for introducing me to the Fielding team years ago and helping me catch the vision for how space and learning are intertwined. #EducationDesign #LearningEnvironments #FutureReady #SkillsGap #EducationalArchitecture #PurposeDrivenExpertise #InnovationInEducation #SchoolPlanning #EdLeadership #K12Education