personalized learning | blended learning | curriculum strategy & adoption
[re-post from edfactors.com]
in malcolm gladwell’s book outliers: the story of success, he famously talks about the 10,000 hour rule – right or wrong he talks about needing 10,000 hours of practice to master something. recently, there’s been some debate around personalized learning and the role of technology. some people are saying that personalized learning is just good teaching and that it’s being done without technology. why efforts around personalized learning which lean towards blended learning are not effective strategies for learning. i reflected on this from my own experience and have put together some thoughts. i thought i’d make my point by describing my own experience in learning how to play the violin when i was a child.
my first introduction to music was by learning how to play the violin when i was 10 years old, in 1980. being that i had a tiger mom, she was insistent that i play music so i would have extra curricular activities when i applied for college. for the first 4 years, i had nothing but a private instructor and a series of suzuki lesson books. there was no internet to learn online or mobile devices that could record or playback in the 1980s. in many ways, i had the best personalized learning experience a teacher could give me. once or twice a week, i would meet with the instructor of 60-90 minutes. they would tailor a lesson for me based upon what i accomplished the prior week. however, the problem was that i never practiced, so i didn’t improve much each week. over time, the teacher would get bored with me and sometimes even fire me as a student. so now that i think about my experience then versus what is possible now, it’s really interesting how differently we can learn with access to technology and a private instructor.
i was taught using the suzuki methodology. there weren’t too many different options in terms of level set music curriculum. think of this as my textbook, which told me which level i was at based upon what book volume i was on. i liked some of the music in the book but most of it i didn’t like. if i wanted to play different music, my only option was classical and i had to go to the music store and rummage through different books. i couldn’t create a custom level set book of music that i liked. today, with digital content, i would be able to easily compile my own practice book. i wish i had that as i would have been more engaged.
it’s great to have private lessons. the lessons are totally personalized to where i was at. however, if i didn’t improve week to week, the teacher also got bored or frustrated. they didn’t see that i was making any effort. they would try all sorts of things with no avail. so why didn’t i want to practice?
- my teacher never told me how the music was built up and why i needed to master certain exercises (etudes). so playing the really boring and repetitive etudes was mind numbing. my teacher would also ask me how many times and hours i practiced each weak and i would fib a little and exaggerate my numbers.
- my only source of learning something new was from my instructor and the suzuki books.
- when the teacher asked me what i wanted to play, i said i wanted to learn how to play hall and oats’ maneater on my violin. so 6 weeks later i got a hand transposed copy of maneater for my violin. by the time i got this, i no longer liked the song and wanted to play a different song.
- when i did try to practice, i couldn’t hear myself play. i was too busy trying to figure out where my fingers go and where my bow arm needed to be, i couldn’t hear the sound.
- it would have helped to play with someone else or guided music which played along. even a demonstration of how it each piece should sound would have helped. my instructor and i tried this with a cassette tape, but it didn’t work too well having to rewind back and forth.
- i didn’t get real time feedback. if i was struggling with a particular cord or bar of music, i couldn’t get real time advice on how to fix it so i just skipped it.
so how would this personalized learning experience be different if we had todays’ technology and why would it have been better?
- i would be able to learn by accessing the internet, to answer questions i had in real-time. i could dig deeper in areas that interested me. i wouldn’t have to rely on the instructor to be my only source of learning new things.
- if we used technology to record my practice, the teacher would actually know how many hours i practiced each week and the quality of my practice. perhaps if i captured a video on my phone areas i struggled, i could have emailed them to my instructor and gotten real-time feedback or tips so that i didn’t get stuck.
- if i wanted to play music that wasn’t written for the violin, i could create it with a software program in an hour instead of waiting 6 weeks for it. so that i’m engaged at that moment.
- when i would get stuck during a practice session, perhaps i would be able to watch a youtube video to learn how it should be done, or hear another person play it properly.
although i had a very personalized experience with a private instructor, i don’t think i was able to maximize my learning back then as i would be able to now with the technology that is available to me today.
*youtube has over 92,000 different videos online for beginners.
want to read more posts by anthony kim? check out edfactors.com
