In personalized learning, every learner does not have to be on the same page at the same time, nor completing the same tasks at the same pace. Similar to a yoga student who shows up for the sake of deepening their practice, personalized learning is a practice of depth, progress, and persistence. The question then becomes, how do we as educators foster student persistence and success? How do we practice excellence in our teaching to go above and beyond the call of content-based duty and embed support structures that enable students to rise to the occasion, work hard, and persist? We know that learners need encouragement (Mamat & Mazelan, 2011), especially in recursive feedback.

Our students need to know that with effort, persistence, and resilience, they will achieve their learning goals. Educators foster individualized learning when we spend time instructing our students to be patient and keep practicing as much as we spend time teaching content. Digital technology has made this more streamlined with the ability to filter students. In the Canvas LMS, there is a feature in the Gradebook called “Message Students Who…” where you can set different options. One of the options is “Message Students Who Scored Above ____.” This online filter is useful in encouraging students by sending a message in week 6 that says “You couldn’t have done this step back in week 2, see how far you’ve come?” In this way, students receive a personalized message that doesn’t take long to send, yet it pays off exponentially in self-confidence and connection.

The lecture material defined “individualization” as an isolating, problematic experience. Educators can implement personalized learning by nudging targeted students. A personalized message, especially early on in the semester, is one example. We can use the data analytics available to us through our LMS to search for students who have not yet accessed our course content. From there, it is easy to follow up with them and email them to ask, “Is there anything I can do to help” and remind them of the importance of starting strong in our course, i.e., personalized learning. Nudging targeted students relates to learning disabilities because it shows struggling students that you’re paying attention to them. New research is showing that even praise delivered by a social robot changes children’s mindset for learning (Davison et al., 2021)! The implications for seeing positive effects on children’s mindsets and computer aided learning systems reduces the isolating, problematic aspects of individualization.

Davison, D., Wijne, F., Charisi, V., van der Meji, J., Reidsma, D., & Evers, V. (2021). Words of encouragement: How praise delivered by a social robot changes children’s mindset for learning. Journal on Multimedia User Interfaces, 15, 61-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-020-00353-9

Memat, N. J., & Mazelan, F. F. (2011). Learning encouragement factors and academic performance. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 18, 307-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.05.044