Personalized and Blended Learning

“Technology will not replace great teachers but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational” – George Couros. The advent of technology over the past few decades has been revolutionary, as it seeps and redefines the very roots of multiple fields ranging from industries, automation, education, and so on. Academics, with no hesitation can be accepted as one of the most crucial aspects of a child’s development in the path of becoming a working-class adult, and with all the smart technology readily available in today’s market, learning becomes a simple and enjoyable task for students of all educational levels.

With the integration of technology in pedagogy, new forms of teaching are invented and observed that are focused to make the learning process simpler and richer. This includes 2 new styles of imparting knowledge, namely Personalized and Blended Learning. Based on utilizing modern technology with the help of the unparalleled knowledge of the teachers, these methods have statistically proven to help each student achieve his/her highest potential.

Personalized Learning: Every Child is Special
One of the major challenges that all forms of learning face is the uniqueness factor. Every student has his/her own set of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to education, which often makes it a troublesome task to tailor a general program for the whole classroom collectively. On a more ethical note, this is also quite impractical which is why students take the aid of coaching institutes to help them prepare outside the schools and colleges. Therefore, a few points need to be taken under consideration to ensure each student thrives under their learning programs.

•    In coherence to their “gifts” and “shortcomings”, each student deserves a separate learning methodology that suffices his/her needs, which is a personalized learning path.
•    To achieve mastery over general topics, progression should be based on competency.
•    The learning programs must be flexible and dynamic enough to incur changes depending on the student’s progress, be it positive or negative.

With personalized learning, a student learns to develop self-advocacy skills, and lets them confirm their interests in fields of their own choice. Alongside the same, they learn how to adapt to mandatory courses while they also can develop the potential to explore new subjects. There are multiple new AI based algorithms that are developed which focus on monitoring the child’s progress which allows the professors to understand their strengths and weaknesses at the same time. Furthermore, this learning method saves from spending unnecessary time on redundant topics or learning methodologies, increases overall engagement due to personalized quizzes and assignments, and increases motivation. 
Certain examples falling in this category include tutoring and mentoring primarily, on an orthodox note. This allows a focused attention on an individual child who believes that the teacher gives him/her a unique kind of undivided attention. Furthermore, online courses provided by sites like Coursera and Udemy let the students learn flexibly, bringing a new meaning to anytime-anywhere.

Blended Learning: Best of 2 worlds
In recent times, this has been one of the most actively adopted methods of learning in most educational institutions. Utilizing the hands-on skills of the teachers, and the supreme power of rapidly advancing technologies, blended learning paves a whole new direction towards higher and pristine education.This includes student-to-teacher interaction, alongside the integration of technology to boost the student’s progress outside the classroom.
This method can be streamlined into multiple models, by incorporating the best features of a traditional classroom and online learning into a blended learning graphic. Some of these models are discussed as follows:

•    Online Lab Model of Blended Learning is roughly based on the rotation model. This includes the students shifting to an online classroom with computers and smart boards to conduct the classes rather than sit in the musty old classrooms. These include the same curriculum, but it is conducted in a more digital and interactive manner that gives rise to discussions and open forum sessions amongst the students with the teacher. Therefore, it ensures positive learning and 100% doubt clarification.
•    Lab rotation is a major part of the Rotation Model of Blended Learning, which believes in conducting a given number of theoretical classes with in-between learning activities which are often digital. This leads to better student-teacher interaction, and with the assistance of audio-visual learning methodologies, it leads to better understanding of the topics due to example-based learning.
•    The Flex model is solely focused on self-learning by utilizing online platforms, with a direct guidance from the teacher. This facilitates group activities and enriches the classroom conversations. Furthermore, it allows the teachers to have more time to analyse a student’s strong and weak points in a particular subject.

Taking all things in consideration, with technology, education can potentially enrich the quality of students that step into the world as adults looking for jobs in their respective fields. Regardless of streams, these smart devices and applications can be fused into the existing systems and make the whole learning procedure achieve better depths and unlock milestones. Modernisation isn’t a single step. It’s an accumulation of multiple platforms that come together for a greater cause, and educational technology is no stranger to the same.