Over the last three decades a consistent pattern has emerged. Despite huge spending in education, American and Brittish students are losing ground on their peers in other countries, especially in Math and Science. Both countries, whose education systems were once envied and copied the world over, have been looking for ways to arrest this slide and once again become the leading light in the teaching of Math and Science.
Personalized Learning in schools has been championed by governments from all around the globe. They understand that it is unreasonable for a teacher to be able to teach to the specific strengths and weaknesses of every student, but feel that by combining their efforts in the classroom with the technology that is now readily available; each student can be delivered a unique and highly effective learning experience. One person who has been outspoken in his support for Personalized Learning, and knows a thing or two about technology and education through his commercial and charitable lives, is Bill Gates. In a recent radio interview he talked about how over the last 20 to 30 years “…our achievement has been pretty flat while other countries have managed to improve their achievement.” Specifically talking about using technology to help students who are struggling, Gates goes on to say that “…when you have a kid who’s behind in math, identifying exactly what they are missing and drilling in on that, we have not incorporated that into the education system”. Yet. Bill Gates, governments, school administrators, teachers, parents and publishers all see that this is the direction we need to go in and yet all the signs are there of making exactly the same mistakes that have been made in the past.
Money has been and will continue to be made available for schools to buy products that provide personalized instruction. Schools will be told that they need to incorporate these products into their teaching. The market will continue to be flooded with products that claim to provide personalized instruction. Schools, understandably, will find it hard to pick from all the products offered and either go with the big publisher they trust that provides all their text books or choose the cheapest offering that gets the administrators off their back. Ten years from now there will be no improvement in math scores.
Why will this happen?