How to Personalize Learning

"This guide provides actionable steps for all educators, from the busy main office to the crowded classroom, to develop the culture, expertise, and strategies needed for truly personalized learning. Once implementation is rolling out, Bray and McClaskey provide guidance for professional reflection and growth along the way. Personalization provides benefits to all stakeholders and this book helps all stakeholders understand their roles and how they will grow through the experience."

"Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey are leaders in how to personalize learning for all learners. How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper breaks down personalizing learning in a way that not only makes good sense, but that makes it easy for educators to do what they know is right for their learners. This easily followed guide helps educators build on their learners aspirations, talents and interests to access, engage, and express learning by building on the learner's strengths and challenges. This guide helps educators give earners are given agency in their own learning while meeting standards. This guide will help classrooms come alive with engaged, excited learners whose learning will not only meet, but go beyond standards. This is not a 'new' or 'novel' fad, but a common sense approach that incorporates proven pedagogues and technology in a logical, effective way that is based on neuroscience and UDL principles. The many examples of successful personalized learning cultures will inspire and shape the future of teaching and learning."

"If you are a teacher who has wondered if it is really possible to personalize learning for all students, this book is for you! Grounded in a shared vision and beliefs, Bray and McClaskey provide practical steps to guide teachers through the process of discovering the unique learner in every child. Furthermore, the reader is coached on how to personalize for an entire class, with practical advice, activities, and hands-on tools. This is more than just the typical 'education needs to change' book. This is practical guide for teachers to actually make changes to positively transform education as learners become owners of their own learning."

"How to Personalize Learning is the book every school needs their teachers to read. The authors take teachers on an enlightening journey where they reflect on how they uniquely learn. This book also is a guide with practical ideas and many resources to help teachers make learning accessible and engaging to all students. This book is for the teacher with the big heart who wants to ensure every student leaves wanting to continue their learning journeys."

"How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper is a rich resource for any in-service or pre-service teacher, school or district administrator, special educator or parent. This practical guide steps the educator through a comprehensive, yet individualized plan for meeting the needs of any learner. In my 25+ years of working with teachers and with school administrators, what I most appreciate about this guide are the numerous case studies and tangible examples of how the practices work in the real world."

"Educators must change their perspectives of both teaching and learning to be in a position to grow citizens prepared to thrive and excel in our changing world. This field guide lays out the foundation for both leadership and classroom practitioners to begin this journey by understanding the changing landscape and providing practical applications of personalized learning pedagogy."

"In this compact and powerful book, Kathleen McClaskey and Barbara Bray offer teaching teams, school leadership groups and whole faculties a way to engage learners in managing their own learning. Writing for use in workshops or whole-school professional development initiatives, Bray and McClaskey present well-tested strategies for personalization within a coherent framework. The book begin with background ideas for personalization, but moves quickly into specific exercises that any group can use to organize a personalization initiative one step at a time. Each section includes illustrations and 'conversation starters' that gather individuals toward shared understanding of collaborative school development, allowing teachers to apply and adapt effective practices together. I see How to Personalize Learning creating a comprehensive guide for managing a long and complex process, preparing all learners to assess themselves, build skills, work toward personal and academic goals - and build the skills and knowledge that help them move toward a future they discover for themselves. This is a highly practical book that forms a reliable foundation for empowering any school community striving to make our schools work for all learners."

"How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper is the comprehensive, step-by-step guide to personalizing learning. But, moreover, this book is a transformative treatise for all levels on catalyzing enhanced efficacy-from community culture to the classroom learner-so that personalized learning becomes a reality in even the most traditional classrooms. Whether you are the community member that dares to think differently or the classroom teacher that knows deep down that something just isn't working, How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper is the seminal book to get you started on your personalized learning journey."

"Kathleen and Barbara have already inspired us to Make Learning Personal: The What, Who, WOW, Where, and Why, but now they have given us some points of entry that we can start with tomorrow in How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper. The What, Who, WOW, Where, and Why now have an important next step for teachers wanting to put learning back into the hands of the learner."

"Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey continue to demonstrate how they are two of the leading ladies of personalized learning with their practical and positive portrayal of a learner-centered approach to education. They combine the research base of our profession with evidence based models of educational practitioners around the country to clearly illustrate what it means to personalize learning. Barbara and Kathleen have captured the essence of next practices over best practices by providing a timely "how-to" manual for preparing community, college, and career ready learners who understand they are in charge of their own learning. How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper provides a highly interactive approach to professional learning, with numerous activities and web-based links to enrich the readers experience. What I appreciate and admire with Barbara and Kathleen's new book is their relentless emphasis on the practical steps educators can take to transform their classroom and school for the benefit of the learner. The book is conducive to professional learning community team studies or for individual educator reading and reflection, but both with the intent and practical steps to transform how teaching and learning take place in your context. I am excited to place this companion book to Barbara and Kathleen's Make Learning Personal, in the hands of everyone of our teachers for the purpose of creating passionate and purpose-driven learners who are in control of their own learning. How to Personalize Learning is the perfect read for an individual educator or team of educators whose goal is to prepare learners who will take control of their own learning as preparation for taking control of their own life as an adult."

"Bray and McClaskey's first book, Make Learning Personal, does an outstanding job of defining personalized learning, developing common language and making a strong case for WHY this is good for our learners. This book is the perfect companion as it serves as a practical guide that moves educators from the abstract to the concrete, delving into the HOW to personalize learning. The examples, resources and activities are designed to guide educators through a transformation from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered environment where all learners can thrive."

"Fundamentally different from other Personalized Learning books, and hands-down the best! How to Personalize Learning is a user's guide designed by experts who personally & professionally relate; Kathleen and Barbara simply 'get it.' The expertise and knowledge as well as personal experience shines through in this user friendly and practical guide for implementation of personalized learning. I love what they have done to make significant and much needed change less threatening and more useful for teachers. (They know how to teach learners, including adults reading this book)! In particular, the visuals, charts, matrices, and how-to guides are so user friendly and informative, this is what every educator wants for their learner, and how to make it happen, with support! This book provides teachers with a tool to refocus and keep their best practices while helping them to identify those areas of instruction where shifts need to occur, and the 'how to' to make it happen! So inspiring, engaging and motivational, and the companion website for technology and sharing is awesome!"

"Barbara and Kathleen have done it again! This book provides such essential explanations and tools that any person reading it should be able to immediately construct their personalized instruction and learning environment. The multiple options for activities help teachers apply their personal preferences to more deeply connect with this work. This book even further demonstrates how important it is to make learning personal."

"For educators and learning communities that are ready to dive deep into transforming their learning expectations and environments, this book is an essential resource. The combination of field experiences and models, vetted resources to make learning active, rather than passive and the structures provided to support personalizing learning in any learning experience, makes the resource so important. Educators can rely on the information from these rock-stars of personalized learning, knowing that it is as current as it can be, provides contacts and resources to follow-up with and moves the theory of personalizing learning into practice."