Advantages

Leader A and Teacher A saw the advantages of using personalised learning in their ILE as the motivation to learn, because students were not learning something they already knew, instead they were being challenged. The result was independent learners because they were working in groups and “knew exactly what they were doing; knew where they were at, they could write their own goals” (Teacher A, 2016). Similarly, Leader B described the advantages of personalised learning as seeing all the students as learners who could talk about their learning. For example, “Most kids will be able to tell you exactly what they are doing, why they're doing it, how it impacts on them as a learner and what they need to learn next” (Leader B, 2016). Leader B was excited because it showed that the students had “real ownership” of their learning.

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Teacher B saw a high level of engagement from students and teachers as an advantage of implementing personalised learning, because it “translates into greater degrees of progress and success” (Teacher B, 2016). Leader C agreed that the biggest advantage of personalised learning was, “Meeting students learning needs, resulting in high engagement. There was hardly ever kids who are non-engaged” (Leader C, 2016). Leader C said that often the reason for students who weren’t engaged was because of external factors influencing the child, such as “being sick, or something that's happened at home” (2016). Leader C listed six other advantages for implementing personalised learning in their school that related to students, teachers and parents:

1. The success that kids feel.

2. The teaching stress and workload has gone down because of the collaborative approach.

3. Teachers isolated feeling of when they're not in an ILE, that's definitely reduced.

4. Teacher practice has lifted when there's a personalised approach.

5. The link with home was strengthened. When kids were working with Google classroom and Google doc and tracking themselves, kids could go home and talk about their next steps, instead of a teacher having to run an interview. That's definitely been a benefit.

6. Kids could talk about their learning, in a way that showed ownership of their learning, because of the personalised approach.

7. Students have said, “I love not hearing one teachers voice all day.

The sixth point about students having ownership of their learning aligns with Leader B and Teacher C views about the advantages of implementing personalised learning. Teacher C talked about Leader C’s seventh point, and felt that the students learning was highly catered for compared to when they were in single cell classrooms, due to a lot more options in an environment where they could learn from so many more people. For example, “They're not restricted to just learning from and experiencing learning with 32 other children, you know, day in and day out, with the same ones. They get to constantly be exposed to other people and other peoples thinking” (Teacher C, 2016). As a result, Teacher C expressed that the teachers felt less guilt than when in their single cell classroom teaching alone:

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(Before) when I was with a group I could see someone was struggling and I could see a teachable moment that I just couldn’t get to cos I'm busy, cos your attentions divided. Now I know that kids are going to exactly what they need to learn, because it's on their test, they've looked at it, they've assessed their test, they've analysed their gaps, then chosen their workshops and activities (Teacher C, 2016).

Another advantage in using personalised learning mentioned by all educators was student achievement. All school educators talked about the importance of student engagement, because they hoped that the students would achieve more and make progress with their learning.

Leader C had been tracking students’ Maths achievement for the last three years. The data showed comparisons with before and after personalised learning in the innovative environments, and the effect on students’ progress and achievement. Their findings showed that students with average maths ability, referred to as “middle” students, made the largest gains with the new pedagogy in the new environments, and gives reasons why.

To summarise my findings would be to say that the biggest shift is middle kids. So our kids that were achieving high, still are. And our students who weren't tracking well towards the national standard, we did actually half that group in terms of maths. The biggest shift was the kids who were kind of meeting national standards and just above, are now well above. And it's because they got to self-direct and self-manage and take a personalised approach to their learning that they're succeeding much more. (Leader C, 2016)

Teacher A agreed that personalised learning helped students who were already doing well, succeed better, stating:

I would say for the children who are very motivated and independent it's been fantastic because they just take things to the next level all the time very motivated and independent (students), love the challenge, and so they feel challenged all the time and that's just the way that they work. (Teacher A, 2016)

However, Teacher A’s next comments questioned whether students who found learning difficult, had progressed in their new learning environment.

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Category two: Key findings

There appeared to be two models of successful personalised learning taking place. Both models of personalised learning held similarities such as strong parent and community links, students directing their learning through planners or signing up to workshops, and an available teacher who roamed and helped students who were not with other teachers. Two schools had systems to keep track of students’ work and workshop attendance. Failure to track students by one school could impact negatively on students who avoided workshops or didn’t participate in the programme.

Every educator saw advantages in implementing personalised learning in their ILEs, such as teachers feeling less isolated in a classroom; teacher practice lifted; teacher stress and workload reduced; and students enjoyed learning from more than one teacher in a day. Educators expressed advantages for students was that they had feelings of ownership with their learning and had an element of control with their own learning, which lead to engaged students.

Category three: Challenges of implementing personalised learning

There were numerous challenges expressed by the teachers and leaders interviewed. Leader B believed there were a number of challenges when implementing personalised learning because “as soon as you move in to the realms of personalising learning, your job as an educator becomes very much harder” (Leader B, 2016). Leader B saw sustainability as a challenge for personalised learning. Leader C stated that along their journey of introducing new pedagogy in a new learning environment, they identified challenges as they rose and made them their goals, for example, “Whatever was our challenge became our next goal” (Leader C, 2016). The following identifies the themes that emerged from analysing the educator’s interviews about the challenges of implementing personalised learning in Innovative Learning Environments.