Personalized Learning in Practice

This panel included researchers, school leaders, digital media experts, and K-12 students, discussing how personalized learning school design and practice supports gaming and game design. School leaders in these emerging spaces design for learning and fully embrace gaming as a useful tool and form of classroom pedagogy. Halverson, et. al (2015) explain, “In personalized learning, educators develop environments in which students and teachers together build plans for learners to achieve both interest-based and standards-based goals” (p. 1). Our panel discussed key findings from our study on personalized learning, including: students are highly social and collaborative when gaming and using diverse digital learning tools in the classroom, which Halverson, et. al (2015) classify as a sociotechnical environment (p. 3). The panel also discussed how gaming happens in these environments in three district ways: game creation by the students, a teacher-designed game-based incentive structure, or implementation of existing games.