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Online education has gotten bigger in recent years. The coronavirus outbreak acted as a catalyst to further fuel the growth of the already mushrooming online learning industry. According to Statista, the global online education market is worth more than $185 billion in 2024. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.56%, reaching $279 billion by 2029.
The market is already flooded with a wide variety of tools and software to make online learning better than traditional forms of learning. There are several things happening in the shadows right now. One such trend is the increasing focus on customized education. Customized education shifts the focus from the teacher to the student, however, the process is not all sunshine and roses.
Though customized education solutions can prove to be highly successful, they pose several challenges. These issues must be addressed to achieve high efficiency. In this blog post, we will discuss the most common challenges that come with implementing personalized learning solutions and how to resolve them, but before that, let’s first learn more about customized education and its importance.
Definition of Customized Education
Customized education is known by many names, including individualized instruction, personalized learning, and student-centered learning. Individualized instructions move the focus from the teacher (in traditional learning) towards the students. Personalized learning refers to the mode of learning that adapts instructions to match the skills, interests, and needs of individual students.
This is usually done by leveraging technology, such as customizable learning platforms like MeraTutor.ai and adaptive learning software. It can also combine traditional techniques like 1-on-1 teaching and small-group learning with technology to achieve better results.
Importance of Customization in Learning
There are several problems with the traditional form of learning. One of the most important ones is that it follows a one-size-fits-all approach, which makes it difficult to ensure that every student in a class or batch makes progress at the same speed.
This can be resolved with the implementation of student-centered learning. From higher student engagement and better information retention to enhanced learning outcomes, there are several advantages that implementing customized education solutions brings to the table.
At present, there are many personalized learning solutions available to meet all kinds of teaching and learning solutions. Whether it is a school looking to leverage technology to better the delivery of education or an online educator wanting to craft courses by combining their knowledge and experience and start selling them to interested learners, student-centric education is the way forward!
Challenges of Implementing Customized Education and Their Solutions
From defining customized education and convincing higher authorities to ensure that your students take the lead, there are multiple challenges associated with implementing customized education solutions. Let’s dissect them each, one at a time:
1. Meet the Needs of Every Student
The Problem
One of the biggest issues with implementing customized education solutions is ensuring that the learning paths satisfy the individual requirements of every student. Moreover, balancing the needs of each student versus the complete class – especially when it is a big one – poses additional challenges.
The Solution
Ensure that the designed lessons and activities adapt to student requirements well. This can be done by carefully preparing learning paths and doing continuous evaluation. Ongoing performance monitoring of students should be in place to identify issues early and work on resolving them.
2. The Pacing Problem
The Problem
One of the main objectives of implementing customized education solutions is facilitating students to learn at their natural pace. Doing so is a great way to ensure that students get individual treatment and learn better, however, it also poses problems. In some scenarios, the students might either move too fast or too slow.
The Solution
You, the teacher, must keep a closer eye on each student to ensure that no one ends up too far behind or ahead of the class at the completion of the batch or term. Set minimum paces so that students who need more time can catch up and build alternative pathways for those who master the content fast.
3. Feelings of Isolation
The Problem
One of the major perks of traditional learning is the opportunity that students get to learn and hone social and interpersonal skills. They are required to work together, fostering a sense of community and social support. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with personalized learning, where learners might feel left out or disconnected from their peers.
In individual instruction environments, learners might work independently or in small groups which can lead them to feel lonely and lacking social support.
The Solution
Teachers and personalized education program creators need to create ample opportunities for learners to collaborate with their peers. Some examples include joint research work, group projects, and online discussion forums. The learners must be provided with a common stage where they can share their feelings and help one another.
4. Defining Customized Learning
The Problem
Customized education intends to meet and fulfill the educational needs of every student based on their skillsets, interests, and needs. Defining personalized learning is difficult as it imposes a dilemma. That’s because it is meant to be variable, depending on the student. Therefore, it’s difficult to pin down what exactly customized learning is.
The Solution
One approach to make it simple is to focus on what customized learning isn’t rather than what it is. For example, customized learning isn’t something that is fixed. Neither is it only creating individual lesson plans for every student or something that is solely achievable with technology.
5. Faith in Customized Education
The Problem
The idea of customized education isn’t welcomed by everyone. Even though you might be highly positive about it, it might take you some time and effort to convince your superiors. It includes getting funding, resources to produce learning material, and general support. No matter how optimistic you are towards the idea of individualized instructions, getting others to buy into the idea poses a serious challenge.
The Solution
To convince your superiors about adopting customized learning, you need to go to them with a strong case. This should help them understand the transformative power of personalized learning. First, you need to understand the basics and be convinced yourself that it is the go-to way for your students. You should also have a clear plan of action for implementing individualized instructions.
6. Technical Gaps and Glitches
The Problem
Where there is technology, there are glitches. A technology user might also have some knowledge gap, making them falter when using it. This is a general technology problem regardless of the application field.
The Solution
To solve this issue, you need to provide ample technology training to the users. Also, there must be a plan of action in place for addressing technical glitches and issues.
7. Not Enough Time
The Problem
The teacher-student ratio can be as much as 1:30, which means a single teacher has 30 students to teach. Such scenarios can make the phrase personalized learning a nightmare with so much to do with so little time at hand. Implementing customized education solutions can be challenging as after creating personalized learning paths, there might be a lot of fine-tuning that is required.
The Solution
Remember, good things take time, but great things take even longer. Delivering personalized education is a journey, not a race. Delegating the responsibility of learning design to your students can make the process easy for you. Understand that your role in this form of education is the facilitator and not the architect.
Individualized instruction focuses on the student, unlike traditional learning where the teacher is the centerpiece. You need to motivate your students to lead this journey, allow them to design experiences, and let them propose for future work they want to take on. This way, your students play a more active role while taking a load off your shoulders.
Check out Personalized Learning vs. Traditional Learning to know more about the differences between the two forms of learning.
8. Deviation is Difficult
The Problem
Change is difficult! Traditionally, we are led to learn using the classical learning method, which involves a teacher teaching multiple students in a classroom setting at the same pace. This form of learning is teacher-centric. Contrarily, customized education gives students the center stage. Therefore, shifting to personalized learning can be daunting – at least, at first – for students, teachers, and even parents/guardians.
The Solution
New beginnings are always tough, but the first step is usually the hardest, and it gets better from there on. Showing faith in your students will foster teamwork and collaboration in them so that they can combine their strengths to achieve remarkable results.
It will help your students reap two benefits from one action; filling knowledge gaps by questioning one another and building a sense of community. When students learn to lean on one another they can solve issues faster and without having to wait for you. It truly fosters the philosophy of customized learning that students are responsible for their success and the teacher is there just to facilitate the same.
Conclusion
Customized learning indeed has a great potential to revolutionize learning, provided it meets the individual requirements of each learner. Doing so requires careful designing of the learning programs and staying vigilant regarding student progress by means of continuous monitoring and evaluation.
Educators and students must collaborate to mitigate the various challenges posed by implementing customized education solutions. Admins and teachers must be on their toes to seek new ways to ensure student interest and progress, such as gamification.
Implementing customized education solutions doesn’t necessarily mean ditching every aspect of traditional learning. In fact, certain elements from the classical form of learning can be adopted to make learning better for students, teachers, and administrators.
Champion All Customized Education Implementation Challenges with MeraTutor.ai
MeraTutor is an AI-powered learning platform that makes implementing customized education a breeze. It comes with detailed analytics, powerful generative AI, and other features to make life easier for everyone involved in education programs.
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FAQs
1. What are customized education solutions?
Customized education solutions can be anything ranging from an AI-powered LMS to an online learning platform that facilitates the creation of education content based on individual student needs.
2. Is it possible to combine personalized learning with traditional learning?
Yes, it is. For example, students can watch pre-recorded lectures or complete online modules before starting a class that can focus on applying concepts, discussions, and problem-solving.
3. What is learning design?
Learning design, rooted in design thinking, refers to intentional choices about how, what, where, and when to teach. It is a framework that supports learning experiences by making decisions about the technology, content, structure, sequence, and timing of a learning course.
4. What are the benefits of customized education?
Boosted student engagement, superior learning experiences, high knowledge retention, equal learning opportunities, and better academic achievements are some of the most important perks of customized education.