It has been an intensely busy few weeks in Mason City Schools and Mason High School. That has made it hard for me to take time to create some new posts for this site. I do have some things I would like to share, though. This week, we released the Mason City Schools Educator’s Guide to Personalized Learning. Teachers received physical copies and a version here online.
There is a lot of great information in that guide. Building that concise guide represents the cumulative effort of a lot of teachers, administrators, consultants, and experience designers from grades K-12 over the past few years. Each word, graphic, illustration, and photo was carefully considered for how it would impact the culture around personalizing learning in the district.
It turns out, there will never be the most perfect, most personalized lesson ever. That’s not how it works. Designing for personalization is more of a mindset and a matter of carefully choosing a few moves. It is not nor will it ever be a perfectly achievable outcome that “checks all the boxes.” Personalization is something that is co-created between the teacher as designer and coach and the student as co-designer and learner. It can be boosted in each experience you design. There are small ways you are likely already personalizing experiences and you will find some of that reflected in this guide. You may even find other small ways you can boost what you’re doing. The guide can help give focus to those design efforts.
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