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The Difference Between Personalized Learning and Learner-Centered Education

This week I was reading about Personalized Education in one of the newsletters we receive. We’ve heard a lot about this lately and the term seems to be used more and more. You might ask, does this mean that our concept of learner-centered education is being widely adopted?

Well, not necessarily. When we talk about learner-centered education in our schools we include the concept that what students learn should be based upon and built from their interests. And in the case of democratic schools, students are specifically empowered to make significant decisions about themselves, their education and their schools.

It could be argued that learner-centered education is a form of personalized education. But is personalized education learner-centered education? When you look carefully at what some schools and educators mean by this you discover that they are talking about an education DESIGNED BY TEACHERS to fit what they believe each student needs. It seems to me that this is quite different from learner-centered education. What do you think? We’d like to hear. Write to us. We’ll print some of your comments.