Personalized learning can even playing field for Tennessee's low-income students | Opinion

• Rhiannon Dunn teaches 9th grade at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee where she serves as a content area curriculum leader and a technology teacher leader.

The reality that household income impacts student success in Tennessee is one I hoped we would leave in the last decade.

Unfortunately, the most recent Tennessee education statistics show that economically disadvantaged children meet proficiency standards far less often than their peers. In order to close the economic achievement gap before the beginning of the next decade, we must make sure that we are keeping up with the latest learning strategies in every corner of the state.

These strategies focus on differentiated teaching and personalized learning to meet students where they are, engage them as partners in their education, and give them multiple pathways to understanding material. However, most schools in Tennessee currently lean on a one-size-fits-all approach, which gives mainstream learners the same instruction without regard for their individual needs. Unfortunately, it shows.

The latest Tennessee State Report Card found that our economically disadvantaged students meet achievement standards 15% less often than the state average.

Classrooms that engage in differentiation don’t suffer from this kind of achievement gap. A recent study conducted by a pair of Vanderbilt Professors showed that differentiated classrooms broadly produce students who are more motivated, more engaged with texts and tasks, and more empowered and confident regardless of background.

This same research also shows that differentiation and other ways of tailoring curriculum to the needs of individual students is often concentrated in wealthy school systems and not available to those who would most benefit from it.

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The good news is that these techniques not only work, they don’t cost any more than the old ones. I know this because I use them in my own classroom. Personalized learning in my room means kids have choices in their learning and a say in what happens in the class.

While there are tasks we do together, I allow students to choose their books for independent reading time. I often allow students to choose how I assess them. As a class, we come up with ways to address the topics to be taught. All of these strategies empower students because they know they have a voice in their learning journey.

Additionally, personalized learning and differentiated methods don’t come at a cost to state standards; if anything, the opposite is true. One of the best examples of this from my own ninth-grade English classroom is a student-led literature circle project. Students are put in charge of picking texts, determining pacing, deadlines, projects, group roles and even assessment.

We worked together to set goals and plans, including how to understand and meet state and federal standards. Every year, students, regardless of their backgrounds, step up to read, think, lead, and learn--many of whom divulge during final presentations that their chosen book was the first they read from start to finish.

A student’s achievement shouldn’t depend on a their parent’s income but in Tennessee today, the data shows it does—and old ideas about how school is supposed to look keep it that way. If we are ever going to change this, Tennessee’s schools must join the growing number across the country which cast students not as buckets to be filled, but as true stakeholders in their education.

Differentiation and personalized learning methods give our children the tools best suited to their individual experiences. This is how every student in Tennessee can become the lifelong, engaged learners they must be to succeed.

Rhiannon Dunn teaches 9th grade at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee where she serves as a content area curriculum leader and a technology teacher leader.