Foundations for Reinventing the Global Education System: Personalized Learning Supported Through Universal Design for Learning

Background

In recent years, personalized learning (PL) has emerged as a new education trend which has sparked conversations among scholars from both the general and special education sectors around its potential to address increasingly diverse classrooms (see Abbott et al., 2015; Basham, Hall, Stahl, & Carter, 2016; Wehmeyer et al., 2018). The concept of this emergent and evolving education trend, however, varies among government policies and documents, research articles, organization reports, and newsletters. Its implementation also takes varied forms across education systems and institutions (Peterson, 2016). In essence, PL is conceptualized as an innovative educational approach in tailoring learning to each learner’s strengths, needs and interests as well as enabling learner autonomy in how, what, when, and where students learn (Patrick, Kennedy, & Powell, 2013). This approach also emphasizes flexibility in instruction and learning as well as the central role of learners in the learning process.