What is Baseline

There is tension between standardization and individualization in education today. Instructional fidelity to a challenging grade-level curriculum is the expectation of current pedagogy. Federal U.S. initiatives mandate assessing the academic growth of all students with common assessments aligned with challenging content standards. The growing number of students who vary as learners in today's classrooms holds implication for instruction and assessment. Personalizing learning targets promotes an equitable measure of student growth. Appropriate instructional goals develop grade-level curricular skills that are selected based on student performance data and are personalized with individualized baselines and proficiency targets. Technology facilitates data-driven instruction through the efficient development and progress monitoring of personalized learning goals. In this chapter, a technology-based model for personalizing standards-based learning targets, developing SMART goals, and monitoring progress is presented.