Let’s set the stage for a traditional classroom structure. Over 30 students are taught according to a set curriculum. Lessons often include a mix of lecture and in-class assignments, with a significant portion of work reserved for home.
While teachers strive to answer individual questions and ensure the group progresses together, the primary focus remains on the class as a whole. In education, this is called “teaching to the middle” — meaning that, due to the large number of students, teachers must tailor their instruction to the average level of the group, which can make it challenging to meet the needs of every individual learner.
The problem that arises with this method is that not every student learns the same way. We see this with all types of students, including:
1. Students with learning differences like ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and dyslexia.
These students benefit significantly from different teaching methods and environments. A student with sensory processing issues will have different obstacles than a student with ADHD.
For example, at Fusion Academy, a student with sensory processing difficulties thrived academically and socially when allowed to wear noise-canceling headphones in and out of the classroom. The headphones didn’t hinder their ability to hear the teacher or engage with the material but provided the comfort and stability needed to support their sensory needs.
2. Students who need a faster pace or more challenging curriculum, such as gifted students or twice-exceptional students (a student who is gifted in one area but struggling in another).
Sometimes it isn’t so much about speed, as it is about teaching the curriculum in a way that naturally complements a gifted student’s interest. For example, students skilled in music will often do better when they can incorporate music into their other studies, like history and math.
3. Students with social anxieties.
Social anxieties are often a by-product of feeling like you don’t belong in the classroom or among your peers. These anxieties make it difficult to focus and learn, creating a loop — anxiety leads to poor academic performance, which leads to greater school-related anxieties. A traditional classroom can be alienating to these students, where they feel a social pressure and don’t receive the personalized attention they need to succeed.
4. Students with different learning styles.
Some students may do better when information is conveyed visually (images, videos) whereas another student may do better in a more conversational setting, where a dialogue can occur between teacher and student.
At the heart of these issues is how an educator in a traditional classroom, due to the number of students and restrictions to follow a set curriculum, cannot personalize the learning method and environment toward the student. Instead, they rely on students to adapt.
When teachers in traditional settings aren’t able to tailor their teaching style towards students, we run the risk of them falling behind. They might become alienated socially and fall behind academically. This can lead to future difficulties with their education, low confidence, anxiety, depression, and school refusal (where a student plainly refuses to go to class).
Personalized learning is all about solving and preventing these issues.
In this post, we look at:
- What is personalized learning?
- The benefits of personalized learning
- How Fusion Academy uses one-to-one, personalized learning to teach middle schoolers and high schoolers
What is Personalized Learning?
Unlike a traditional learning model that employs a “one size fits all” strategy, personalized learning customizes the curriculum, learning activities, classroom environment, and teaching methods to suit each student’s strengths, unique needs, personal and academic aspirations, and individual interests.
Here are some key principles of personalized learning:
- A student-centered approach: Personalized learning engages students by making learning material meaningful to them, relevant to their interests, and specific to their learning preferences. The students’ individual needs, aspirations, and learning preferences are prioritized. A teacher will work to avoid any triggers that can lead a student to act out or withdraw from the class.
- Flexible learning paths: Students are able to move through the curriculum at their own pace. This helps ensure a student fully grasps a concept before moving onto the next one. Further, some students will struggle in one area of study but excel in another. Personalized learning means adapting the lesson plan to both.
- Data-driven decisions: Educators develop a comprehensive idea of their students’ personal learning styles through analyzing data from student work and test scores, observations, and more. Data is also used in tracking learning progress and making informed decisions when adapting teaching methods. For example, at Fusion we offer two remedial programs, one for reading and one for math. Both use advanced education software that will continue to update the optimal learning path for each student based on their real-time performance. This is using data to inform a lesson plan and ensure a student is on the optimal path based on their performance.
- Empowerment and agency: Students can offer real-time feedback about their learning progress and how they’re feeling with the material. This gives them ownership over their education.
What Personalized Learning is Not
Personalized learning is sometimes mistakenly confused with Individualized Education Programs (IEP), 504 plans, and differentiated learning. It’s worth it to look at these briefly to better explain how personalized learning is different.
First, IEP and 504 plans are special education plans specifically designed to support students with disabilities. While personalized learning may be a part of these programs, it’s not a given. Further, personalized learning is a comprehensive method designed to help support children from all backgrounds and learning types, not just those with learning disabilities.
Second, differentiated learning is an instructional approach that adjusts to meet the diverse learner needs in a small-group setting. The focus is not individualization, but differentiation.
Teachers in the traditional setting take the curriculum and adapt it based on the group’s abilities, interests, and learning needs, while cycling through various approaches of engagement so that everyone has a greater chance at understanding the lesson.
Additionally, differentiated learning environments are set up to support a wide range of teaching styles, which makes them flexible environments that can adapt to everyone’s learning needs. Students also express how they reach their answers — giving everyone the opportunity to develop new ways of thinking, means of problem-solving, and richer understandings.
The Benefits of Personalized Learning at School
Personalized learning helps students of all abilities excel academically and socially. Specifically, personalized learning has led to:
- Increased student engagement: Personalized learning approaches have been found to significantly improve student engagement with learning material, and 86% of teachers who employ personalized learning strategies report a positive impact on student learning. (Clayton Christensen Institute, 2013)
- Higher graduation rates: Schools that implement personalized learning environments and learning technology see higher graduation rates than those using traditional teaching methods — a study from the Institute of Education Sciences found that schools using personalized learning saw 8% higher graduation rates, while a study by CESA observed significantly reduced drop-out rates.
- Improved academic performances: Students in personalized learning programs make greater progress in their subjects compared to peers in traditional environments, especially in mathematics (RAND Corporation, 2015).
In the next section, we’ll look at how Fusion Academy uses personalized learning to improve students’ academic performance and graduation rates, while also allowing them room to actually enjoy the learning process.
Fusion Academy: 1-to-1 Personalized Learning for Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers
Fusion Academy is a nationally accredited private school that uses personalized learning with 1-to-1 teaching. This helps us give each student a unique and custom learning experience. We have over 80 campuses across the United States and a fully online school. Students can choose between learning on campus, online, or a mixture of both.
Each student’s program is uniquely designed with their interests, future goals, and learning needs in mind. Teaching methods and classroom environments are adapted to suit their own individual learning styles.
Further, flexible learning paths are a fundamental pillar in our personalized learning strategy. Since our classes are 1-to-1, our students get to go at a pace that works for them. This can mean spending less time on topics that they’ve easily mastered and spending more time on areas where they’re struggling.
Here are the programs we offer at Fusion:
- Private middle school (full-time or part-time)
- Private high school (full-time or part-time)
- Classes for credit
- Tutoring/mentoring
- Summer programs
- Post-secondary counseling
To learn more, contact us today or continue reading to discover how personalization shapes every aspect of education at Fusion, from the classroom and social spaces to each student’s schedule.
Personalized Learning in the Classroom
Because classes at Fusion consist of one student and one teacher, teachers create a highly personalized learning experience for every learner. A teacher will work with a student to overcome obstacles or triggers. For example, a teacher can take the student outside for a class or create a break structure that can help a student get out excess energy. If a teacher notices a student is struggling with a lesson or concept, they will work with the student to overcome the hurdle. Let’s say that for one specific lesson, the book material isn’t working for the student. The teacher will use extra materials — videos, songs, illustrations — to help bridge the gap in understanding.
If a student is getting frustrated and disengaging, the teacher will work to connect the current lesson plan with the student’s interests. This can mean tying a point of history to a modern film or TV series or finding musical resources that help a student remember concepts, etc.
These are simply examples. Personalization means that the approach will vary for each student and each lesson plan.
“My son is an excellent student, but struggles with foreign languages. That all changed at Fusion. The first thing they did was get to know him — not only academically, but as a person. Once they understood his goals, motivations, and interests, they developed a personalized learning plan and strategy to meet his needs. I would recommend Fusion without hesitation.”
– Kevin Rockmael (Fusion Parent)
A Social Campus (In-Person and Virtual)
Our classes are 1-to-1, but every Fusion Academy campus is also a vibrant social space. Students can meet up for clubs, extra-curricular activities, field trips, and work together in study sessions.
Every Fusion Academy campus has two spaces that we call “Homework Cafés.” One is a highly social space, designed for hosting clubs, student meetups, group project work, and making new friends. The other is a quiet space for focused work, where students can study in peace.
We offer a wide variety of clubs where students can participate and also take on leadership roles within clubs, under the supervision of a teacher, which enables students to develop a stronger sense of autonomy and empowerment.
While available clubs differ from campus to campus, here are some examples:
- Student Government
- Drama Club
- Running Club
- Yoga Club
- Writers Club
- D&D Club
- Documentary Club
Fusion campuses have a state-of-the-art music studio where students can use professional-grade tools to explore their musical passions. (Instgram)
“My daughter was refusing to go to school and never felt like she belonged. When she visited Fusion, people approached her and made her feel welcomed and accepted. She has made friends and has done well academically and socially. Fusion has helped my child expand outside her comfort zone, yet made her feel safe in doing so.”
– Karin Szotak (Fusion Parent)
Students have time between their classes to speak with friends and teachers. This is key in giving a student a personalized learning experience without sacrificing the important social aspects of school.
Along with educational experiences and school clubs, we organize events like the school prom, as well as engaging and educational field trips for our students to enjoy, which helps them to spend some time away from campus with friends. So far, we’ve visited art galleries, aquariums, planetariums, and many more interesting places.
Fusion Academy also gets students engaged in the local community by holding fundraisers, and lending a hand at local non-profits, such as animal shelters. That helps our students to feel a stronger sense of purpose, give back, and become the most considerate, empathetic individuals they can be.
Want to take a tour of Fusion Academy? Join us for a virtual tour here.
Flexible Schedules
Our flexible schedules allow you to plan your child’s education schedule around your life, and not the other way around. That makes us highly convenient for parents that work irregular hours, or children that have additional commitments during the traditional school hours.
As each student is on their own learning plan, they can begin with us at any point in the year. Depending on your child’s performance, that also means they can progress through the grades at a much faster pace than traditional schools allow, where students generally have to wait for the next school year to keep moving forward.
Students occasionally need a mental break from school, or have to travel with their families. Your child can step away at any point and resume their personalized education at a later time exactly where they left off, from any of our 80+ campuses across the USA.
“Fusion’s schedule is customized to fit our daughter’s needs. She finds ample support to explore new subjects, build core subjects, and actually develop a love of learning.
The one-to-one support ensures that any areas of weakness of strength don’t go unnoticed. We feel equipped to best support our daughter.”
– Natasha Rahban (Fusion Parent)
We also offer online formats for personalized learning through Fusion Global Academy, so we can design a custom hybrid program based on your child’s student needs. They can attend some classes in person, with others online — or alternatively, go entirely virtual and receive a flexible, adaptive, and fully personalized education from home with live teachers.
Through our part-time learning model, and tutoring options, we make it possible to get self-paced and personalized learning assistance for those who need to get ahead of subjects they find challenging at their school of record. Many like to use this option to make up for missed grades, as well as to give our methodology a test-run before switching from their private or public schools to the Fusion family full-time.
Curious what our students think of Fusion Academy? Check out their testimonial videos.
How to Offer Personalized Learning at Home
Personalized learning doesn’t have to be restricted to classroom environments, or academic concepts. At Fusion Academy, we aim to take advantage of every teachable moment, whether that be in class, at the Homework Café, or even during a field trip — reframing it for each student in the way that makes the most sense for them.
We also believe in implementing personalized learning at home, but understand that can be tricky to figure out, so here’s some quick tips.
- Give your child opportunities to show off their competency. Encouraging your child to talk about what they’ve learned, in contexts that interest them, reinforces their confidence and fosters the desire to learn more. This could be in the form of presentations, fun competitions, or taking them on outings relevant to what they’ve been studying at school.
A student’s passion for Megalodons turned into an enriching project-based learning opportunity on time periods, ocean formation, and ocean zone classification. (Instagram)
- Integrate your child’s experiences into teachable moments. By recalling your child’s experiences, and integrating them into the academic or life lesson you’d like them to learn, they can more personally resonate with it, and understand its significance. This could be in the form of their personal experiences, unique interests and hobbies, or activities they’ve enjoyed.
- Observe your child’s learning style, and speak with teachers. You’ll learn a lot about how your child learns through watching, or directly asking them. However, teachers can often be providers of insights that are tougher to uncover through observation alone, and can be a tremendous help in developing a greater understanding of your child’s personalized learning needs, so you can better implement them at home.
Fusion Academy administrators are always happy to share advice with you, as well as speak with your child’s therapist about their needs both in the classroom and at home, so that we can devise the best personalized learning strategy for them.
Learn at Your Own Pace, Stay Engaged with Materials, and Make Lasting Friendships at Fusion Academy.
“Fusion has done wonderful things for my life. Fusion has shown me the importance of education, but most importantly, it has shaped me into the person I am today and the man I will be in the future.”
– Evan H (Fusion Student)
Fusion Academy is a 1-to-1 middle and high school specifically developed to offer personalized learning. We have over 80 campuses across the United States, as well as an online school, where your child can join us for lessons uniquely planned around their interests, learning style, and individual needs.
Reach out to us to learn more about personalized learning at Fusion Academy.
