Personalized Learning: What is Truly Personalized Learning?

Personalized Learning;  By Tom McDonald, Principal, McDonald Sales and Marketing, LLC

Recently, within the eLearning Guild LinkedIn group, I was asked to share what I mean by truly personalized learning. What a great question that was more than  happy to answer. Here is my response.

I am passionate about research proven, market proven, individual, learning performance improvement.

The reality is there are no shortcuts to effective and efficient individual learning for critical, must know content, (or advanced individual learning, using current individual learning as a baseline/benchmark)

We know that each individual participant in learning brings unique baseline knowledge/experience to each learning experience (e.g. Math/ELA). We also know that each individual participant in each learning experience, has differing abilities to learn new information (below grade/at risk, traditional, gifted; e.g. Math/ELA)

We know too, that the traditional one to many teaching approach (event based lecture, 7 day training events, page turner ppt eLearning, non interactive videos, teaching to the test, event based training with no reoccurring individual reinforcement) is not effective/efficient for individual long term learning of critical must know information.

I’ve never had an educator disagree with me that the ideal learning experience was one teacher/facilitator to one student.

In this long term, learning ideal, the critical, must know content can be individually personalized, courses can be individually created to address specific, identified, individual learning gaps ( what the individual specifically and individually does not know) and can be instructor/facilitator individually spaced, paced and reinforced over time, specifically tailored to accommodate the learning abilities of that individual with that specific, critical must know content.

In this ideal, that follows brain based, research proven, market proven. advanced/accelerated learning methodologies, each individual learning participant via professional individualized/personalized, learning facilitation, most effectively and most efficiently (in the shortest individual time possible) learns critical must know information, long term, to individual appropriate: initial understanding, fluency/mastery, recall, application, stick/behavior change, consistent with strategic, defined, individual and organization objectives.

This is instructor facilitated, truly personalized learning, over time, with instructor facilitated, truly personalized reinforcement, over time, in an instructor facilitated, truly personalized blended learning environment (F2F, webinar, eLearning, video, gaming, simulations), over time, which is supported by research proven, market proven, learning methodology (think differentiated instruction, truly personalized distributed practice, in a truly personalized, blended learning environment, all over time), is proven to advance individual learning performance.

The only problem with this approach is that it’s not economically affordable/viable ( To date, I have yet to see a research report validating the positive return on investment on this one live instructor, to one student learning model)

This hopefully, reflects what effective and efficient, truly personalized learning is and how it differs from traditional, inefficient and ineffective one to many teaching.

Tom McDonald

Related Personalized Learning , Sales Performance and Learning Performance Improvement Information:

Sales Performance Improvement: Interactive Decision Engine

• Sales Presentation Toolset
• Improve retention of your message by up to 38%
• Reduce the time taken to explain complex issues by up to 40%.
• Advance participant persuasion by as much as 43%
• Be perceived as more professional and Develop audience belief
• Sway your audiences beliefs up to 67% more
• Achieve your goal up to 67% of the time vs. 33%..A 100% Increase!

Sales Performance Improvement: Seven Tools:

• (VI). Set More New B2B Sales Appointments:
  • Historical Competency Improvement of: 596%
  • Historical Training ROI of: 1148%
  • For every Training Dollar ‘Loaned’…There is a Client Return of $11.48
  • (Completely Based on The Clients Sales Numbers…Pre and Post Training)

Sales Performance Improvement: Learning Roleplay and Transfer:

• More Stimulation per Minute of Study
• 300% Improvement in Retained Learning per Hour of Study
• 11% less study time, 22% less test time, and 95% higher test scores
• “Management reported a 300% increase in sales, within a 6-month period after training”
• “Management reported negotiated contracts that earned the company an extra two million dollars in profit per negotiator over the previous year”.

Sales Performance Improvement: Employee Selection and Employee Development:

• Increase productivity and sales from 20 to 60+%
• Reduce Turnover from 15 to 50+%

Sales Performance Improvement: Integrating Sales Training and Sales Implementation:

• Advance long term, Individual learning, individual learning transfer, individual learning application and individual behavior change up to 300%

Strategic Performance Improvement Consulting:

• Oversaw learning measurement-training evaluation strategy for the 18 Department of Defense Intelligence (DoD) Colleges
• Guided Booz Allen’s Learning & Development (L&D) leadership in developing solutions for improving the delivery of enterprise-wide, self-paced training courses.
• Implemented BOA’s first-ever comprehensive measurement strategy around its learning programs based on business impact, adoption and penetration, critical feedback, and an approach to using benchmarking to compare results.
• Invented and championed Technology Assisted Sampling Tool for Evaluation (TASTE), an innovative tool to enhance productivity

Personalized Learning Technology:

• More Stimulation per Minute of Study
• 300% Improvement in Retained Learning per Hour of Study
• 11% less study time, 22% less test time, and 95% higher test scores

What is an Intelligent Tutoring System?

• More Stimulation per Minute of Study
• 300% Improvement in Retained Learning per Hour of Study
• 11% less study time, 22% less test time, and 95% higher test scores

Behavior Change:

• Including…How Long does it take to change a Habit?

Blended Learning:

• Why does Blended Learning Advance Individual Learning and Individual Learning Transfer (Application)?

Learning Technology:

• What is learning Technology and Why does it Advance Learning in a Teacher Facilitated, Blended Learning Environment?

Two Models for Educational Technology

• One to Many
• One to One

One to Many vs. One to One:

• Which Approach is Research Validated to Advance Individual Learning?

Education and Accelerated Learning:

• What is Accelerated Learning and Why does it work?

Learning About Learning:

• Why is Learning Important?

How to Transfer Training (Learning):

• What does it take to Transfer Learning and why is Learning Transfer Important?

The New Learning Model with Supporting Research Validation:

• More Stimulation per Minute of Study
• 300% Improvement in Retained Learning per Hour of Study
• 11% less study time, 22% less test time, and 95% higher test scores

Search 800+ Unique Posts on Learning, Personalized Learning, Learning How to Learn, Learning Research, Learning Transfer, Blended Learning, eLearning, Personalized Learning Technology, Sales Performance Improvement, Human Capital Performance Improvement and much, much, more

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Learning Optimized, Behavior Changed, Performance Advanced

My deliverables to you are: (I) Improved Learning Outcomes and Increased Competence; a. Retention to fluency (95% vs. 28%), b. Behavior change through accountable reinforcement, c. Improved application, d. Advanced individual performance and e. Advanced organization performance.

You will ensure that every person reaches true mastery* in the shortest amount of time. Mastery* produces people who have the adaptive reasoning skills required to effectively apply knowledge to new situations.

*Mastery is required where appropriate information application is critical to achieve a desired outcome; For example, Education: K-12, Higher, Corporate, Government; Medical; Medical Continuing Medical Education – Performance Improvement; Safety; Sales Performance; Aviation; Military; Individual Certifications and Individual Continuing Education.

McDonald Sales and Marketing, LLC, Specialties:

Appropriate Application; Behavior Change; eLearning; Employee Selection and Employee Development; Human Capital Management; Individual Performance Improvement; Learning Performance Improvement; Learning Retention and Reinforcement Improvement; Organization Performance Improvement; Workforce Development and Productivity; Verbal Skills Simulation and Reinforcement; Sales Performance Improvement; Web-Based (SaaS/Cloud) Solutions

To Discuss how these Solutions will add value for you, your organization and/or your clients, Affinity/Resale Opportunities, and/or Collaborative Efforts, Please Contact:

Tom McDonald, [email protected]; 608-788-5144; Skype: tsmw5752