Feb 08, 2018
What’s the scoop? The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is investing millions of dollars toward developing “personalized learning” tech and teaching, wants to nurture educators as well as students, according to Jim Shelton, CZI’s president of education. Last week, CZI announced a new round of grants, totalling over $5.5 million, toward programs aimed to support the “professional, social, and emotional well-being” and professional development of educators.
How will teachers benefit? The four investments announced last week include $1 million to Harvard Graduate School of Education, to research and develop social-emotional learning in the classroom instruction. Another program, at MIT’s Woodrow Wilson Academy for Teaching and Learning, is receiving $3 million to explore how a “competency-based” approach can be adapted to educators’ professional development so educators “learn at their own pace”, according to CZI. The investments are part of a broader trend across the American education system, bringing “personalized learning” into the classroom and into teacher training. In a 2017 Education Week survey of U.S. school district leaders, 97 percent reported that their school districts invested in “personalized learning” last year.
The bottom line for tutors… While educators and reformers experiment with bringing “personalized learning” into the classroom, and face hurdles like high teacher—student ratios, tutors offer students the one-on-one attention that “personalized learning” requires to be effective.
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