| Summary: | This article focuses on individualized education programs for school students in the U.S. For some teachers, individualizing means simply to take existing textbook material, divide it into small segments, and allow each student to progress on his own from one segment to the next as he completes the appropriate assignments. For other teachers, individualizing means to initiate new courses designed according to criterions established by leaders of the curriculum reform movement and then to ask each student to progress through the assigned tasks at his own pace. Such courses generally involve a multimedia approach with film loops, cassette tape recordings, textbook material, and short projects or experiments. This concept of individualizing still fails to meet a key criticism aimed at schools. The approach to individualization proposed here requires skill, experience, and tolerance for uncertainty. To personalize teaching is a complex and demanding task. There is no push button we can press to bring about a panacea. But a concept of individualization that stresses what is appropriate for each student, carried out with a mixed bag of methods, leads to the personalization that students advocate.
|
|---|