A book chapter I wrote, ‘Personalized Learning in Higher Education’, has just been published in the text Implementing Transformative Student-Centered Pedagogies in the Neoliberal Academy: Constraints and Opportunities. SEE here for more information on this text. 

The book is part of the Educational Innovations Series and includes research output, practitioner perspectives, and reflections on current pertinent paradigms that throw light on contemporary advances in the fields of theory and practice of educational pedagogies. 

Here is the Abstract for my chapter:   

Dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, higher education has been rooted in standardized curricula and rationalized processes derived from industrialization. This model offered factory-style efficiencies, but it has recently been criticized for ignoring characteristics of individual student learners and failing to adequately meet the needs and expectations of more diverse student populations. One solution lies in personalized learning, which, grounded in new theories and insights about learning as well as different approaches, helps cultivate deeper student engagement. Today, personalized learning is being adopted in higher education with help from pioneering educators and administrators reporting benefits and caveats, and opportunities to assist students unduly affected by challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic. This chapter will profile the history of personalizing learning, tensions existing with status quo education, and provide insights into best practices for initiating and sustaining its use in higher education. 

I offer my sincere gratitude to editor Frederic Fovet, for including my chapter in this important text, and for his perseverence in seeing this project through to completion during these challenging times.  

Keywords: Personalized Learning, Higher Education, Pedagogy, Pedagogical Relationality, Neoliberalism