A proposed curriculum called the personalized education curriculum system (PECS) aims to provide pupils with a more pertinent curriculum that speaks to their futures. The U.S. Department of Education claims that when the curriculum is personalized, instruction is paced to learning needs, tailored to learning preferences, and tailored to the specific interests of various learners. Bray and McClaskey (2013) cite this claim in their explanation of PECS as a system. As a result, a personalized education curriculum system can be characterized as a teaching strategy that adjusts instructional strategies and content to accommodate each student’s unique requirements, interests, and learning preferences. It attempts to give students a more individualized and interesting learning experience, letting them advance at their own speed and provide career oriented learning experience. In order to deliberate on what a personalized education curriculum system is to the readers who may not be familiar with it, this article explores the core concepts of PECS.
According to Redding (2013), John Dewey’s (1915–1998) emphasis on experiential, child- centered learning, social learning, curriculum expansion, and readiness for a changing world is particularly present in modern personalized learning theories. To illustrate the idea of a practicalized education curriculum system, models like the student-centered approach, competency-based learning, and problem-based learning have been employed in the past. The progressivist philosophical foundations, which are the most appropriate philosophy to support a curricular system, were automatically reaffirmed throughout the expository stage of PECS. With regard to time, curriculum, and instructional delivery methods, personalized learning necessitates a change, but it also necessitates a change in how educators perceive and employ technology.Intelligent, automated tutoring systems that give students immediate and customized coaching, feedback, and ongoing performance assessments; platforms that enable students to connect with engaging learning content; and smart e-learning management systems that can dynamically track and manage the learning needs of individual students and whole classrooms are just a few examples of how technology can improve efforts to personalize instruction.
The personalized education curriculum system promotes assessment of each student’s talents, strengths, weaknesses, and learning preferences to develop a special learning route because it is well known that the curriculum system comes with its own assessment framework. This path would specify the order of subjects and tasks the student should complete in order to meet their learning objectives. Adaptive content, which offers a wide range of educational resources such as textbooks, digital content, videos, interactive simulations, and evaluations, is another important path that PECS promotes. In order to make sure that the students are given content that is appropriate for their level of understanding and challenges them appropriately, these resources would be dynamically modified based on the students’ progress. That progress introduces the data-driven insights, which assure the gathering and analysis of data on students’ performance, engagement, and learning habits, are necessary for tracking student performance at all times. With the use of this data, teachers and students would be able to better analyze student progress, spot areas in need of development, and adjust their instruction. In addition, communication and collaboration tools would be used to help kids, instructors, and parents/guardians communicate and work together. To promote interaction, facilitate peer learning, and enable prompt feedback and help from teachers, it could contain elements like discussion boards, chat platforms, and video conferencing capabilities.
With the ability to explore topics of interest, go deeper into topics they find tough, and bypass content they have previously mastered, the PECS education system allows students to learn at their own speed. It would allow for various learning preferences, methods, and skills, ensuring that education is individualized to meet student needs.This is in line with Yotta’s (2023) citation of Kelly (2013), who suggests that teachers should evaluate the learning preferences of their students and adapt their teaching strategies to suit each one. Teachers should also give regular and timely feedback on their students’ progress, successes, and areas for development. It would feature a variety of assessment tools, including tests, projects, assignments, and automated grading, to gauge student understanding and modify training as necessary.
It is for such reasons that PECS was developed, a need for a personalized education curriculum system that seeks to create a learner-centric environment that empowers students, supports their individual needs, enhances engagement, and promotes meaningful learning experiences. By leveraging technology and data-driven insights, it aims to optimize the educational journey for each student, fostering their academic growth and success. PECS was developed to be at the forefront of curriculum relevance issues. Just like the birth of postmodernism, PECS is the product of dissatisfaction with the modernist curriculum system in South Africa. PECS is meant to rescue students from the monstrous curriculum that fails to implement progressivism and provide differentiated learning that suits all students. Just like progressivism in the past, PECS is a disruptive and qualitative curriculum system that aims to end the confusion around the inconsistencies of the curriculum. PECS seeks to restore the value and dignity of our education system by making it responsive to the needs of society through the liberal education-based curriculum system. PECS aims to give students the opportunity to gain an insight into the world of work during their school years. This makes PECS unique and highly relevant in inspiring the education community of our country, South Africa, and Africa as a whole. And we believe that the education system can be improved in this way.
Know more about PECS: https://simnandisolutions.co.za/personalized-education/ – Click on PECS PowerPoint presentation.
Please answer these 3 questions and submit them: https://simnandisolutions.co.za/pecs – Questionnaires
Cite this publication: XABA, S.S. (2023). https://simnandisolutions.co.za/2023/07/29//
Bibliography
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Yotta, E. G. 2023. Accommodating students’ learning styles differences in English language classroom.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17497.Date of Access:25 July 2023.