Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education

iNACOL report provides clarity of terms for understanding new learning models

At the core of the transformation of education toward student-centered learning is the ability to personalize learning for each student, to open student pathways and encourage student voice and choice in next generation education models. To aid classroom, school and state leaders in their pursuit of this goal, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) has published a new report, Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education.

“The majority of our current education landscape utilizes a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL. “Personalized learning tailors learning for each student’s strengths, needs and interests, and in doing this, new school models can unleash the potential of each and every student in ways never before possible.”

The goal of Mean What You Say is to explain the nuances of key terms used across the field of K-12 education related to personalized, blended and competency education, and how these ideas integrate in order to create new learning models.

“The field of leaders developing next-generation school designs is growing rapidly and it is easy to fall into the trap of using interrelated concepts as if they are one and the same,” said Susan Patrick. “Often, people will use terms such as blended learning or competency-based learning as stand-ins for personalized learning. This paper aims to make sense of these terms individually and then show how they fit together.”

In addition to describing nuances at the classroom-level for the ability to personalize learning across implementations, Mean What you Say presents a resource for deeper exploration of instructional models and modalities to re-imagine what is possible for new learning models in K-12 education.

Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education is available at http://bit.ly/meanwhatyousay.

About iNACOL
The mission of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) is to ensure all students have access to a world-class education and quality blended and online learning opportunities that prepare them for a lifetime of success. iNACOL is a non-profit organization focusing on research, developing policy for student-centered education to ensure equity and access, developing quality standards for emerging learning models using online, blended, and competency-based education, and supporting the ongoing professional development of classroom, school, and district leaders for new learning models.