[2] Even enthusiasts for the concept admit that personal learning is an evolving term and doesn't have any widely accepted definition.
New studies are coming out that suggest that AI may be a top source for creating quick individual based learning programs.
Problematic in this is the discounting of the highly relational and socially constructed space well defined in the research on learning.
[8] Proponents argue that classroom learning activities must build upon students' prior knowledge and teachers need to allocate time for practice.
Conferring, as defined by Julie Kallio, is a "regular, goal-oriented meeting between the teacher and student(s) where they talk about learning progress, process, and/or products."
The idea of providing feedback to advance student learning is best understood in the framework of the "zone of proximal development" or ZPD.
[13] Psychologist Lev Vygotski has defined the ZPD as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.
In their book The Writing Workshop, Katie Wood Ray and Lester L. Laminack added a fourth component in where after the teaching portion, the student and/or the teacher would "Make a Record.
Using a mix method case study approach in observing a group of 4th grade students, Javaye Devette Stubbs posed the question: "How does the implementation of one-on-one conferring promote higher order thinking skills in students with difficulties in reading?
"[16] The results from her pre and post-test found that "even those with reading difficulties did show a significant gain in higher order thinking skills".
[16] In a separate study, the educator Antony Smith examined the effectiveness of using teacher-student writing conference for English language learners (ELLs).
[18] Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley write that while there are advantages in students being able to access information instantly on-line, one should not mistake such processes for "something deeper, more challenging, and more connected to compelling issues in their world and their lives.
"[19] Alfie Kohn wrote that while personalized learning may sound like a useful strategy for education, in practice it is mostly just about selling technology products.
Personalized learning promises a strategy to specifically adjust education to the unique needs and skills of individual children, he argued, but really it means merely "adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students' test scores... [and] requires the purchase of software from one of those companies that can afford full-page ads in Education Week."
In future research, it is important to continue to study these schools who are piloting personalized learning to see how their needs change over time.