For quite some time now, there has been a huge demand for personalized learning in Brazil and around the world. In any classroom, there are students who are more interested, others who have difficulty learning a particular topic, some who concentrate better, and others who are more restless and need to move around and interact frequently with their classmates, and so on.

The result of this very natural heterogeneity in traditional one-teacher-per-classroom settings is that the teacher focuses on students with average performance; some fall behind, and others who could move ahead do not. It’s also worth noting that it’s pointless to hold the teacher responsible for acting differently, since the task of providing personalized attention to dozens of students (it could be several dozen!) while they’re all together in the same space is not simple. In fact, it’s practically impossible.

How can you identify each student’s skill level in real time? How can you learn about each student’s personal interests? How can you organize yourself to consistently bring varied content into the classroom—on paper? How can you help some students without neglecting others, while still maintaining some calm in the classroom? Of course, there are pedagogical strategies for this, such as station rotation, in which each group of students works on something different at a station and moves around the classroom: at one station, the teacher can provide individualized attention or work with small groups.

How much planning does a strategy like this require? Do teachers have that kind of time? Given the way teaching loads are distributed in public and private schools in Brazil today, that time is practically nonexistent, and these more complex pedagogical strategies require extensive teacher training—which, in the end, is not offered to everyone with the necessary intensity.

With the pandemic, the learning gap among students in the same class will widen even further, compounded by the fact that they have spent nearly a year without classes or have learned very little; and if we want them to reach pre-pandemic levels—or even higher—by the end of their schooling, all students will need to accelerate their learning. This is by no means an easy challenge.

If teachers have to handle this on their own, few will be able to do so. They need to expand their capabilities, and only technology can make that possible.

How can technology expand a teacher’s capabilities? There are many possibilities: teachers can rely on digital diagnostic tests with automatic scoring that quickly assess each student’s level—tests that can be easily created with just a few clicks. These tests can be brief and administered frequently, without much formality, simply to track students’ learning.

In addition, technology enables personalized learning. It makes it possible to provide tailored content to each student. Students, in turn, can choose from a range of content in different formats and study however they prefer. With more advanced technologies, it is even possible to provide different content to different students, based on their profile, learning level, or desired learning outcomes.

With technology, teachers can gamify their classes, helping students engage with their studies as if they were playing a game, and award virtual prizes, wings, or powers—all while avoiding assessment based purely on grades, which can demotivate so many students!

With technology, teachers can track their students’ progress through graphs showing performance, participation, assignment submissions, mastery of skills and competencies, and progress on a gamified platform. This information can serve as a basis for making various decisions about the type of support each student needs, the type of approach students prefer, what has already been achieved, and what can still be accomplished at the individual, class, or school level.

With access to adaptive resources, teachers can rely on technology to identify where each student is in the learning process, automatically send motivational messages, and provide content and new tests to track everyone’s progress in real time, allowing them to intervene in each student’s learning process at any time.

Can powerful tools like these replace teachers? Many people believe so. However, the truth is that if students learn on their own, at their own pace, without a teacher’s support, they will have a very limited learning experience and will not achieve the desired results in terms of accelerated learning. The goal of these tools is to empower teachers so they can facilitate more learning in less time using a wealth of resources.

Freed from the tasks of constantly assessing, crafting questions, creating content, and keeping an eye on dozens of students all at once, and able to speed up the assessment of their class and students, teachers can find the time to propose a wide variety of group activities—and, when they’re focusing on some students, ensure that the others aren’t left with nothing to do.

And so, by using technology to better understand students, to offer them more options, to provide a wider variety of activities, and to check more frequently on their progress, teachers can support, encourage, and guide each student at their own pace, with a focus on accelerating learning. They can also engage the class in group projects.

All of these technologies already exist. It’s worth it for administrators to explore what’s available from their educational materials suppliers, educational technology providers, and the open internet. After all, if they don’t empower their teachers, the responsibility for meeting all the extra demands as classes resume will fall on the very same teachers who were already struggling to provide personalized instruction before the pandemic.

For very difficult challenges like the ones we face, it is essential to provide the tools to empower teachers.

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