Dive Brief:

• To help students find their own learning strengths and weaknesses, The Friday Institute at North Carolina State University launched Students LEAD, a free, online course for students and teachers that develops personal tools children can use to stay focused at school.

• Students find strategies to remove stumbling blocks through video, audio, text and online forums, learning how to ask for more support.

• The end result is an Advocacy Plan, tailored to each child’s personal learning style, and there are also time management tools, suggestions on how to improve their memory, and tips on how to share their needs with teachers and parents.

Dive Insight:

One out of every five children has a learning or attention challenge, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities. But every student has their own style of learning. Whether they pick up visual information more easily or find that details embed more deeply with a hands-on approach, when children discover how they learn, they have tools that can help them with school work and with challenges they’ll undertake after they graduate.

That may be one reason personalized learning is gaining a toe-hold in schools across the country. Asking students to play a role in developing their own learning plan can also get them more interested in adopting tools that can help them. They feel they’ve uncovered methods that work for them instead of being told what to do and how to do it.

Distractions are constant. Whether that’s a classmate who chews on their pencil noisily, or a co-worker who talks loudly on the telephone. When educators discover the best way a child learns, they not only help them with classwork, but give students strategies they can use forever.