Individual Learning Plan (ILP)

An individual’s learning plan is a document that summarizes the current ability of a student while outlining specific goals that should be attained after a given period of time to improve the learning process. The major goal of this tool is to guarantee that students with disabilities or learning difficulties have a right to utilize the normal curriculum, by offering them a customized teaching in order to meet their specific learning needs. The Individual learning plan considers the personal life of a student including linguistic, cultural and socio-economic environment. In most incidences, ILP’s are initiated by teachers who have a better experience with the student’s school conduct and academic performance on different disciplines. Individual learning plan is more effective when applied to a student who experiences difficulty in learning a specific subject or discipline (Engeström, 2018).  

2. Context for the student in the case study

The case study is about the academic life of a learner aged 9 years. The student encounters challenges that render it difficult to attend school on regular basis. In spite the fact that Jessie has not been diagnosed with any learning difficulty, the student still experiences challenges while learning mathematics. After assessment, NAPLAN in conjunction with her school found that she ranked below the accepted standards in numeracy. Her falling attitude in numerical has made Jessie to build a negative perception towards this subject. For instance, Jessie terms herself as “stupid”, an insight that makes her avoid class work by exposing disappointing tactics such as visiting the sick bay, creating commotion in classroom, posing argument or even living the class when asked to do a certain class work. Her anxiety is mostly seen when she is given assignments related to mathematics and during such incidences, she does not contribute to group assignments.

Based on this case study, Jessie needs a well formulated individual learning plan that will help her gain morale and interest in maths. In an attempt to solve this, her school provided additional 2 hours weekly to participate in primary school classes and boost her proficiency in maths. After having a conversation with Jessie about feeding her horse, she explains different ingredients and proportions she uses to make up a feed. From this discussion, it can be concluded that Jessie posses the basic numerical knowledge based on the way she mixes different proportions of the feed. Therefore, her individual learning plan will constitute mainly complex maths such as addition and subtraction of fractions. In addition, her learning plan will be integrated with motivational talk and encouragement to eliminate her perception that mathematics is a complex discipline.

3. The personalized planning given to the student (including the actual plan)

The main problem of Jessie is a negative attitude and low performance in mathematics. The personalized planning for this student will be formulated as an individualized learning plan that will help to achieve the main objective of motivating the learner to improve in mathematics. Based on the case study of Jessie, the actual plan below can be formulated.

Individual Learning Plan

Needs of the Learner

Jessie has the ability of measuring different mathematical quantities as seen in the way she mixes different proportions of horse feeds. Due to this, her learning will be limited to additions and subtractions using different denominators. To make her work easier, Jessie can use computers to understand the basics of computing different fractions. The motivation of Jessie is mixing different ingredients of horse feed, for this reason, her learning can be customized by conceptualizing additions and subtractions of fractions with horse feed ingredients. For example, adding a fraction of ingredient A with a certain fraction of ingredient B.

SMART goals

Eliminating the negative perception about mathematics from the student

Ensuring that the leaner understands additions and subtractions of fractions to catch up with her peers who are two years ahead

To improve the overall results of the student in the next NAPLAN assessment test.

Plan of the Program

According to the case, Jessie will be given 2 extra hours on weekly basis that will help her improve the overall performance in mathematics. The program will involve application of scientific notation, a concept that will make numbers appear more simple to read and handle. The program will also be executed using constructivism theory in order to integrate her experience of mixing horse feed with the learning of mathematics. The program will be performed within a period of one year in order to avoid contradicting the learning process of the learner in school.

Implementation of the plan

The implementation of this plan is heavily reliable on teachers, NAPLAN and my dedication towards helping Jessie improve in mathematics. The learning process will be implemented twice a week with the help of learning equipments such as concrete materials and computers. The implementation process will last for a period of 12 months based on the plan.

Monitoring and Reviewing

This is the last stage of the individualized learning plan whereby I will make relevant reports to Jessie teachers, parents or any other party involved on whether the plan is working or not. The records relating to the progress will be recorded in ILP’s sheet in order to determine any critical area that needs adjustment.

4. (Question four)

Backward design framework

This type of teaching and learning framework was adopted by McTighe and Wiggins. It leads the educational philosophy towards most current learning and teaching frameworks. Under this framework, the teacher decides the type of content to teach based on specific needs and requirements of the student. It focuses on what the leaner can understand appropriately at a given time (Engeström, 2018). This framework is crucial because it can help a teacher design a teaching process that will cater for all students, even those that require individualized learning.

5. (Question five)

- Adopting a teaching strategy that focus on strengths and challenges

- Presenting the ILP in a more friendly and simple language that will not make the leaner feel irritated

- Conducting regular meetings with learners in order to assess the progress and guarantee that all students have understood multiple class concepts.

- Using a teaching strategy that will focus mainly on all categories of learners including the minority that need a personalized program (Antonacopoulou, 2017).

Question 6

Example of quality differentiated tasks that will meet both the needs of Jessie and the rest of class members are;

- Using digital platforms such as ClassFlow to provide an interactive and a broad learning process to learners irrespective of their learning abilities (Hills, 2017).

- Using Computers to enable learners access numerical concepts and improve their computation knowledge at a faster rate. This differentiated task will cater for all categories of learners (Hills, 2017).

- Using progressive tasks

This quality differentiating task makes certain that teachers provide a student-customized learning based on different abilities. This approach will cater for learners who require a personalized teaching and also boost the understanding process of other learners in the classroom (Arifovic, 2018).

References

Engeström, Y. (2018). Expansive learning: Towards an activity-theoretical reconceptualization. In Contemporary theories of learning (pp. 46-65). Routledge.

Antonacopoulou, E. P. (2017). The dynamics of reflexive practice: The relationship between learning and changing. In Organizing reflection (pp. 61-78). Routledge.

Hills, H. (2017). Individual preferences in e-learning. Routledge.

Arifovic, J., & Ledyard, J. (2018). Learning to alternate. Experimental Economics, 1-30.

Huda, M., Mat Teh, K. S., Nor Muhamad, N. H., & Mohd Nasir, B. (2018). Transmitting leadership based civic responsibility: insights from service learning. International Journal of Ethics and Systems, 34(1), 20-31.