At the end of grade 7, I wrote a Math 8 Challenge exam (which I passed- yay) and was placed a year ahead in math. A year later, I was completing Math 9 ahead of schedule, and unfortunately stuck in a difficult situation. The only opportunity that I had to take my next math course would be to take early morning classes at my future high school, and then walk back to my middle school for the remainder of my classes. It wasn’t a highly desirable option (early mornings, scary high school students, walking 15 minutes per day exposed to the elements), so I opted to wait and ended up with a gap year in my math education despite my love for the subject.
As a teacher myself now, I see how varied my students are in their understanding/ability, and I see the way that a lack of individual pacing affects a substantial portion of my students – strong students who enjoy math are bored and I fear they’ll lose their passion, and weak students feel overwhelmed and don’t see the sort of success that would potentially help them start to enjoy the material.
I believe that the more learning is individualized, the more we will be able to help students pace their workloads in a way that builds confidence and addresses key issues that hold them back. Obviously advances in technology are essential in making this type of learning a possibility, and I believe this emerging market is heavily supported by many of the other emerging markets listed here in this forum. In fact, personalized learning seems like it is the natural next step as these other emerging markets progress.