Theorising Personalised Education

This book examines the theoretical underpinning of the concept of personalised education and explores the question: What is personalised education in the contemporary higher education sector and how is it implemented?  A broad, sophisticated definition of personalised learning has the potential to serve as a basis for more effective educational practices. The term 'personalised education' is, and continues to be, one with a variety of definitions. The authors' definition both incorporates earlier concepts of personalised education and critically reassesses them. The book then adds a further dimension: personalised instruction in electronically mediated environments, where the goal is to achieve learning towards mastery individually with the help of differentiated and individualised electronic learning platforms. This book assesses the various arguments concerning personalised education, examining each through the lens of educational theory and pedagogy and subsequently positing a number of qualitative characteristics of personalised education that have the potential to influence policy and practices in the higher education sector.

Barbara Garrick (1953-2015) was a loving wife to Mal, proud mum to Kylie, and devoted grandmother to Connor. She was an intrepid world traveller, and family historian. Barb was an imaginative and innovative teacher, a generous colleague and a researcher dedicated to reform, with interests in the areas of educational policy and practice, teaching students in the middle years, and researching academic work conditions, diversity, teacher identity and literacy, amongst others. Barb was an absolute joy to be with, and will be remembered by many with great admiration, affection and love. She is greatly missed.

Donna Pendergast is Jeff's wife and mum to Kyrra, who as a young teenager, is providing daily insights into the digital capacities of the amazing young people in our world today. Donna is a keen walker, and although these days it is mostly around office buildings, in the past she has powered her way through several world class walking challenges. She has a lengthy bucket list to walk her way through. Now Dean of the School of Education and Professional Studies, Donna began her career as a secondary school teacher. She comes from a family that places considerable value on the transformative potential of education and her aspirations have been shaped by these beliefs. 

David Geelan is Sue's husband and Cassie and Alex's dad. He reads plenty of crime and science fiction novels, rides a motorcycle and probably spends more time playing computer games than he can really afford. David started teaching high school science and maths in 1989 and has been a school teacher in three Australian states and a teacher educator in Papua New Guinea, Canada and Australia. In 1995, during his doctoral studies, David developed and taught his first online course, and he has had a research interest in e-mediated higher education ever since. In 2005 he was a Scholar at the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.