Exploring the Potential for Students to Develop Self-Awareness through Personalized Learning

Personalized learning (PL) and social-emotional learning (SEL) are areas of increasing emphasis in U.S. educational policy and practice. With the goal of examining how these initiatives may be mutually supportive, this exploratory study investigates the potential for a PL experience to help middle school students develop the SEL skill of “self-awareness.” Using qualitative inquiry, we analyze reflective interviews with eleven students engaged in PL using an original self-awareness coding scheme. Our findings offer promising evidence that PL can promote self-awareness, including specific student examples, followed by recommendations for how PL and SEL efforts can be more strategically aligned.