Precision Learning

Like most strategies, personalized learning works, if done well.

But when it’s not implemented the right way, personalized learning can become nothing more than self-paced software or digital content playlists that lead the learner to a convoluted end, lacking rigor and creating mushiness.

This week Robin Lake, executive director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), posted an article focused on precision learning (The 74, 3/10/26). Precision learning, like precision medicine, relies on artificial intelligence to bring to the learning environment the same focus, individualization, urgency, and care doctors use in saving lives.

“AI is already in classrooms across the country, but mostly to help teachers save time or give extra support to children with disabilities or language barriers. What if all students could attend schools that said, ‘We treat learning like it’s your learning,’ offering precision education: a supportive environment harnessing human expertise and technology to deliver truly customized solutions for every child?”

“That reality is closer than we think. AI gives educators the potential to understand, diagnose and respond to students’ learning needs with a specificity that was previously impractical at scale. It can rapidly surface a child’s learning gaps and strengths in math and recommend targeted interventions. But that information alone does little; AI’s power lies in being embedded in professional workflows, guiding adults toward specific evidence-based actions and tracking whether those measures improve learning over time. To effect genuine change, AI must be accompanied by a reevaluation of the systems that contain it.”

According to Lake, precision learning is fundamentally different than today’s personalized learning.

“It would enable educators to use technology, data and evidence to identify exactly where a student is struggling, which interventions are most likely to work and how to deliver them effectively and equitably. This is a commitment to evidence over intuition, to shared professional standards over individual preference, to accountability for results rather than good intentions. Personalization asks educators to adapt and give students more choices. Precision demands that state, district and school leaders change how decisions are made, implemented and evaluated.”

“If a patient were dying and a proven treatment existed, it would be unthinkable for a doctor to withhold it. Yet in classrooms, students fall further behind every day, even when research-based solutions exist to help them succeed.”

“In medicine, good intentions are not enough. They must be paired with evidence, standards and accountability. Education deserves the same seriousness, because the stakes are just as high. Precision learning is not about replacing teachers or chasing the next shiny technology. It is about building the professional, moral and structural capacity to deliver what we already know works for every student.”

25 years ago, we initiated a case study approach in our high school to help pinpoint the exact cause for a student’s failure. Although effective, our case study approach was rudimentary and primitive.

Today, adding precision learning capabilities, including artificial intelligence, to a personalized learning approach for all kids will blow our case study approach out of the water when it comes to building stronger learners.

It’s time for us to learn from other professions and how those professions are using artificial intelligence for the betterment of their clients.

Too many of our clients, our young learners, are struggling and eventually failing.

It’s time for a new model of learning and precision learning coupled with personalized learning just might be the answer.

ABPTL will reappear March 17^th. Til then. SVB