Personalisation... it's not the same as customisation! (AI in Education: Part 3)

Personalisation.

It’s one of those words that’s everywhere these days, a buzzword tossed around so much it starts to lose all its meaning. You hear it in product pitches, marketing materials, and tech demos, almost like a magic spell, but what does it really mean? Too often, personalisation gets reduced to a tech feature: changing settings, tweaking preferences, or getting algorithmic recommendations. But at its core? That’s a whole different story. It’s about crafting an experience, a service, or even a relationship that genuinely reflects the unique person at its centre. And when it comes to education, this depth of personalisation is absolutely essential, especially for students who don’t fit the usual mould. Today, let’s unpack what personalisation really is, why it matters, and next time, we’ll explore how AI tools might help us bring it to life in new and exciting ways.

Before we dive in, let’s clear up a common mix-up: personalisation versus customisation. They sound similar, and people often use them interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Customisation is the “choose your own toppings” approach. You pick blue over green, dark mode over light, or rock music instead of jazz. Those are useful options to have, but they’re mostly skin deep. Personalisation goes way beyond that. It’s like the chef who knows your allergies, your cravings, and even your weird food quirks and adjusts the whole recipe just for you. It’s an experience that evolves as it gets to know you, responding to who you truly are rather than just what you happen to select from a list.

Genuine personalisation depends on a few key pillars:

• Recognition: Someone (or some smart technology) actually takes notice of your unique history, quirks, and needs. This isn’t about “users like you,” it’s about you, in all your complex and wonderful uniqueness.

• Dialogue and Adaptivity: It’s a two-way street. You don’t just click your preferences once; the experience responds continuously to your actions and feedback.

• Memory and Care: Real personalisation builds over time. It’s like the barista who remembers your “usual” without you saying a word, or a friend who waits years to pull out an inside joke at just the right moment. It’s about sustained attention and care, not a one-time setup.

The most powerful personalisation happens in relationships. It’s how a loved one senses what you need before you say it, how a teacher recalls a fleeting interest you mentioned months ago, or how a mentor’s advice matches where you are in life. It’s about feeling truly seen and known, and this kind of personalisation helps us grow. Sometimes by affirming who we already are, and sometimes by nudging us towards possibilities we hadn’t considered. It’s that mix of comfort and gentle challenge that fosters real development.

Now, let’s bring this idea into education, where personalisation is often talked about but less often truly realised. Real personalised learning means education shaped by the students’ actual lives, interests, and needs. It’s what happens when a teacher notices a spark, nurtures a quirky interest, or believes in a student’s potential before the report card catches up. But here’s the thing: much of what’s marketed as “personalised learning” today (especially on tech platforms) feels a lot more like mass customisation. You answer a few questions, an algorithm sorts you into a box, and you get a neatly packaged set of activities: more practice here, a remedial video there, maybe a badge or two. It’s tidy, easy to measure, and scalable, but it often misses the messy, complicated reality of learning, especially when motivation fades or things get genuinely tough.

A truly personalised education means students’ backgrounds and voices shape their learning journeys. It means failure isn’t just a cue for more drills but an opportunity to explore new directions. It means that relationships in the classroom (the interactions between students, and between teachers and students) shape the learning experience just as much as any syllabus.

This matters most for students who don’t fit the traditional mould. One-size-fits-all rarely works for anyone, but for those with pronounced learning differences like ADHD, dyslexia, or other neurodiverse ways of thinking, it can feel like the classroom is a box they just can’t fit into, and that can be very damaging in a very real sense. When personalisation is done right, grounded in genuine understanding, relationship, and context, it becomes a lifeline. It helps all students, especially those who might otherwise be left behind, feel valued and seen. Their unique ways of learning and thinking don’t detract from the classroom; instead, they enrich it.

Let me bring this to life with a few examples:

Ella has ADHD and was diagnosed as she began year 5. Last year, school meant stomach aches because her teacher was always telling her to sit down, be quiet, and focus, with no time to re-explain activities when her attention wandered. This year, her new teacher offers alternatives: sometimes Ella can work at a standing desk, other times she draws her ideas instead of writing summaries. The teacher notices how Ella’s energy shifts during the day and creates moments where Ella can really shine… on her own terms.

Jamal is in year 9 and has dyslexia. Writing essays is a struggle for him, and his English grades suffer. But his history teacher knows Jamal is a great storyteller and lets him show his understanding through presentations and video essays instead of traditional exams. Jamal’s encouraged to bring his unique voice into projects, so he doesn’t feel like he’s constantly catching up. History has become his favourite subject.

Mia is neurodiverse but undiagnosed. She thrives in a classroom culture that values diverse thinking styles. Group work and peer mentoring allow her problem-solving skills to add new dimensions to the team instead of getting labelled “off track.”

In all these cases, personalised education is not a “set and forget” checkbox. It’s ongoing, responsive, and deeply relational. It requires teachers to have the flexibility and autonomy to get to know their students deeply and shape their approach accordingly. Deadlines can be adjusted, assessments come in many forms, and curiosity often leads instead of compliance. Personalisation isn’t about fitting students into narrower and narrower boxes for quick fixes, but opening up how knowledge is explored, shared, and celebrated, making space for different minds, backgrounds, and paths.

That said, it’s important to be aware of the risk of what I like to call “shallow personalisation” in education. This happens when the idea gets watered down into something superficial, like swapping out a worksheet or giving students a different badge, without actually responding to their deeper needs, interests, or circumstances. It’s a kind of personalisation that looks good on paper and is easy to measure, but doesn’t truly engage or support learners. Too often, shallow personalisation relies heavily on ticking boxes and standardised algorithms that put students into neat categories, missing the richness and complexity of real human learning. The danger is that it can give the illusion of care and responsiveness, while actually delivering more of the same one-size-fits-all approach in disguise. This can leave students feeling unseen or misunderstood, especially those who need genuine flexibility and understanding. It’s a reminder that personalisation for the sake of scalability or efficiency should never come at the cost of authenticity and depth.

Of course, delivering deep, meaningful personalisation isn’t easy. Not for teachers, and not for schools. It requires time, resources, and ongoing support, things that many educators simply don’t have in abundance. The pressure to meet standardised testing goals, manage large class sizes, and juggle administrative demands often means teachers don’t have the space to truly get to know each student or adapt flexibly to their needs. This isn’t a failing of individual teachers; it’s a systemic issue. The education system, with its emphasis on uniformity and efficiency, frequently sets up barriers that make genuine personalisation a heavy lift. Recognising this helps shift the conversation from blaming teachers to understanding the need for better structures, tools, and policies that enable educators to do their best work in personalising learning.

So, now that we’ve explored what personalisation truly means, beyond buzzwords and checklists, we can start to ask: How can we harness new technologies, especially AI, to help make this rich, responsive, and relational personalisation possible at a much larger scale? In the next post, we’ll dive into the role AI might play, not as a cold algorithm pushing more badges, but as a tool to support the kind of genuine, thoughtful personalisation that honours every learner’s unique story. Stay tuned.