THE ROLE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN PERSONALIZING INSTRUCTION TO PROMOTE ACTIVE LEARNING

Abstract

Personalized instruction has consolidated as a pedagogical strategy oriented to learner variability, aiming to adjust goals, pathways, pacing, and support to expand opportunities for meaningful learning. In this context, digital technologies, when integrated into instructional design and formative assessment, can operationalize personalization at scale by offering adaptive pathways, multimodal resources, and mediation based on performance evidence. The promotion of active learning, in turn, places students in a position of cognitive and metacognitive agency, requiring high-demand intellectual tasks, collaboration, and decision-making, which strengthens the use of educational data to continuously improve teaching. Thus, digital platforms, intelligent tutors, virtual environments, and authoring tools can connect personalization and active learning by sustaining inquiry, problem solving, and ongoing feedback, provided that progress indicators are interpreted pedagogically and not only technically. However, the centrality of data and automated systems introduces challenges related to transparency, bias, privacy, and equity, requiring governance, accessibility, and ethical principles so that digital personalization does not reproduce inequalities. It is concluded that the potential of digital technologies depends on pedagogical intentionality, teachers’ capacity to use evidence, and institutional commitment to inclusion and data protection.