Community Contribution #6

For this Community Contribution, I decided to look at the personalization of a digital certification platform that I have done multiple times throughout my life. Concussion Awareness Training Tool for Athletes (CATT for Athletes) is a free, self paced, 30 minute online test that is meant to teach athletes how to detect, and steps to take when concussed. After completion of the three learning checks, a digital certificate is rewarded.

Although CATT is personalized for athletes, I don’t feel that it is personalized by athletes. Throughout the course, you will find multiple different videos, pictures, and scenarios based on sports and different situations. Questions and answers can vary from how to manage and deal with a concussion, how you might feel after a specific fall, what you could do to help someone who’s concussed, and protocol to follow based on the severity of the head injury. To someone who’s taken this test many times and dealt with the situations they’ve used in real life, I feel as if the outcome of the course is based on what the creator thinks is best. Bray & McClaskey (2014) describe personalization to be learner centered and the learner assist in setting goals and how they learn. With that being said, the course feels more teacher centered, or the information is provided and processed due to learning needs which makes it more on the differentiation side (Bray & McClaskey, 2014).

Overall, the Concussion Awareness Training Tool for Athletes is a great way to have players of any sport learn how to assess concussion symptoms on themselves and others along with learning what protocol to follow if a concussion were to happen. With that, CATT is better understood when approaching it in a differentiated manner rather than expecting it to be a platform built for personalized learning.

References

Bray, B. A., & McClaskey, K. A. (2014). Make learning personal: The what, who, WOW, where, and why. Corwin Press.