Personalized Learning Summit 2016 Takeaways

“All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting.  If they want different results, they must change the way they do things.”   Tom Northrup

Wow.  My experience in these two short days has been profound.   Northrup’s quote included in a keynote address by Michael Horn, coupled with a visit to a well known tech company has diverted my attention from professional development around strategies and best practice to the importance of culture and space.  It is so essentially important that all stakeholders know and understand the vision and mission of the school.  How else can we expect buy-in and fidelity to our vision?  To move beyond compliance to “this is how we do things around here?” This change needs to happen.

I realize that we already have our list of words/phrases that create our foundational vocabulary, but I think we need to go further than that.  Yes, we need to know and own those words/phrases, but are they easily articulated?  And perhaps we need to revisit them given our learning over the past year.  But there needs to be more.  How do we build it into the DNA of our culture? Suggestions welcomed!

Of course, we also need to be able to identify our culture in the makeup of our space(s).  Investment in new mobile furniture is imperative to promote collaboration and ease of transition in the classroom.  If we want to model what is going on in the workforce, rows of desks facing front is NOT the answer.  If we want to grow individuals reliant on guidance and focused on a central personality, then we can continue as we are.  If we want students that are self-reliant, that own and drive their learning, then we must change the way we set up the classroom and the learning experience.

Blended Bulletin, Issue 30

Blended Brags

This kudos goes out to Danielle Knobloch who is already thinking about plans for next year! Danielle sees room for improvement in her blended classroom and plans to implement consistent structures for the beginning and end of class. She has specific plans in place to increase and improve student reflection in her classroom, asking questions about what students have learned, and also how students have learned. Awesome work!

Cool Tools

Amazon Whispercast is a freemium tool that connects teachers with a large library of eBooks (some free, some not) that can be digitally distributed to a class. Teachers can also upload their own content for easy distribution. Thanks for the suggestion, Laura Pels!

Here's an interesting take on summer reading. Newsela has unveiled Camp Newsela. Through this web tool, students can join a club (i.e., Strong-of-Stomach Club) and be assigned articles to read over a 2 week time span. When the club achieves its reading goal, students will have the chance to donate to DonorsChoose projects.


Professional Learning

Without clear communication, learning movements like project-based learning and makerspaces can be scary to parents in low-income communities. Why the Language We Use About Learning Determines Inclusivity discusses how to make deeper learning stick and be successful for all stakeholders. 

In The Personalized Learning Mindset, posits that personalized learning is not something you do or accomplish, but rather is a way of being. Check out the three proof points of someone with a PL Mindset.

Saying 'No' to the Slide: 20+ Summer Opportunities for Educators and Students offers lists of ideas for both students and teachers to continue learning over the summer. These lists have a distinct edtech flavor.

Thoughts from the Education Elements PL Summit

Education Elements, our blended learning consultants, recently hosted their 2nd annual Personalized Learning Summit in San Francisco. Amidst the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and lots of sea lions, this conference provided an opportunity to hear about best practices in the field from presenters and to network with leaders from other schools and districts.

Here are a few takeaways:

1. Walk Your Talk- During the PL Summit, I had the opportunity to tour the headquarters of Pinterest. Though admittedly I am not the target demographic of the app, I am secretly (okay, not-so-secretly) an avid Pinner. Needless to say, the visit to Pinterest was definitely a highlight of the conference! While at first it was cool to feel like I was on the set of Silicon Valley, it quickly became apparent that this company is driven by a clear purpose and all of the organizational decisions they make are in accordance with that purpose. This is best demonstrated by Pinterest's core values: We put Pinners first, We knit, We're authentic, We go.

There is much to learn from how Pinterest practices these core values. By putting Pinners first, Pinterest has committed to perfecting the user experience. If students are our users, what are schools doing to perfect student experiences? All decisions teachers and school leaders make need to be for the good of students. The core value, We knit, refers to the collaborative workplace at Pinterest. All meeting rooms had glass walls and different teams consistently met together. To really best serve our students, teachers should be just as open and collaborative in their practice. We're authentic captures the reflective environment of colleagues in Pinterest headquarters, where high-level goals are set and actions towards those goals are honestly assessed. Teachers shouldn't be afraid to set ambitious goals and risk falling short; instead, they should be empowered to set those goals and supported if they don't quite get there. And finally, We go describes the need for Pinterest to always be ready to change and try things. Schools should feel that same sense of urgency to try best practices. There needs to be a spirit of planning and iteration, and not waiting for the next school year to try something.

2. Learning Like Our Students- This takeaway seems to be the culmination of a lot of my learning from conferences this year. As we seek to personalize learning for our students, especially in blended environments to ensure that learning can happen anytime, anywhere, shouldn't we practice the same type of learning as teachers? Teachers love learning, but traditionally, that learning is meted out in small doses at regular times over the course of the school year. When that chance for professional learning finally comes around, it often misses the mark in terms of content and delivery. These reasons are why I've been so enamored by microcredentialing for professional development. Microcredentialing is the idea that teachers should have the flexibility of place, pace, path, and/or time in their professional development. A microcredential could be awarded to a teacher that demonstrates (competency-based) their learning or expertise of a concrete teaching practice. Many districts incentivize this by awarding CEUs, college credit, or money for completion of microcredentials. While there is still a lot to explore with this, such as how can we incentivize in this district, the idea that teachers should be empowered to learn anytime, anywhere is something that sticks with me.

3. We're Not Alone!- In one particular session, and in conversations with leaders from other districts, I found it remarkable how similar personalized learning shifts have been across the country, from California, to Wyoming, to Myrtle Beach. Both the successes and struggles that we have in Hartford are similar to those in other districts in their first years of implementation. What was great to see were videos from districts a few years advanced from where we are, and the impact their changes have had. While it may seem like we have a long way to go to become a student-centered district, it is important to know that we are moving in the right direction and we have co-travelers on this journey!

Blended Bulletin, Issue 29

Blended Brags

On Sundays, I get weekly reports from our digital content providers about our students', teachers', and schools' progress. Despite some obstacles, we've had several teachers jump in to start using IXL, ThinkThroughMath, and ThinkCERCA. Bringing in digital content to the classroom is no easy thing, especially when you think about what may go wrong, so I applaud the risk-taking! I'd encourage everyone to check out the digital tools that you have access to and to start thinking about how you might use them next year.

Cool Tools

Newsela has done a lot this school year to update their tool with new content and new capabilities. Most recently, Newsela announced the release of Time Machine, an archive of historical accounts of significant events. These articles still feature different Lexile ranges and are tied to reading standards. Newsela also recently released text sets, some of which partner these historic articles with current events.

Professional Learning

One of the key grappling points with blended and student-centered learning is how much personalization is too much. In Bursting the 'Personalization' Bubble: An Alternative Vision for Our Public Schools, the author advocates for a renewed use of cognitive science in designing new instructional practices.

In What a Decade of Education Research Tells Us About Technology in the Hands of Underserved Students, the author reports on her review of literature that basically concludes, "overall, students who are black, Hispanic, or low-income are more likely to use computers for drill-and-practice, whereas students who are white or high-income are more likely to use computers for simulations or authentic applications." The author goes on to suggest five uses of technology to help fix this inequity.

Blended Bulletin, Issue 28

Blended Brags

Thank you to all teachers and students who played a roll in the Nellie Mae site visit. We had a large number of enthusiastic visitors and they were treated to interesting classes and engaging presentations.

Nellie Mae visitors enjoying their luncheon Q&A at Bulkeley.

Students in Susan Johnston's class created this video to show how much they love Blended Learning!

Justin Taylor and Jessica Chirdon are combining their two classes and co-teaching students through a research paper related to the Holocaust. To do this, they are using a flex model where students are mostly working independently, but data from EdPuzzle videos on research/writing skills is being used to inform them which students to pull into small group instruction. Justin and Jessica set themselves and their students up for success by explicitly teaching the expected behaviors for each area of the room.

Cool Tools

Google Slides just introduced a new feature that you may have recently noticed called Q&A. The feature allows a presenter to share a link where audience members can submit questions in a back channel. The audience can "like" questions that have been asked so that the presenter can prioritize questions that are popular in the group. I played with this feature last week and found it extremely easy to use! Check out this promotional video:

Because I can't get enough of cool physics experience, here is Physics Girl, a series of free video resources from PBS LearningMedia.

ThinkCERCA has updated their lesson library to include filters. This should making finding the "just right" lesson even easier.

Professional Learning

Can growth mindset theory reshape the classroom? According to this article, it can, but now the research needs to be turned into effective practice.

A middle school teacher reflects on incorporating reflection into her PBL classroom in 

Reflect versus Critique in the PBL Classroom. An interesting read that differentiates reflection on process from critique of product.

As we know, technology for technology's sake does not work. Five Myths About Classroom Technology (And What To Do, Instead) challenges us to think about classroom technology best practices.

Blended Bulletin, Issue 27

Blended Brags

On Wednesday and Thursday last week, a team of teachers from JMA and BHS joined our wonderful coaches Natalie and Kelly from Education Elements for the final workshop of the year. On Wednesday, these teachers opened their classroom doors for walkthroughs. Visiting their classes, we were able to see engaging Kahoot! games, choice lectures through EdPuzzle, authentic reading and writing practice with ThinkCERCA, and other thoughtful ways of using technology to enhance instruction. We were also able to see station rotation models that allowed for small group instruction and for students to have ownership of their learning.

On Thursday, the team came together for a Reflect and Plan academy. Teachers shared their best practices and worked on what changes and improvements they would like to make for next year. I can't wait to see what they have in store for 2016-17!

 Professional Learning

In It’s Time to Stop Hiding Behind Graduation Rates, Nicholas Donahue, the president and CEO of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, discusses how college and career readiness needs to be the measure of success for schools, not graduation rates. How do we improve college and career readiness? Student centered learning.

When Celebrating Learning Differences Is At the Heart of School Culture shares the stories of two schools as they use specific knowledge of each of their students to personalize learning.

The idea behind Let Teachers Design Better Ways to Use School Time is that when time is a variable, teachers should have voice in how it is used in order to avoid time wasted.

Why Flipped Learning Improves a Teacher’s Questioning Skills shares another benefit of flipping your classroom: teachers can ask question that might actually be answered! (Due to the ability to personalize questions for individual or groups of students)

“Can You Hear Me?!”: The Power of Student Voice shares the process and takeaways of one school when they included student voices in reshaping their school.

Blended Bulletin, Issue 26

Blended Brags

Last week, 9th-12th grade Bulkeley students sat down with the software developers for Middlebury Interactive Languages to provide feedback about their tool to support ELLs. Students were able to voice their opinions about the software to the developers in hopes of making the product better. I was deeply impressed by the students making suggestions for the product to improve their learning and not just to make the product more enjoyable! To learn more about MIL's partnership with Hartford Public Schools, check out this article.

Cool Tools

Win the Whitehouse is a fun simulation where students create a presidential candidate and try to make it to the Oval Office. The game takes students through picking a party, establishing their opinions on political issues, and making it through the primaries and election processes.

US News Map is an interactive map of the United States that displays the reporting of news stories over time and locationally. The site also allows you to view images of the original newspapers.

Professional Learning

How can Social Studies benefit from digital content? The Value of Modern Social Studies in Cultivating Real World Literacy shares top resources for bring history to our students' fingertips.

It is often easy for us to claim a buzzword as us ("I am a blended teacher"), or think of a buzzword as unattainable ("We can't do blended here"). ‘It’s Personalized, Online, and Blended’: How to Make Edtech Buzzwords Substantive tells us that when it comes to buzzwords, actions speak louder than words.