How One District Improved Its Personalized Learning by Failing Forward
In this article, a professional development provider working with teachers at the Ben Davis Extended Day (BDED) blended learning program at Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township, Indiana, describes her experience working with teachers in a dynamic new way. Michele Eaton, the author, applauds the mindset of the teachers who when presented with the failure of a… Read More ›
Place-Based Education: Communities as Learning Environments
This was originally posted on Getting Smart on May 9, 2016 as part of their Place-Based Education blog series. As the emergence of personalized learning, project-based learning and deeper learning approaches, the time is right to connect learning to communities in authentic and meaningful ways. This place-based education approach can serve as a framework to connect learning… Read More ›
Online Learning Day: 8 Trends Improving Student Options
This article begins with a brief overview of the types of online learning available in states across the country as well as the reasons full and part-time online learning can provide a learning pathway for certain student populations not well-served in traditional school settings. The article outlines eight positive trends in online learning. These include… Read More ›
How Kids Learn Resilience
In this article, author Paul Tough asserts that non-cognitive traits or skills like grit, self regulation, optimism, and resilience cannot be “taught” but are more effectively built through student-centered environments which include both a sense of belonging and academic challenges. The article reviews recent brain-based research which shows development of non-cognitive traits is influenced by… Read More ›
Maine Voices: Casco Bay High Shines as Joyful Example of Learning’s Expedition
In this post, Derek Pierce, Principal of Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine writes about his school’s student-centered program and the state’s transition to a proficiency-based model for all schools. Casco Bay High School embraces a competency-based learning environment focused on interdisciplinary group projects. This model school continues to achieve a high retention and… Read More ›
Investing in Shared Leadership
This post is part of a series of posts related to the 2015 report, Implementing Competency Education in K-12 Systems: Insights from Local Leaders, which looks at implementation strategies districts are using to convert traditional education systems into environments for dynamic personalized learning. This post looks at the need for superintendents and principals to develop collaborative… Read More ›
Cracking the Code: Giving More Students Access to Computer Science
This post was originally published on American Youth Policy, July 11, 2016 Long, long ago, on a continent far, far away, I was determined to take a course in Computer Science. As I was an Arts Department major at my university in Cape Town, South Africa, I had to apply for special permission to venture into… Read More ›
Stanford Experiments with Virtual Reality, Social-Emotional Learning and Oculus Rift
This article describes the experiments conducted by Stanford graduate students at two California schools to harness new virtual reality technology to build student’s social emotional skills (SEL). At San Jose’s Alpha Public Schools, students are testing out Emoti, a virtual reality (VR) mindfulness exercise developed with a grant from inspirED, a partnership between Facebook and… Read More ›
Beware the Iconography Trap of Personalized Learning: Rigor Matters
In this thought-provoking article, Betheny Gross, Senior Analyst and Research Director at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), shares a key lesson learned from the organization’s multi-year, multi-method study to learn how school districts and regional partners can support the successful implementation, expansion, and sustainability of personalized learning. This article is the first in… Read More ›
Personalized Learning, Maine Style
This article in Education Leadership discusses Maine’s move to proficiency-based graduation requirements and the consequent move to increase personalized learning across the state. Mary Bellavance, President of Maine ASCD, and elementary instructional strategist in district RSU #57 in Waterboro, shares the story of her district’s approach to roll out personalized learning approaches with buy-in from… Read More ›
Student-Centered Learning Can Modernize Schools
In this commentary, Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) President and CEO, Nicholas Donohue, begins by stating that our education system is not broken, but outdated. He notes the system in fact does just what it was designed to do 100 years ago, cull out the best students and leave the rest to work in factories… Read More ›
How Can Schools Prioritize For The Best Ways Kids Learn?
This video and corresponding article from the former English teacher Will Richardson’s presentation at the 2016 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is on the need to match our beliefs and the research about how kids learn best with the reality of teaching and learning practices. Mr. Richardson looks to the types of learning students do… Read More ›