B.Y.O.T Bring Your Own Thoughts
The latest on all student-centered models, leadership development, strategic planning, teacher retention, and all things innovation in K-12 education. We answer questions before you think to ask them.
Crisis Management | School Leadership | Virtual Learning
Learning loss is the baby elephant in the room. It’s an issue that is currently small enough to briefly acknowledge, deprioritize, or ignore completely. Yet this elephant will continue to grow as the size and scale of learning loss due to the pandemic is better understood. The vaccine has returned a sense of hope that life will get back to “normal.” But educators must recognize that a return to “normal” will only reinforce the widening opportunity gap and systems that support institutionalized racism. Instead, structural changes will need to be made if learning loss is to truly be addressed. This conversation is critical as schools transition from virtual learning to in-person (and maybe back) this year, and begin planning for the summer and 2021-22 school year.
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Crisis Management | District Leadership | School Leadership | Virtual Learning
From North Carolina to California to Alaska, public schools around the United States are planning to preserve a virtual school option for students after the pandemic is over. The constant drumbeat of getting all students back to school as quickly as possible does not tell the whole story of learning in the pandemic. Singing the praises of virtual learning was not something many students, educators, and families would see themselves humming along to twelve months ago. But from the early and draining days, there has been a rhythm and stability that has flourished in expected and unexpected ways.
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District Leadership | Equity | School Leadership
At the beginning of last week, my colleagues Purvi Patel, Dave Hardy, and I were excited to welcome leaders participating in our inaugural cohort of the Systems of Educational Equity Development (SEED) Fellowship after a well-deserved break and launch the beginning of our INCLUDE sessions.
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District Leadership | Innovative Leadership | Personalized Learning | School Leadership | Teams & Culture | Virtual Learning
I got started with this tradition of predictions in 2010 after reading Disrupting Class, a book by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn. In their book, they predicted that by 2019, 50% of all high school courses will be online in some blended learning model. That was a pretty bold prediction in 2008 when the book was published, but their model for cycles of innovation seems pretty accurate now that we have hindsight. Even as of May 2019, there were people pointing out the failure of this prediction. Now at the end of 2020, I’d estimate that +95% of all K-12 students took some form of an online class, and most likely this trend will continue into 2021.
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Remote Work | School Leadership | Teachers
It’s December. We made it to the end of 2020 – a spectacularly stressful year, no matter who you are, what you do, or where you live. As the months ticked by, though, it became clear that the chaos of the year placed almost unbearable levels of stress on some professions, educators among them. As schools wind down for winter break in the midst of a national spike in COVID-19 numbers, it may be a good time to deconstruct and consider burnout, what it looks like, what causes it, and what we can do about it.
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District Leadership | Remote Work | School Leadership | Teachers | Virtual Learning
This Fall, Education Elements hosted our first ever virtual Distance Learning Road Race. The rationale was simple - we wanted to create a space to promote mental and physical wellness, model best practices for virtual community building, and give back to our partners and community. Admittedly, the ‘race’ was more of a running challenge, encouraging participants to commit to running a final distance of their choosing and engage with us over six weeks of challenges between September to November.
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