Personalized Learning | Blended Learning
Except for the fact that our whole team is so tired it is hard to get anyone to put a full sentence together, we kinda wish we could go to iNACOL once a month, not once a year. Being at a conference surrounded by smart, passionate, people that recognize the need to fundamentally shift the way we educate students now in order to enable every student to succeed is pretty exciting. I’m not going to lie, the conversations I overheard during meals are a nice change from what I hear in a typical restaurant - even while eating cheesy egg sandwiches at 7 am I was impressed with both the level of understanding and the thirst for knowledge expressed by conference attendees. So what did we do as a result? Well, we tried to capture all that energy and excitement with a personalized learning map!
Here is what we learned:
Many iNACOL attendees are exploring personalized learning. There are teachers thinking about doing it in their classrooms to see if it works, principals deciding if it is right for their schools and superintendents determining if and how to do it district wide. This group was proud of a few different things including:
- Getting the technology lined up
- Establishing a reflective practice
- Allowing students to take charge of their learning and
- Great collaboration
Many of you told us that you are already trying it, but still learning. This ranged from doing it in one classroom to doing it in a school or two. In some cases it was several schools but only a few months into the year, so you weren’t quite ready to say claim to know what you are doing yet (don’t worry, no one totally knows what they are doing - even if they have been doing it for a while). You were proud of:
- Strong teacher buy-in
- Exploring and piloting in 6 schools at once
- High graduation rates
- Helping all kids learn and
- The “super heroes” who were leading the charge
And then there were those who had been doing personalized learning for a while, but knew there was more to learn. This group had a lot to be proud of too, including:
- Helping kids who would not otherwise graduate from high school graduate
- Creating personalized learning pathways for schools and students
- Being the first online school in your district and
- Moving students from being passive recipients to active learners
Finally, we would be remiss to not capture all the people at the conference who live outside of school systems but spend their time within them helping schools and districts to do personalized learning (after all, we fall in this category too!). What is this group proud of?
- Helping others implement research-based personalized learning
- Increasing student mastery by providing content
- Reducing the cost of a college education and
- Helping every child every day
Truly this map was our favorite part of our week in Palm Springs (although the early morning hikes were pretty good too) but we cannot forget to mention our absolutely amazing pre-conference workshop where 4 districts shared their stories and what they are / were thinking about at different points in implementing personalized learning (Thank you to DCPS, Middletown, Horry County Schools and Uinta County School District 1!). The room was packed, the conversation lively and the energy in the room palpable. Similarly our panel with district leaders from Horry County Schools and Fulton County Schools could have gone on forever with all the questions from the very excited group and our panel on doing blended learning in rural districts (Thanks Uinta and Piedmont!) was not only interesting, but also modeled giving participants voice and choice. And then of course Wednesday night was all about fun with our book party for Michael Horn and Heather’ Staker’s new book, Blended. The line to get in snaked down the stairs and across the floor of the lobby and inside people chatted, drank and took an impressive number of silly photos (to be shared soon!)
I have now been back from #iNACOL14 for several days but my mind keeps going back to the conversations I had, the enthusiasm I heard, and the optimism I feel about how because of everyone there, more students will have a more personalized education and be better prepared for college, career and citizenship. So thanks to everyone who came and I hope to keep in touch as you continue on your journey!
