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Education Elements
 

NOVEMBER 2018

 
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FEATURED NEWS

 

Talk the Talk: Communication Planning
for Innovation in Education Webinar

Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful innovation in education. Join Amy Jenkins from Education Elements and Kira Keane from the Learning Accelerator for this webinar on November 15th. Get expert tips and tools for communications planning, as well as real-world examples from districts across the country that are implementing blended and personalized learning

Sign up for the webinar

 

The Responsive Org Webinar
Join Keara Duggan, Partner at Education Elements, on December 4th as she discusses how we help schools and districts be thriving and responsive organizations. Based on research, internal projects, and client work over the past 8 years, we at Education Elements have developed our own agile and responsive practices. 

Sign up for the webinar



The National Academy for Personalized Learning is Coming to Texas! 

Temple ISD, in collaboration with Education Elements and Google for Education, is bringing The National Academy for Personalized Learning to Texas.

This is a FREE one-day professional development event, designed for district leaders at all stages of their personalized learning implementation. The event is suited for teams of people (ideally 3 or more). If you are in the area, register your team and join us for a day full of learning with personalized learning and technology experts!

More Academy Information

 

Google Cloud Partner-245051-editedEducation Elements is incredibly excited and honored to be one of the first two organizations that are part of Google’s newly created Transformation Partner program.

 

ON OUR MINDS

 

Responsive Districts

We believe in bringing our responsive practices to our district partners through how we manage our projects. We encourage our teams to rethink how information is shared and retool how we plan together for change.

Here are two quick highlights of how this plays out with our clients:

Loudoun County Public Schools 
In Loudoun County Public Schools, we organize our bi-weekly team meetings the same way we run all of our internal EE meetings, following a tactical meeting structure. We start with check-ins to get centered and provide space to share items which are top of mind. We quickly run through the project checklist to cover all metrics, which allows us to swiftly identify where our energy needs to be spent during the call. We then build the agenda on the fly - so that the most critical items are discussed as a team. This structure has encouraged Loudoun’s team to take ownership over the discussion - leading to higher participation and satisfaction across the team, as well as more effective decision making and closer monitoring of priority areas for the team!

 

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Spring Branch Independent School District
In Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD), we are ‘running’ our current technology planning project as a series of agile sprints. We collaboratively identify the tasks to be completed in one-month time chunks through a short brainstorming activity. We then leverage a Trello board to manage and monitor tasks in the current sprint, with different team members assigned ownership to shepherd tasks through completion. This structure has allowed us to model the use of a new digital tool. We are also providing a single spot for all tasks to live, which aligns communication and resources and helps us keep tabs on all of the moving parts of a large project.

 

DESIGN SPOTLIGHT

 

Innovative Leadership Development

We have noticed that strong implementations are often guided and sustained by strong leaders. We continuously ask ourselves, “What makes certain leaders successful in driving and supporting innovation?” As we strive to ensure dynamic and innovative classrooms across the country, we believe that leaders must intentionally create space for innovation and encourage their staff to embrace risk-taking. Our theory is that some key leadership roles can impact an entire culture of innovation! As such, we have developed a leadership methodology with specific innovative leadership competencies and frameworks that help guide those who find themselves leading transformational change in their communities:

  • District Leaders are leaders at the district or multi-school level who support initiatives related to principals and teachers.

  • School Leader is an administrator such as principal, assistant principal or dean who leads campus-wide initiatives.

  • Coaches are individuals who support teachers to improve instructional practice. Whether or not an individual’s title includes the word “coach,” any person who provides feedback, professional development and coaching can play a significant role in supporting teacher innovation.

  • Teacher-Leaders not only lead student-centered environments, but have an influence on others beyond their classroom. Teacher-leaders play a key role in motivating and developing their peers as they embrace innovative practices.

Want to learn more about Innovative Leadership Development? Contact keara@edelements.com

 

RESOURCES

 
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The Responsive Org Playbook

The playbook captures our secret sauce for helping our teams effectively collaborate, make decisions, and achieve their goals.

Download My playbook

 

FEATURED BLOGS

 

A Day in the Life of a Student in a Personalized, Competency-Based School

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By Chris Sturgis - Guest Author

Mike Wolking, currently completing an Axford Fellowship, sent me a summary of a short investigation he completed in how a student spends their day. He followed a student in a New Zealand secondary school for a day and tracked her activities. As I read through the summary, I thought it might be a helpful way to begin to think about the quality of personalized, competency-based education. 

Read More

 

How Can Personalized Learning Support Educational Equity?

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By Noah Dougherty

While educational equity and personalized learning certainly seem complementary, what is their actual relationship with one another?

Read More

 
 

EVENTS WE'RE ATTENDING

 

Nov 7-8
First Time Supt Academy
Round Rock, TX

Nov 8
TNREA Education Elements' Personalized Learning Workshop
Cleveland, TN

Nov 14
Reading In Motion
Las Vegas, NV

Nov 19
IU12
Gettysburg, PA

Nov 28-Dec 1
AESA
Colorado Springs, CO

Dec 1-5
Learning Forward Conference
Dallas, TX

Dec 6-7
New School Rules Institute
Denver, CO

Dec 10
National Academy for Personalized Learning
Texas

Dec 11-13
TOSS Leadership Development
Knoxville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Want to meet up at an event? Email ben@edelements.com 

 

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