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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The nation’s smallest state aims to be a national incubator for technology in the classroom\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Nichole Dobo, \u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Dozens of teachers hovered around a group of students gathered in the center of a beige conference room on a Saturday morning in April. Other teachers sat in rows of chairs, craning their necks to see the action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students paid no mind. They tapped on computer keyboards. They wrote math problems with magic markers. They plopped on the floor to work on a group project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teacher-spectators were looking under the hood of a new classroom model at Rhode Island’s blended and personalized learning conference. “We want to see how it works, how it’s set up,” said Kim Wilson, a second-grade teacher at North Kingstown Schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across Rhode Island, schools are experimenting with the ways technology can help teachers tailor-fit lessons to the unique needs of each student. It’s called personalized learning, and trying to understand how it unfolds in a classroom is not easy. It’s best understood by seeing it in person, and this model classroom provided that view. The technology was there, but students weren’t lined up in a row in front of computers. In fact, the computers almost seemed beside the point — as important and yet as invisible as pencil and paper. And none of the students were looking to a teacher for direction on what to do next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To create excitement, rather than a sense of dread, about new methods of teaching and learning, Rhode Island has partnered with the local nonprofit Highlander Institute to develop a “teachers-teach-teachers” program. Called Fuse RI, it is meant to nurture good ideas by having educators mentor teachers outside their own school districts and serve in leadership roles on administrative teams to help principals and superintendents plan how to use these new models of teaching and learning. Tiny Rhode Island wants to serve as an incubator for the way schools can change when teachers are leaders; indeed, the state launched a program last year called SyraFuse, through which it is sharing what it has learned about personalized learning with the Syracuse, New York, school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort comes at a time when there’s little clarity from the U.S. Department of Education on what support (if any) there will be for classroom technology — including research and funding — from the federal government during the Trump administration. With that lack of leadership, some education reformers say that states need to lead the way in spreading good ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a strategy coming from D.C.,” said Arne Duncan, the former U.S. secretary of education who is now a managing partner at the Emerson Collective, in a phone interview. “I wish that wasn’t so, but that is the reality. That’s all the more reason why it matters. You either quit, or you take it to the districts and the states.”\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>States like Rhode Island are “a coalition of the willing and a coalition of the courageous,” Duncan added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48394\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48394\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/06/Nichole-Dobo-fuse-ri-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Educators and students from Captain Isaac Paine Elementary School, a public school in Foster, Rhode Island, simulate a classroom lesson for other teachers in Rhode Island during a conference about blended and personalized learning. \u003ccite>(Hechinger Report/Nichole Dobo )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And their work starts in the classroom. The select Fuse RI teaching fellows are assigned by the Highlander Institute to school districts to give boots-on-the-ground support. The program, started in 2014, has been viewed by its advocates as so effective that the \u003ca href=\"http://www.highlanderinstitute.org/uncategorized/highlander-institute-receives-multi-year-funding-to-expand-programs/\">foundation-funded institute \u003c/a>is developing similar programs for yet-to-be-announced cities and states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Other places that are having a harder time, maybe they’ve either done this backwards and gone out and just purchased a lot of devices and haven’t changed any pedagogy,” said Shawn Rubin, chief education officer at the Highlander Institute. “Or they’ve tried to top-down change and it didn’t work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fuse RI fellows offer help that’s something like what you might expect at the Genius Bar at an Apple store. But they aren’t there just to troubleshoot technology problems. The fellows also help solve the human problems of teaching, and work with administrators, who may not have taught for years, to help them understand the realities of working in a modern classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, Fuse RI has trained nearly 60 fellows (mostly classroom teachers). They serve, essentially, as free consultants to districts and charter schools that are trying innovative teaching models, as many schools in the state experiment with personalized learning. The program, which advertises itself to teachers with a cartoon of a teacher in \u003ca href=\"http://fuseri.highlanderinstitute.org/fuse-fellowship\">a ninja suit\u003c/a>, requires the fellows to spend about 100 hours per year outside their own school, traveling to and working in whatever school they are advising. It’s also a leadership path for the teachers involved — a way for them to help others, said Maeve Murray, a project manager at the Highlander Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's really opening people's eyes,” Murray said, “and making people excited and reinvigorating the way they're teaching, and shifting practice and thinking about the student, which again is the most important part.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After completing their training, the teaching fellows get access to all the school districts’ Fuse RI applications, which describe in detail the districts’ goals. The teachers then choose three districts that suit their interests and location preferences and Highlander determines their placement. The projects the fellows work on can vary widely, but there is one constant: Fellows do their Fuse RI work away from their own schools, allowing them to stand above the fray of local battles and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I describe it as a peek behind the curtain, because we get to work with administrative teams, and that's not something you typically get to do as a teacher in your area district,” said Cassie Iacona, one of the Fuse RI fellows. “You feel a little bit more empowered, and then you can bring that empowerment back to your own district. It's easier to be brave when it's not your place of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sprinkled around the state, this teacher-led “dream team” can provide a level of inspiration and technical support that the small nonprofit’s staff could never do alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no way we can be all these places,” Rubin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48393\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48393\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/06/Nichole-Dobo-fuse-ri-3-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teachers from Warwick Public Schools of Warwick, Rhode Island, ask students from Captain Isaac Paine Elementary School of Foster, Rhode Island, to explain how they use technology during math class. \u003ccite>(Hechinger Report/Nichole Dobo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Iacona, a high school reading specialist in the North Providence Public Schools, has been assigned to work with the Woonsocket School District in northern Rhode Island. The district, which has struggled with its finances, is just starting to rethink how it can collect and analyze student data to improve teaching and learning. Her job is to serve as a teacher voice on the administration’s team as they roll out the new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also spends time helping the teachers. For example, some technology can help create custom-fit lessons that allow students to move through courses at their own pace and study what sparks their interest. This high level of attention to students’ needs and desires has emerged as an ideal in education, going back as far as John Dewey’s 1916 publication of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm\">Democracy in Education\u003c/a>,” but it’s extremely difficult — if not impossible — for a teacher to deliver such one-on-one help to every student each and every day in a classroom of more than two dozen students. Advocates of education technology say that the rapid advance in computing now provides the missing ingredient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But forcing teachers to use technology in the classroom has been tried, repeatedly, and usually with disastrous results. Teachers don’t have time to figure the tools out from scratch, and digital devices that are neither wanted nor needed are wasted. Another issue: Students know all too well how to use computers, and without guidance they do what comes naturally — using them as entertainment devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the Fuse RI fellows program and other efforts that give educators the opportunity to see and understand technology before they are asked to use it are integral to the Rhode Island plan. The goal is to create a coalition of the willing; teachers wanting to try something new. The changes can then be associated with excitement, not fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's hard sometimes to go into these people's classrooms, people who are amazing educators [but] they just haven't started integrating technology yet,” Iacona said. “And then for me to say, ‘Hi, I'm here to help you.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of teachers from Woonsocket was at the April conference in Providence. They were giddy about the prospect of having more than one or two devices in their classrooms, but they were also nervous about how they would use the new tools. Their biggest challenge, all the teachers agreed, is time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of them, Donna Bromage, a kindergarten teacher at Pothier Elementary School, is getting seven new Chromebooks this year. She’s got 25 years of teaching experience, but said she’s grateful for Iacona’s support. Like many kindergarten teachers, her classroom has various learning centers around the room. She used to allow students to pick the centers and groups they wanted to work in. Now, following Iacona’s advice, she is using student data to help create groups and assign stations based on what each student needs. The groupings are more purposeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will give the children the opportunity to learn in a different way,” Bromage said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s attended other conferences and seen how other teachers enhance and personalize their lessons with materials and programs available online. But when the excitement of those conferences ended, she found that she lacked the tools to try things herself. She’s excited to finally have the equipment and the support to try something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like their students, Rhode Island’s schools are at different levels of learning and expertise when it comes to technology. The move to use more technology and to personalize learning is supported by state leaders, but it’s also voluntary. As a result, there are pockets of innovation, rather than one, uniform approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don't think that there's any way that we can say that we know it, and now we want to scale it,” said Rubin. “It's more that we've kind of figured out a way to get the early stage excitement and enthusiasm moving, so that other people want to start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now advocates for new methods of teaching and learning hope that educators in Rhode Island can transfer their enthusiasm and expertise to other states, as well. But first, they say, those states must be willing to change their schools not through mandates from above but through teachers who are willing and active participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a lab state culture. We are willing to experiment,” said Richard Culatta, a former Rhode Island chief innovation officer who recently became the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. “We know it’s a new area. Some things are not going to work, and we are not going to get bent out of shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was written by\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\"> \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/blended-learning/\">\u003cem>blended learning\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across Rhode Island, schools are experimenting with the ways technology can help teachers tailor-fit lessons to the unique needs of each student. It’s called personalized learning, and trying to understand how it unfolds in a classroom is not easy. It’s best understood by seeing it in person, and this model classroom provided that view. The technology was there, but students weren’t lined up in a row in front of computers. In fact, the computers almost seemed beside the point — as important and yet as invisible as pencil and paper. And none of the students were looking to a teacher for direction on what to do next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To create excitement, rather than a sense of dread, about new methods of teaching and learning, Rhode Island has partnered with the local nonprofit Highlander Institute to develop a “teachers-teach-teachers” program. Called Fuse RI, it is meant to nurture good ideas by having educators mentor teachers outside their own school districts and serve in leadership roles on administrative teams to help principals and superintendents plan how to use these new models of teaching and learning. Tiny Rhode Island wants to serve as an incubator for the way schools can change when teachers are leaders; indeed, the state launched a program last year called SyraFuse, through which it is sharing what it has learned about personalized learning with the Syracuse, New York, school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort comes at a time when there’s little clarity from the U.S. Department of Education on what support (if any) there will be for classroom technology — including research and funding — from the federal government during the Trump administration. With that lack of leadership, some education reformers say that states need to lead the way in spreading good ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a strategy coming from D.C.,” said Arne Duncan, the former U.S. secretary of education who is now a managing partner at the Emerson Collective, in a phone interview. “I wish that wasn’t so, but that is the reality. That’s all the more reason why it matters. You either quit, or you take it to the districts and the states.”\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>States like Rhode Island are “a coalition of the willing and a coalition of the courageous,” Duncan added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48394\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48394\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/06/Nichole-Dobo-fuse-ri-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Educators and students from Captain Isaac Paine Elementary School, a public school in Foster, Rhode Island, simulate a classroom lesson for other teachers in Rhode Island during a conference about blended and personalized learning. \u003ccite>(Hechinger Report/Nichole Dobo )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And their work starts in the classroom. The select Fuse RI teaching fellows are assigned by the Highlander Institute to school districts to give boots-on-the-ground support. The program, started in 2014, has been viewed by its advocates as so effective that the \u003ca href=\"http://www.highlanderinstitute.org/uncategorized/highlander-institute-receives-multi-year-funding-to-expand-programs/\">foundation-funded institute \u003c/a>is developing similar programs for yet-to-be-announced cities and states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Other places that are having a harder time, maybe they’ve either done this backwards and gone out and just purchased a lot of devices and haven’t changed any pedagogy,” said Shawn Rubin, chief education officer at the Highlander Institute. “Or they’ve tried to top-down change and it didn’t work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fuse RI fellows offer help that’s something like what you might expect at the Genius Bar at an Apple store. But they aren’t there just to troubleshoot technology problems. The fellows also help solve the human problems of teaching, and work with administrators, who may not have taught for years, to help them understand the realities of working in a modern classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, Fuse RI has trained nearly 60 fellows (mostly classroom teachers). They serve, essentially, as free consultants to districts and charter schools that are trying innovative teaching models, as many schools in the state experiment with personalized learning. The program, which advertises itself to teachers with a cartoon of a teacher in \u003ca href=\"http://fuseri.highlanderinstitute.org/fuse-fellowship\">a ninja suit\u003c/a>, requires the fellows to spend about 100 hours per year outside their own school, traveling to and working in whatever school they are advising. It’s also a leadership path for the teachers involved — a way for them to help others, said Maeve Murray, a project manager at the Highlander Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's really opening people's eyes,” Murray said, “and making people excited and reinvigorating the way they're teaching, and shifting practice and thinking about the student, which again is the most important part.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After completing their training, the teaching fellows get access to all the school districts’ Fuse RI applications, which describe in detail the districts’ goals. The teachers then choose three districts that suit their interests and location preferences and Highlander determines their placement. The projects the fellows work on can vary widely, but there is one constant: Fellows do their Fuse RI work away from their own schools, allowing them to stand above the fray of local battles and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I describe it as a peek behind the curtain, because we get to work with administrative teams, and that's not something you typically get to do as a teacher in your area district,” said Cassie Iacona, one of the Fuse RI fellows. “You feel a little bit more empowered, and then you can bring that empowerment back to your own district. It's easier to be brave when it's not your place of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sprinkled around the state, this teacher-led “dream team” can provide a level of inspiration and technical support that the small nonprofit’s staff could never do alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no way we can be all these places,” Rubin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48393\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48393\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/06/Nichole-Dobo-fuse-ri-3-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teachers from Warwick Public Schools of Warwick, Rhode Island, ask students from Captain Isaac Paine Elementary School of Foster, Rhode Island, to explain how they use technology during math class. \u003ccite>(Hechinger Report/Nichole Dobo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Iacona, a high school reading specialist in the North Providence Public Schools, has been assigned to work with the Woonsocket School District in northern Rhode Island. The district, which has struggled with its finances, is just starting to rethink how it can collect and analyze student data to improve teaching and learning. Her job is to serve as a teacher voice on the administration’s team as they roll out the new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also spends time helping the teachers. For example, some technology can help create custom-fit lessons that allow students to move through courses at their own pace and study what sparks their interest. This high level of attention to students’ needs and desires has emerged as an ideal in education, going back as far as John Dewey’s 1916 publication of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm\">Democracy in Education\u003c/a>,” but it’s extremely difficult — if not impossible — for a teacher to deliver such one-on-one help to every student each and every day in a classroom of more than two dozen students. Advocates of education technology say that the rapid advance in computing now provides the missing ingredient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But forcing teachers to use technology in the classroom has been tried, repeatedly, and usually with disastrous results. Teachers don’t have time to figure the tools out from scratch, and digital devices that are neither wanted nor needed are wasted. Another issue: Students know all too well how to use computers, and without guidance they do what comes naturally — using them as entertainment devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the Fuse RI fellows program and other efforts that give educators the opportunity to see and understand technology before they are asked to use it are integral to the Rhode Island plan. The goal is to create a coalition of the willing; teachers wanting to try something new. The changes can then be associated with excitement, not fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It's hard sometimes to go into these people's classrooms, people who are amazing educators [but] they just haven't started integrating technology yet,” Iacona said. “And then for me to say, ‘Hi, I'm here to help you.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of teachers from Woonsocket was at the April conference in Providence. They were giddy about the prospect of having more than one or two devices in their classrooms, but they were also nervous about how they would use the new tools. Their biggest challenge, all the teachers agreed, is time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of them, Donna Bromage, a kindergarten teacher at Pothier Elementary School, is getting seven new Chromebooks this year. She’s got 25 years of teaching experience, but said she’s grateful for Iacona’s support. Like many kindergarten teachers, her classroom has various learning centers around the room. She used to allow students to pick the centers and groups they wanted to work in. Now, following Iacona’s advice, she is using student data to help create groups and assign stations based on what each student needs. The groupings are more purposeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will give the children the opportunity to learn in a different way,” Bromage said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s attended other conferences and seen how other teachers enhance and personalize their lessons with materials and programs available online. But when the excitement of those conferences ended, she found that she lacked the tools to try things herself. She’s excited to finally have the equipment and the support to try something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like their students, Rhode Island’s schools are at different levels of learning and expertise when it comes to technology. The move to use more technology and to personalize learning is supported by state leaders, but it’s also voluntary. As a result, there are pockets of innovation, rather than one, uniform approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don't think that there's any way that we can say that we know it, and now we want to scale it,” said Rubin. “It's more that we've kind of figured out a way to get the early stage excitement and enthusiasm moving, so that other people want to start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now advocates for new methods of teaching and learning hope that educators in Rhode Island can transfer their enthusiasm and expertise to other states, as well. But first, they say, those states must be willing to change their schools not through mandates from above but through teachers who are willing and active participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a lab state culture. We are willing to experiment,” said Richard Culatta, a former Rhode Island chief innovation officer who recently became the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. “We know it’s a new area. Some things are not going to work, and we are not going to get bent out of shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was written by\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\"> \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/blended-learning/\">\u003cem>blended learning\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Be The Change You Want to See By Shifting Traditional High School",
"title": "Be The Change You Want to See By Shifting Traditional High School",
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"content": "\u003cp>Great ideas and extraordinary teaching happen in public school classrooms all over the country, but these pockets of innovation often don’t get the attention they deserve. More often the schools held up as models for the future of learning started with a carefully articulated vision around change, a hand-picked staff, and even some startup capital. Changing the traditional approaches to teaching and learning that have been in place for decades within an existing school is extremely difficult work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But passionate teachers and leaders are doing just that. Catlin Tucker has been teaching at Windsor High School for 14 years. She started out as the kind of teacher who had every lesson planned out to the minute; the kind of teacher who assigned lots of writing at home, graded everything meticulously, and had very high expectations of students. She was in control of her classroom, but she found that often her students were disengaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over several years she began to experiment with using technology to give her students more ways to engage with material and more choice over how they demonstrated their understanding. But the more she tried to innovate within her standard high school English classroom, the more she felt that \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/10/unlearning-what-i-was-taught/\" target=\"_blank\">the structure and system itself weren’t serving kids well\u003c/a>. She wanted to \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/03/manifesting-my-perfect-teaching-position/\" target=\"_blank\">shake it up\u003c/a> even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did feel like in some ways I had reached the edges of what I could do that was different in an English classroom,” Tucker said. She was even thinking about leaving teaching to become a professional development consultant full time -- something she does part time now -- until she saw \u003ca href=\"https://willrichardson.com/\">Will Richardson\u003c/a> keynote an all-staff professional development day at her school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">My new classroom! Let the movement, exploration, collaboration & creation begin! \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/BackToSchool?src=hash\">#BackToSchool\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/XWhqzLM1X3\">pic.twitter.com/XWhqzLM1X3\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Catlin Tucker (@Catlin_Tucker) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Catlin_Tucker/status/766328536659431424\">August 18, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“I sat there and he just spoke to me, to everything that concerns me about education, and the way we're shuttling kids through classes and losing so many of them, and how we have to reimagine learning for kids of this generation.” Tucker said. She immediately went to her principal and asked to pilot a very different type of learning experience within Windsor High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>N.E.W. SCHOOL\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Windsor works on a “core” model where one group of students share the same English, science and history teacher as a way to create smaller communities within the big comprehensive high school. This schedule allowed Tucker to team up with Marika Neto, a science teacher, to offer the Next Evolution of Work-based Learning core, or N.E.W. school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two teachers share a mix of 60 freshmen and sophomores, teaching them English, science and a technology elective in an interdisciplinary way. Tucker and Neto develop themed units that connect concepts of the science curriculum with the books they are reading and the writing they are doing. For example, in a mental health unit students learned about the neurobiology of mental health disorders and applied that understanding to their reading of \"Romeo and Juliet.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each student psychoanalyzed a character, using research to back up claims about how the character’s actions and words indicate they may have had a specific mental disorder. At the same time, students also had to do a project educating a specific audience on some aspect of mental health. Students could work together or alone, and had a lot of freedom to choose how and what they would dive into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">For a Mental Health unit project these girls raised $800 for homeless packs. The power of project-based learning! \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Catlin_Tucker\">@Catlin_Tucker\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEWSchool?src=hash\">#NEWSchool\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/dSrpNKsaD2\">pic.twitter.com/dSrpNKsaD2\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MarikaNeto/status/809772083488010240\">December 16, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>One student made an \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17Mf93GQLBgIYoa7Fp4ZK_-3h0uPQ56S40bcQHPbqJlQ/edit#slide=id.p\" target=\"_blank\">infographic in Spanish and English \u003c/a>to educate the Spanish-speaking community about the dangers of depression and where people can get help locally. Another group wanted to build a life-size mannequin that could show what anxiety looks like in the body. They weren’t sure how to realize their vision, so they formally reached out to the engineering teacher for help programming a device that would light up when certain parts of the brain trigger or when the heartbeat accelerates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-48058 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1020x1360.jpg\" alt=\"Students show off their their model of how brain circuits work in a person with anxiety. \" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-960x1280.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-240x320.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-375x500.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-520x693.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students show off their their model of how brain circuits work in a person with anxiety. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Catlin Tucker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These girls were never interested in programming and now they’re doing it on their off-time just to complete this project,” said Marika Neto. She’s been amazed at how deeply students are willing to examine a topic when they have the freedom to choose something that interests them and can show their learning in various ways. That’s especially apparent in science; many students claimed they used to hate science, but are loving it the way Neto teaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE SCHEDULE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto have their N.E.W. students only every other day, but on core days students are with them for a 4½-hour block that the teachers can program however they want. The co-teachers put together a slide deck for every day with each activity, links to resources, and transition times. Students are responsible for looking at the deck and independently transitioning between activities. Sometimes half the students will work on a science lesson while the other half work on a writing assignment. Other times all 60 kids have “My time” to work on anything they need to get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effect is that there’s no herding students from room to room based on a bell schedule. Visitors to class don’t always know what students are working on unless they ask, and often one student will be doing different work from her neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/08/new-program-new-approach-to-homework/\">don’t formally assign homework\u003c/a>, but they try to give lots of work time in class. And students often do extra work on their projects at home if they haven’t been focused in class or they aren’t satisfied with their work. Tucker has also tried as much as possible \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2017/04/stop-taking-grading-home/\">not to collect and grade work at home\u003c/a>. Instead, she synchronously edits student writing in Google Docs. She believes that giving students real-time \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/04/12/why-giving-effective-feedback-is-trickier-than-it-seems/\">actionable feedback\u003c/a> as they are drafting benefits them more than when she stamps a grade on at the end. Too often students never look at that feedback again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48046\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"Catlin Tucker and Marika Neto have tried to create different types of space within their traditional classroom so students feel at home.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Catlin Tucker and Marika Neto have tried to create different types of space within their traditional classroom so students feel at home. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And because Tucker and Neto have complete control of the schedule of N.E.W. core, they can invite outside experts in, plan field trips and generally enrich what happens in the classroom by connecting students to other resources at Windsor High or out in the community at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BREAKING DEPENDENCE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big goals of the N.E.W. program is to create a learning environment where students are \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/01/learned-helplessness/\" target=\"_blank\">empowered and supported to be independent learners\u003c/a>. That can be a challenge for students arriving to the program with eight or nine years of experiences with teachers who tell them exactly how to do well. Students in the N.E.W. program struggled with the freedom of the program at first and asked for more direct instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In middle school it was more like you sit down, they teach you, you memorize everything, you do your work and that’s it, you’re out,” said Natali, a freshman in the program. “But here it was more, I wouldn’t say self-taught, but as a student you really had to buckle down yourself if you really wanted to get it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big ways Tucker and Neto are trying to build student ownership of learning is through the grading system. They are aware that any pedagogical approach must be s\u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/10/ditching-traditional-grades-my-online-gradebook/\">upported by an assessment policy that furthers the same goals\u003c/a>. The grading policy in a classroom can easily send a conflicting message to students if teachers don’t think it through carefully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the beginning of each unit Tucker identifies the key English and technology standards and Neto picks the science ones. They put those targets in a spreadsheet with columns for students to self-evaluate on each skill, as well as columns for teachers to give feedback and evaluation. Every week students have time to reflect on the work they’ve done and to give themselves a grade 1-4 that indicates how well they believe they are meeting the standard. Crucially, they also have to say why they believe that grade is appropriate and link to work samples as evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The doc is meant to be an ongoing silent conversation between the two of us,” Tucker said. If she goes through and gives a student a 2, that’s not the end of the conversation. The student can then take that feedback, make changes to the work, update his column and ask for the teacher to look again. This process encourages students to constantly reflect on what they are doing well, what they can improve, and to actively use teacher feedback to revise work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48047\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48047\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"Catlin Tucker sits on moveable seats that her students created to add flexibility to their classroom.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Catlin Tucker sits on moveable seats that her students created to add flexibility to their classroom. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Throughout the unit they're constantly being asked to look at their body of work, look at the skills we're targeting, and identify what pieces reflect their growth or their proficiency, or their developing proficiency in relation to a particular standard,” Tucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Windsor is a traditional public school, Tucker and Neto have to report out grades every six weeks. At that time they conduct grading interviews with each student in which the student presents the grade she thinks she deserves and evidence to support that claim. The teacher comes with her own grade and evidence, and the two have a conversation about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time I did a grading interview I was like so nervous,” said Josh, a sophomore student. “But then by the second time it was much more relaxed. And I’m like, OK, I’m just showing what I’ve done and I should be proud of it.” He appreciates that he has a voice in the process and that his grade isn’t arbitrarily decided by his teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think those conversations were some of the scariest things we've asked them to do because they're not asked to think about their learning that way, articulate where they're at in their learning, and what they think their grade should be,” Tucker said. Students are having to retrain themselves to use those types of \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/08/10/the-role-of-metacognition-in-learning-and-achievement/\">metacognitive skills\u003c/a>, which is a big shift for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A conversation after a grade-less interview \"It is nice to not be defined by doing bad on one assignment; instead the focus is on my growth\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MarikaNeto/status/780940266966396928\">September 28, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>This approach has also been an adjustment for parents who generally were educated in a more traditional system. They have become accustomed to classrooms where every assignment is graded, and if their child misses an assignment or performs poorly on a test it can start to create a hole in their grade. And, for parents whose children did well in the traditional system, but are adjusting to the independence and autonomy of N.E.W. school, all the changes can be a little scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was struggling at the beginning,” said Carrie Carstensen of her daughter. “And I thought, how is this going to look on her report card? Are her grades going to go down because this is something completely different and new and challenging?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, Carstensen decided she’d rather her daughter learn the content deeply, even if her grades aren’t as strong, in the hopes that the many other skills she’s learning in the hands-on, project-based and tech-savvy program will serve her well later. It doesn’t hurt that her daughter is much more excited about school now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48065\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1020x574.png\" alt=\"Marika Neto (left) chats with students before school starts.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1020x574.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-768x432.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1180x664.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-960x540.png 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-240x135.png 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-375x211.png 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-520x293.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marika Neto (left) chats with students before school starts. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other parents were thrown by the idea that students can go back, revise and improve an initial grade. While foreign to many parents at first, it was not unwelcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re trying to teach them that you might start off with a 1 and you’re a straight-A student because there’s so much room to grow,” said Toni Rooney, a freshman parent. “And so when they give them increases in their number, I feel like it means more to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney has been impressed with the passion for learning that the N.E.W. core has brought out in her daughter, Brooke. While Brooke was never a struggling student, she also didn’t particularly like school. Now Brooke is excited to talk with her mom about what she’s learning, how she’s tackling projects and the improvements she’s made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My other son spends hours sitting at his desk doing homework and I don’t think he’s getting more from his education,” said Dianne Wagner, Josh’s mom. Josh has a twin brother who is in a more traditional honors-track core. Wagner likes that Josh’s schoolwork not only excites him, but that he’s becoming a well-rounded person who can collaborate, juggle project deadlines on his own, communicate about his work and take ownership. And, she likes that when he’s home from school he has time to help out with chores and hang out with his family because he’s not so stressed out by how much homework he has.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What they do here in N.E.W. core is they figure out how to apply the knowledge that they need to learn to the life that they have in front of them, and connecting those dots makes that information more valuable,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ROOM TO STRETCH\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto originally conceived of the N.E.W. core as a way to reach the many students for whom school is “not super stimulating.” Connecting the curriculum to the real world, giving students choice, making science more hands-on and fun, and building in a lot of collaboration are all ways these teachers are trying to shake up the traditional model in order to re-engage kids who haven’t experienced a lot of success in school or who are already checked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while there are many students in the program who are thriving in that new environment when they might not have elsewhere, one surprise has been how well the model works for students who also excel at traditional school. Tucker initially worried that having such a broad array of learners in one hectic space would make it hard to challenge her high-flyers, but they’ve told her the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have had experiences in past classes where I would do an assignment and I wasn’t super excited about it, but I would still get an A,” said sophomore Samantha Moberly. Samantha is the kind of student who would probably do well anywhere, but she says the freedom she has to pursue her interests motivates her much more than a grade (although she still cares about those, too). \"I’m actually working to get to a point where I’m really satisfied with my work. And because I’m grading myself, I’m not just stopping at a point where I know I would get a certain grade. I go until I’m satisfied,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48059\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48059\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"A student captures her Iron Chef Lab with a time lapse video.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student captures her Iron Chef Lab with a time lapse video. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Catlin Tucker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That attitude has allowed her to pursue some impressive projects. In science, Neto gave groups of students corn on the cob, canned corn or packaged corn, and told them they needed to design a lab from the ground up under the theme of nutrition. The “Iron Chef Lab” required students to come up with an interesting question, write a hypothesis, develop lab procedures and carry out the experiment. On top of that, Neto tasked students with identifying specific skills they would need for their labs so she could run skills stations to support them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samantha’s group had packaged corn, so they decided to test for the effects of Bisphenol A (BPA) -- commonly found in plastic -- on their corn. They couldn’t buy BPA, so they asked the AP Chemistry teacher for help extracting BPA from a plastic water bottle so they could use it in their lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are thinking outside the box and they're being creative and they're having that natural inquiry and they're not just looking to check the box,” Neto said. Ultimately, the BPA didn’t have any effect on the corn, but the group learned a lot along the way. In their reflection, students proposed various other ways they would do the experiment if they had different materials and more time. Needless to say, Samantha’s group won the Iron Chef Lab.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Great ideas and extraordinary teaching happen in public school classrooms all over the country, but these pockets of innovation often don’t get the attention they deserve. More often the schools held up as models for the future of learning started with a carefully articulated vision around change, a hand-picked staff, and even some startup capital. Changing the traditional approaches to teaching and learning that have been in place for decades within an existing school is extremely difficult work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But passionate teachers and leaders are doing just that. Catlin Tucker has been teaching at Windsor High School for 14 years. She started out as the kind of teacher who had every lesson planned out to the minute; the kind of teacher who assigned lots of writing at home, graded everything meticulously, and had very high expectations of students. She was in control of her classroom, but she found that often her students were disengaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over several years she began to experiment with using technology to give her students more ways to engage with material and more choice over how they demonstrated their understanding. But the more she tried to innovate within her standard high school English classroom, the more she felt that \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/10/unlearning-what-i-was-taught/\" target=\"_blank\">the structure and system itself weren’t serving kids well\u003c/a>. She wanted to \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/03/manifesting-my-perfect-teaching-position/\" target=\"_blank\">shake it up\u003c/a> even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did feel like in some ways I had reached the edges of what I could do that was different in an English classroom,” Tucker said. She was even thinking about leaving teaching to become a professional development consultant full time -- something she does part time now -- until she saw \u003ca href=\"https://willrichardson.com/\">Will Richardson\u003c/a> keynote an all-staff professional development day at her school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">My new classroom! Let the movement, exploration, collaboration & creation begin! \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/BackToSchool?src=hash\">#BackToSchool\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/XWhqzLM1X3\">pic.twitter.com/XWhqzLM1X3\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Catlin Tucker (@Catlin_Tucker) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Catlin_Tucker/status/766328536659431424\">August 18, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“I sat there and he just spoke to me, to everything that concerns me about education, and the way we're shuttling kids through classes and losing so many of them, and how we have to reimagine learning for kids of this generation.” Tucker said. She immediately went to her principal and asked to pilot a very different type of learning experience within Windsor High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>N.E.W. SCHOOL\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Windsor works on a “core” model where one group of students share the same English, science and history teacher as a way to create smaller communities within the big comprehensive high school. This schedule allowed Tucker to team up with Marika Neto, a science teacher, to offer the Next Evolution of Work-based Learning core, or N.E.W. school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two teachers share a mix of 60 freshmen and sophomores, teaching them English, science and a technology elective in an interdisciplinary way. Tucker and Neto develop themed units that connect concepts of the science curriculum with the books they are reading and the writing they are doing. For example, in a mental health unit students learned about the neurobiology of mental health disorders and applied that understanding to their reading of \"Romeo and Juliet.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each student psychoanalyzed a character, using research to back up claims about how the character’s actions and words indicate they may have had a specific mental disorder. At the same time, students also had to do a project educating a specific audience on some aspect of mental health. Students could work together or alone, and had a lot of freedom to choose how and what they would dive into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">For a Mental Health unit project these girls raised $800 for homeless packs. The power of project-based learning! \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Catlin_Tucker\">@Catlin_Tucker\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEWSchool?src=hash\">#NEWSchool\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/dSrpNKsaD2\">pic.twitter.com/dSrpNKsaD2\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MarikaNeto/status/809772083488010240\">December 16, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>One student made an \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17Mf93GQLBgIYoa7Fp4ZK_-3h0uPQ56S40bcQHPbqJlQ/edit#slide=id.p\" target=\"_blank\">infographic in Spanish and English \u003c/a>to educate the Spanish-speaking community about the dangers of depression and where people can get help locally. Another group wanted to build a life-size mannequin that could show what anxiety looks like in the body. They weren’t sure how to realize their vision, so they formally reached out to the engineering teacher for help programming a device that would light up when certain parts of the brain trigger or when the heartbeat accelerates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-48058 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1020x1360.jpg\" alt=\"Students show off their their model of how brain circuits work in a person with anxiety. \" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-960x1280.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-240x320.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-375x500.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-brain-circuits-520x693.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students show off their their model of how brain circuits work in a person with anxiety. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Catlin Tucker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These girls were never interested in programming and now they’re doing it on their off-time just to complete this project,” said Marika Neto. She’s been amazed at how deeply students are willing to examine a topic when they have the freedom to choose something that interests them and can show their learning in various ways. That’s especially apparent in science; many students claimed they used to hate science, but are loving it the way Neto teaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE SCHEDULE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto have their N.E.W. students only every other day, but on core days students are with them for a 4½-hour block that the teachers can program however they want. The co-teachers put together a slide deck for every day with each activity, links to resources, and transition times. Students are responsible for looking at the deck and independently transitioning between activities. Sometimes half the students will work on a science lesson while the other half work on a writing assignment. Other times all 60 kids have “My time” to work on anything they need to get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effect is that there’s no herding students from room to room based on a bell schedule. Visitors to class don’t always know what students are working on unless they ask, and often one student will be doing different work from her neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/08/new-program-new-approach-to-homework/\">don’t formally assign homework\u003c/a>, but they try to give lots of work time in class. And students often do extra work on their projects at home if they haven’t been focused in class or they aren’t satisfied with their work. Tucker has also tried as much as possible \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2017/04/stop-taking-grading-home/\">not to collect and grade work at home\u003c/a>. Instead, she synchronously edits student writing in Google Docs. She believes that giving students real-time \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/04/12/why-giving-effective-feedback-is-trickier-than-it-seems/\">actionable feedback\u003c/a> as they are drafting benefits them more than when she stamps a grade on at the end. Too often students never look at that feedback again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48046\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"Catlin Tucker and Marika Neto have tried to create different types of space within their traditional classroom so students feel at home.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/NEW-school-space-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Catlin Tucker and Marika Neto have tried to create different types of space within their traditional classroom so students feel at home. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And because Tucker and Neto have complete control of the schedule of N.E.W. core, they can invite outside experts in, plan field trips and generally enrich what happens in the classroom by connecting students to other resources at Windsor High or out in the community at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BREAKING DEPENDENCE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big goals of the N.E.W. program is to create a learning environment where students are \u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/01/learned-helplessness/\" target=\"_blank\">empowered and supported to be independent learners\u003c/a>. That can be a challenge for students arriving to the program with eight or nine years of experiences with teachers who tell them exactly how to do well. Students in the N.E.W. program struggled with the freedom of the program at first and asked for more direct instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In middle school it was more like you sit down, they teach you, you memorize everything, you do your work and that’s it, you’re out,” said Natali, a freshman in the program. “But here it was more, I wouldn’t say self-taught, but as a student you really had to buckle down yourself if you really wanted to get it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big ways Tucker and Neto are trying to build student ownership of learning is through the grading system. They are aware that any pedagogical approach must be s\u003ca href=\"http://catlintucker.com/2016/10/ditching-traditional-grades-my-online-gradebook/\">upported by an assessment policy that furthers the same goals\u003c/a>. The grading policy in a classroom can easily send a conflicting message to students if teachers don’t think it through carefully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the beginning of each unit Tucker identifies the key English and technology standards and Neto picks the science ones. They put those targets in a spreadsheet with columns for students to self-evaluate on each skill, as well as columns for teachers to give feedback and evaluation. Every week students have time to reflect on the work they’ve done and to give themselves a grade 1-4 that indicates how well they believe they are meeting the standard. Crucially, they also have to say why they believe that grade is appropriate and link to work samples as evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The doc is meant to be an ongoing silent conversation between the two of us,” Tucker said. If she goes through and gives a student a 2, that’s not the end of the conversation. The student can then take that feedback, make changes to the work, update his column and ask for the teacher to look again. This process encourages students to constantly reflect on what they are doing well, what they can improve, and to actively use teacher feedback to revise work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48047\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48047\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"Catlin Tucker sits on moveable seats that her students created to add flexibility to their classroom.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Catlin Tucker sits on moveable seats that her students created to add flexibility to their classroom. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Throughout the unit they're constantly being asked to look at their body of work, look at the skills we're targeting, and identify what pieces reflect their growth or their proficiency, or their developing proficiency in relation to a particular standard,” Tucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Windsor is a traditional public school, Tucker and Neto have to report out grades every six weeks. At that time they conduct grading interviews with each student in which the student presents the grade she thinks she deserves and evidence to support that claim. The teacher comes with her own grade and evidence, and the two have a conversation about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time I did a grading interview I was like so nervous,” said Josh, a sophomore student. “But then by the second time it was much more relaxed. And I’m like, OK, I’m just showing what I’ve done and I should be proud of it.” He appreciates that he has a voice in the process and that his grade isn’t arbitrarily decided by his teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think those conversations were some of the scariest things we've asked them to do because they're not asked to think about their learning that way, articulate where they're at in their learning, and what they think their grade should be,” Tucker said. Students are having to retrain themselves to use those types of \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/08/10/the-role-of-metacognition-in-learning-and-achievement/\">metacognitive skills\u003c/a>, which is a big shift for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A conversation after a grade-less interview \"It is nice to not be defined by doing bad on one assignment; instead the focus is on my growth\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MarikaNeto/status/780940266966396928\">September 28, 2016\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>This approach has also been an adjustment for parents who generally were educated in a more traditional system. They have become accustomed to classrooms where every assignment is graded, and if their child misses an assignment or performs poorly on a test it can start to create a hole in their grade. And, for parents whose children did well in the traditional system, but are adjusting to the independence and autonomy of N.E.W. school, all the changes can be a little scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was struggling at the beginning,” said Carrie Carstensen of her daughter. “And I thought, how is this going to look on her report card? Are her grades going to go down because this is something completely different and new and challenging?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, Carstensen decided she’d rather her daughter learn the content deeply, even if her grades aren’t as strong, in the hopes that the many other skills she’s learning in the hands-on, project-based and tech-savvy program will serve her well later. It doesn’t hurt that her daughter is much more excited about school now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48065\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1020x574.png\" alt=\"Marika Neto (left) chats with students before school starts.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1020x574.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-768x432.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-1180x664.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-960x540.png 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-240x135.png 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-375x211.png 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Marika-520x293.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marika Neto (left) chats with students before school starts. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other parents were thrown by the idea that students can go back, revise and improve an initial grade. While foreign to many parents at first, it was not unwelcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re trying to teach them that you might start off with a 1 and you’re a straight-A student because there’s so much room to grow,” said Toni Rooney, a freshman parent. “And so when they give them increases in their number, I feel like it means more to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooney has been impressed with the passion for learning that the N.E.W. core has brought out in her daughter, Brooke. While Brooke was never a struggling student, she also didn’t particularly like school. Now Brooke is excited to talk with her mom about what she’s learning, how she’s tackling projects and the improvements she’s made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My other son spends hours sitting at his desk doing homework and I don’t think he’s getting more from his education,” said Dianne Wagner, Josh’s mom. Josh has a twin brother who is in a more traditional honors-track core. Wagner likes that Josh’s schoolwork not only excites him, but that he’s becoming a well-rounded person who can collaborate, juggle project deadlines on his own, communicate about his work and take ownership. And, she likes that when he’s home from school he has time to help out with chores and hang out with his family because he’s not so stressed out by how much homework he has.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What they do here in N.E.W. core is they figure out how to apply the knowledge that they need to learn to the life that they have in front of them, and connecting those dots makes that information more valuable,” Wagner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ROOM TO STRETCH\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tucker and Neto originally conceived of the N.E.W. core as a way to reach the many students for whom school is “not super stimulating.” Connecting the curriculum to the real world, giving students choice, making science more hands-on and fun, and building in a lot of collaboration are all ways these teachers are trying to shake up the traditional model in order to re-engage kids who haven’t experienced a lot of success in school or who are already checked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while there are many students in the program who are thriving in that new environment when they might not have elsewhere, one surprise has been how well the model works for students who also excel at traditional school. Tucker initially worried that having such a broad array of learners in one hectic space would make it hard to challenge her high-flyers, but they’ve told her the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have had experiences in past classes where I would do an assignment and I wasn’t super excited about it, but I would still get an A,” said sophomore Samantha Moberly. Samantha is the kind of student who would probably do well anywhere, but she says the freedom she has to pursue her interests motivates her much more than a grade (although she still cares about those, too). \"I’m actually working to get to a point where I’m really satisfied with my work. And because I’m grading myself, I’m not just stopping at a point where I know I would get a certain grade. I go until I’m satisfied,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48059\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48059\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"A student captures her Iron Chef Lab with a time lapse video.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-960x720.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2017/04/Catlin-iron-chef-video-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student captures her Iron Chef Lab with a time lapse video. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Catlin Tucker)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That attitude has allowed her to pursue some impressive projects. In science, Neto gave groups of students corn on the cob, canned corn or packaged corn, and told them they needed to design a lab from the ground up under the theme of nutrition. The “Iron Chef Lab” required students to come up with an interesting question, write a hypothesis, develop lab procedures and carry out the experiment. On top of that, Neto tasked students with identifying specific skills they would need for their labs so she could run skills stations to support them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samantha’s group had packaged corn, so they decided to test for the effects of Bisphenol A (BPA) -- commonly found in plastic -- on their corn. They couldn’t buy BPA, so they asked the AP Chemistry teacher for help extracting BPA from a plastic water bottle so they could use it in their lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are thinking outside the box and they're being creative and they're having that natural inquiry and they're not just looking to check the box,” Neto said. Ultimately, the BPA didn’t have any effect on the corn, but the group learned a lot along the way. In their reflection, students proposed various other ways they would do the experiment if they had different materials and more time. Needless to say, Samantha’s group won the Iron Chef Lab.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "An Unlikely Group Forms Unified Vision for the Future of Education",
"title": "An Unlikely Group Forms Unified Vision for the Future of Education",
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"content": "\u003cp>Education has long been a hotly debated issue and with good reason -- the policies and actions of education leaders affect our nation’s children, the future of the workforce and the day-to-day lives of families. But the struggle to improve the system has often left advocates in distinct camps, each believing that their solution, whether it be charter schools or blended learning or investing in teachers, is the best way to improve learning. That’s why it’s surprising to see a group of \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Education-Reimagined-Advisory-Board1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">high-profile but strange bedfellows\u003c/a> putting forward a new vision for learning, which they're calling \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Education Reimagined\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Reimagined \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Transformational-Vision-for-Education-in-the-US-2015.09.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">vision statement\u003c/a> comes out of almost two years of meetings where participants from very different sides of the education debate (labor representatives, charter proponents, district folks, business leaders, you name it) convened, left their individual missions and baggage at the door, and indulged in an exercise to imagine what a 21st century education should look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'We have to go to a learner-centered system, where a learner is equipped to have their own agency to decide what their education is going to be like.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“People really wanted to get together to reimagine the fundamental system, recognizing that a whole lot of money has gone into trying to fix the system with no real results,” said Kelly Young, spokesperson for Education Reimagined. The nonprofit organization \u003ca href=\"http://www.convergencepolicy.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Convergence\u003c/a> facilitated these meetings, helping to create a space of trust between people who have often fiercely disagreed publicly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We help people come in as people, not institutions, and they begin to see each other as part of the solution instead of as part of the problem,” Young said. She helped convene and run the meetings with the hope that participants could forge a new path forward for education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined explains the thinking behind the initiative this way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Simply put, the current system was designed in a different era and structured for a different society. Our economy, society, and polity are increasingly at risk from an educational system that does not consistently prepare all children to succeed as adults and is least effective for the children facing the greatest social and economic challenges. Conversely, the Internet revolution has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for new approaches to learning. Our growing recognition of the importance of skills and dispositions is also sparking a shift toward experiential learning. In short, we see both an imperative for transformation and many promising avenues for re-envisioning the learning experience.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>There are five core elements that Education Reimagined believes are crucial to transforming education:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Competency-based\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Personalized, Relevant, Contextualized\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Learner Agency\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Socially-Embedded\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Open-Walled\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“We have to go to a learner-centered system, where a learner is equipped to have their own agency to decide what their education is going to be like,” said Gisele Huff, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/jaquelin_hume_foundation\" target=\"_blank\">Jaquelin Hume Foundation\u003c/a>. Huff participated in the Convergence sessions and is now on the advisory panel for Education Reimagined. She says the process changed her life. Previously, her foundation invested heavily in blended-learning solutions; now she has a much greater understanding of why and how skills and dispositions augment that work and are a necessary part of teaching the whole child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a very opinionated person, not touchy feely whatsoever,” Huff said. “This shifted me into a different paradigm.” She said this initiative is unlike any other reform movement she’s seen throughout her long career in education, because a diverse group of people are united behind the vision, but aren’t pushing any policy recommendations. Instead, the group’s efforts will go toward highlighting pioneering work around the country, connecting innovators to one another and generating buzz for a movement that isn’t content to tinker around the edges of the system anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason this is different is it’s actually creating a new system that supports the kind of learning that we know works for kids,” Young said. Previous reform efforts have accepted the system as it is and have worked within its constraints to try and improve it. Education Reimagined wants a whole new system that embodies its core principles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Transformational-Vision-for-Education-in-the-US-2015.09.pdf\">\u003cimg class=\"alignleft wp-image-42276 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles-400x157.jpg\" alt=\"principles\" width=\"400\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles-400x157.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very surprising that people stayed in this to the end, because I’ve been through several of these convenings where you get to an end and then I’ve seen someone pull out,” said Randi Weingarten, another participant and the president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.aft.org/\" target=\"_blank\">American Federation of Teachers\u003c/a>. She said it was refreshing to work with a group that was oriented toward solutions instead of blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This one is starting with a vision, not with a blueprint or a magic wand,” Weingarten said. “It’s starting with ‘this makes sense; this is what we need to do for kids in the 21st century.’” She said too many efforts to “reform” education have left teachers with all the responsibility but none of the authority to implement. She hopes Education Reimagined will be different because it’s a ground-up movement, meant to empower the educators already working to make this vision a reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Next Steps\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined plans to publicize the work of pioneers already carrying out parts of this vision. But the first step is to catalyze a movement around that vision by getting some buzz, said Huff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Part of what the document is meant to do is raise people’s consciousness and make them understand that they’re working in a great thing that’s bigger than their classroom or their district,” Huff said. She believes this movement is different because it isn’t just operational, it’s a “moral and philosophical” mind shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said participating in the Convergence meetings helped her come to respect and trust leaders like Becky Pringle, the vice president of the National Education Association. Huff has spent a good part of her career funding initiatives meant to shake up traditional school governance processes, but she and Pringle came to see each other as individuals who both want what’s best for children. In November, they will speak about this vision together at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.inacol.org/symposium/program-presenters/keynote-speakers/\" target=\"_blank\">iNACOL conference\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huff believes that because this initiative comes from a place of trust, a strong network can be created. She referenced a \u003ca href=\"http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_most_impactful_leaders_youve_never_heard_of?utm_source=Enews&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SSIR_Now&utm_content=Title\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford Social Innovation Review article\u003c/a> that highlights trust as a core part of collaboration. Authors Jane Wei-Skillern, David Ehrlichman and David Sawyer write:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“In our research and experience, the single most important factor behind all successful collaborations is trust-based relationships among participants. Many collaborative efforts ultimately fail to reach their full potential because they lack a strong relational foundation.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Weingarten agrees with this premise, too. She’s excited that Education Reimagined isn’t just another initiative being foisted on teachers. “We had to do this work collectively in order to help kids individually,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined already has \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PP_Booklet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">some examples \u003c/a>of districts, schools and charter school companies who exemplify their vision. They’ll be adding more advisory panel members in the coming months and doing a lot of networking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is something you can build a movement around because it’s about the child,” Huff said. “It refuses to let anything stand in the way to allow each child to develop his or her potential.” And as test-based accountability reform efforts lose popularity, Huff says, people are looking around for something else to believe in. She and the other advisory board members hope their vision of a transformed system that lets learners move at their own pace, values learning in and outside of school walls, and is grounded in relevant, real-world work will fill the void.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Education has long been a hotly debated issue and with good reason -- the policies and actions of education leaders affect our nation’s children, the future of the workforce and the day-to-day lives of families. But the struggle to improve the system has often left advocates in distinct camps, each believing that their solution, whether it be charter schools or blended learning or investing in teachers, is the best way to improve learning. That’s why it’s surprising to see a group of \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Education-Reimagined-Advisory-Board1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">high-profile but strange bedfellows\u003c/a> putting forward a new vision for learning, which they're calling \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Education Reimagined\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Reimagined \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Transformational-Vision-for-Education-in-the-US-2015.09.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">vision statement\u003c/a> comes out of almost two years of meetings where participants from very different sides of the education debate (labor representatives, charter proponents, district folks, business leaders, you name it) convened, left their individual missions and baggage at the door, and indulged in an exercise to imagine what a 21st century education should look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'We have to go to a learner-centered system, where a learner is equipped to have their own agency to decide what their education is going to be like.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“People really wanted to get together to reimagine the fundamental system, recognizing that a whole lot of money has gone into trying to fix the system with no real results,” said Kelly Young, spokesperson for Education Reimagined. The nonprofit organization \u003ca href=\"http://www.convergencepolicy.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Convergence\u003c/a> facilitated these meetings, helping to create a space of trust between people who have often fiercely disagreed publicly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We help people come in as people, not institutions, and they begin to see each other as part of the solution instead of as part of the problem,” Young said. She helped convene and run the meetings with the hope that participants could forge a new path forward for education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined explains the thinking behind the initiative this way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Simply put, the current system was designed in a different era and structured for a different society. Our economy, society, and polity are increasingly at risk from an educational system that does not consistently prepare all children to succeed as adults and is least effective for the children facing the greatest social and economic challenges. Conversely, the Internet revolution has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for new approaches to learning. Our growing recognition of the importance of skills and dispositions is also sparking a shift toward experiential learning. In short, we see both an imperative for transformation and many promising avenues for re-envisioning the learning experience.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>There are five core elements that Education Reimagined believes are crucial to transforming education:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Competency-based\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Personalized, Relevant, Contextualized\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Learner Agency\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Socially-Embedded\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Open-Walled\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“We have to go to a learner-centered system, where a learner is equipped to have their own agency to decide what their education is going to be like,” said Gisele Huff, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/jaquelin_hume_foundation\" target=\"_blank\">Jaquelin Hume Foundation\u003c/a>. Huff participated in the Convergence sessions and is now on the advisory panel for Education Reimagined. She says the process changed her life. Previously, her foundation invested heavily in blended-learning solutions; now she has a much greater understanding of why and how skills and dispositions augment that work and are a necessary part of teaching the whole child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a very opinionated person, not touchy feely whatsoever,” Huff said. “This shifted me into a different paradigm.” She said this initiative is unlike any other reform movement she’s seen throughout her long career in education, because a diverse group of people are united behind the vision, but aren’t pushing any policy recommendations. Instead, the group’s efforts will go toward highlighting pioneering work around the country, connecting innovators to one another and generating buzz for a movement that isn’t content to tinker around the edges of the system anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason this is different is it’s actually creating a new system that supports the kind of learning that we know works for kids,” Young said. Previous reform efforts have accepted the system as it is and have worked within its constraints to try and improve it. Education Reimagined wants a whole new system that embodies its core principles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Transformational-Vision-for-Education-in-the-US-2015.09.pdf\">\u003cimg class=\"alignleft wp-image-42276 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles-400x157.jpg\" alt=\"principles\" width=\"400\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles-400x157.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/principles.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very surprising that people stayed in this to the end, because I’ve been through several of these convenings where you get to an end and then I’ve seen someone pull out,” said Randi Weingarten, another participant and the president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.aft.org/\" target=\"_blank\">American Federation of Teachers\u003c/a>. She said it was refreshing to work with a group that was oriented toward solutions instead of blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This one is starting with a vision, not with a blueprint or a magic wand,” Weingarten said. “It’s starting with ‘this makes sense; this is what we need to do for kids in the 21st century.’” She said too many efforts to “reform” education have left teachers with all the responsibility but none of the authority to implement. She hopes Education Reimagined will be different because it’s a ground-up movement, meant to empower the educators already working to make this vision a reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Next Steps\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined plans to publicize the work of pioneers already carrying out parts of this vision. But the first step is to catalyze a movement around that vision by getting some buzz, said Huff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Part of what the document is meant to do is raise people’s consciousness and make them understand that they’re working in a great thing that’s bigger than their classroom or their district,” Huff said. She believes this movement is different because it isn’t just operational, it’s a “moral and philosophical” mind shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said participating in the Convergence meetings helped her come to respect and trust leaders like Becky Pringle, the vice president of the National Education Association. Huff has spent a good part of her career funding initiatives meant to shake up traditional school governance processes, but she and Pringle came to see each other as individuals who both want what’s best for children. In November, they will speak about this vision together at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.inacol.org/symposium/program-presenters/keynote-speakers/\" target=\"_blank\">iNACOL conference\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huff believes that because this initiative comes from a place of trust, a strong network can be created. She referenced a \u003ca href=\"http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_most_impactful_leaders_youve_never_heard_of?utm_source=Enews&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SSIR_Now&utm_content=Title\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford Social Innovation Review article\u003c/a> that highlights trust as a core part of collaboration. Authors Jane Wei-Skillern, David Ehrlichman and David Sawyer write:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“In our research and experience, the single most important factor behind all successful collaborations is trust-based relationships among participants. Many collaborative efforts ultimately fail to reach their full potential because they lack a strong relational foundation.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Weingarten agrees with this premise, too. She’s excited that Education Reimagined isn’t just another initiative being foisted on teachers. “We had to do this work collectively in order to help kids individually,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Reimagined already has \u003ca href=\"http://education-reimagined.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PP_Booklet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">some examples \u003c/a>of districts, schools and charter school companies who exemplify their vision. They’ll be adding more advisory panel members in the coming months and doing a lot of networking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is something you can build a movement around because it’s about the child,” Huff said. “It refuses to let anything stand in the way to allow each child to develop his or her potential.” And as test-based accountability reform efforts lose popularity, Huff says, people are looking around for something else to believe in. She and the other advisory board members hope their vision of a transformed system that lets learners move at their own pace, values learning in and outside of school walls, and is grounded in relevant, real-world work will fill the void.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The English language learner population in the United States is growing quickly, posing a challenge for cash-strapped schools struggling to balance the diverse needs of learners. And while technology is becoming a more ubiquitous part of the school experience, it hasn’t always been used effectively to improve the language skills of English learners. A new curriculum using both online modules and teacher-led instruction developed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Middlebury Interactive Languages\u003c/a> in partnership with \u003ca href=\"http://www.hartfordschools.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Hartford Public Schools\u003c/a> is showing promise as an engaging way for students working on their English skills to also access challenging content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebury Interactive Languages is known for its online world languages program, but the partnership with Hartford marks the company’s entry into developing a blended-learning program meant for students learning English. Middlebury used research showing that English language learners need to develop academic English to succeed in school, as well as motivation to learn a new language through challenging and interesting work. To that end, the ESL curriculum uses content from science, math, social studies and English language arts curriculum as the basis for building up language skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">\"None of the curricular components are watered down; we were able to take grade-level appropriate content and scaffold it so they can access it.\"\u003ccite>Monica Quinones, Hartford Public Schools director of English Language Learner Services\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“The whole process and developing these courses has been extremely collaborative with the real users,” said Aline Germain-Rutherford, chief academic officer for Middlebury Interactive Languages. “We take [the teacher and student] feedback and integrate that into our design.” For example, the Middlebury designers had little understanding of how much language a level one ELL student has. After looking at an initial prototype, Hartford educators came back to the company explaining areas that needed more background, context and clues to scaffold a student's understanding of texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hartford educators have been pleased with the progress their 4th-8th grade students are making using the blended learning curriculum and with the collaboration generally. They are currently piloting the program in the eight schools with the highest population of English language learners. “The curriculum is not static,” said Mary-Beth Russo, a Hartford ELL coach about the program's flexibility. “It’s online, but you can take parts of it and build out, and it’s theme based.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before, Hartford used a typical model that included both helping English learners within their subject area classes and pulling them out to work on language specifically. If a class was reading \u003cem>The House on Mango Street\u003c/em>, the ELL teacher might try to front-load important vocabulary with students so they would have some idea of what was going on in the book, but often limited language skills still kept those students from participating in discussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"vIvRpmNk8Nlb3210Hu6GtU4bJjGfYjn8\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comparison, the Middlebury blended curriculum is grouped by overarching themes and subthemes. Each subtheme follows a predictable progression of modules that focus on vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and speaking. Students are working towards completing a project in each module. Since the curriculum is meant to be used as a supplement to in-person instruction, ESL teachers can build off the modules however they see fit, adding elements the connect explicitly back to curriculum in other classes or differentiating for individual students as they see fit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>RIGOROUS CONTENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“None of the curricular components are watered down,” said Monica Quinones, director of English Language Learners Support Services for Hartford Public Schools. “That’s something we were very adamant about. We were able to take grade-level appropriate content and scaffold it so they can access it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a big leap for a group of students who are often thought to be less smart because they don’t understand English as well. A big part of helping those students access their content coursework is to help them develop the academic English they will be expected to use throughout their school careers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A piece that’s really different is the rigor of the content,” Russo said. “We worked hard to align it to the Common Core.” For example, in sixth grade, Common Core State Standards recommend reading work by Frederick Douglass. Helping a student who only knows a few words of English understand this difficult text requires lots of supports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program does this by helping the learner deconstruct the text. Difficult words have pop-up boxes with visual, audio and written definitions. Activities are built in to help learners identify key words that signal an idea is being introduced or an example given. They work on identifying word roots, common prefixes and suffixes that give clues about whether the word is a noun or a verb and families of words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The activities also use the well-worn practice of modeling by offering students examples of the written or oral statement they have been asked to produce. “We expect that at first the learner will model his sentence on the model,” Germain-Rutherford said. “And bit by bit, he will become more independent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quinones and Russo said Hartford ESL teachers were wary of the pilot at first, believing the content would be too challenging for very new English speakers. “Now those teachers are coming back and saying they can’t believe the quality of work their students are producing,” Russo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GOOD INITIAL RESULTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Hartford won’t have real data for several more years, Russo and Quinones say students in the pilot courses are accelerating their reading, writing and speaking skills more quickly than those not in the course. They’ve shown improvement on benchmark tests and seem more engaged in their work. Teachers are reporting better attendance and, interestingly, more engagement from parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big part of the curriculum is recognizing that students come with a culture and a set of skills from their first language that they can use to learn English. Rather than suppressing the first language, the curriculum celebrates it. “Research really shows that the more you help the students develop a multicultural and multilingual identity….the more students are engaged and motivated,” Germain-Rutherford said. The projects included in each module always connect back to the student’s culture. Students are encouraged to talk about who they are and where they come from in English. This celebration has in turn made parents feel more welcome at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Students are] so invested in learning,” Quinones said. “The discussions they have amongst each other, even if they aren’t in agreement, these are things we haven’t seen before.” Students even feel empowered to give direct feedback on the program to Middlebury. One student wrote to the Middlebury Interactive Languages CEO, Jane Swift, with some recommendations about the user interface and a complaint that his country’s flag wasn’t represented on the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Districts have to know what the program is and understand that there’s no silver bullet that’s going to answer everybody’s needs to grow ELLs overnight,” Russo said. But, after 28 years as an ELL teacher and coach, she says the Middlebury program is the best technology tool she’s seen. It’s flexible enough for teachers to incorporate their own lessons, provides a predictable path for students and engages them in high level work. Russo says it takes five to seven years for a child to acquire language, but she’s hoping in a few years time, the bet her district made on Middlebury will pay off.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The English language learner population in the United States is growing quickly, posing a challenge for cash-strapped schools struggling to balance the diverse needs of learners. And while technology is becoming a more ubiquitous part of the school experience, it hasn’t always been used effectively to improve the language skills of English learners. A new curriculum using both online modules and teacher-led instruction developed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Middlebury Interactive Languages\u003c/a> in partnership with \u003ca href=\"http://www.hartfordschools.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Hartford Public Schools\u003c/a> is showing promise as an engaging way for students working on their English skills to also access challenging content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebury Interactive Languages is known for its online world languages program, but the partnership with Hartford marks the company’s entry into developing a blended-learning program meant for students learning English. Middlebury used research showing that English language learners need to develop academic English to succeed in school, as well as motivation to learn a new language through challenging and interesting work. To that end, the ESL curriculum uses content from science, math, social studies and English language arts curriculum as the basis for building up language skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">\"None of the curricular components are watered down; we were able to take grade-level appropriate content and scaffold it so they can access it.\"\u003ccite>Monica Quinones, Hartford Public Schools director of English Language Learner Services\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“The whole process and developing these courses has been extremely collaborative with the real users,” said Aline Germain-Rutherford, chief academic officer for Middlebury Interactive Languages. “We take [the teacher and student] feedback and integrate that into our design.” For example, the Middlebury designers had little understanding of how much language a level one ELL student has. After looking at an initial prototype, Hartford educators came back to the company explaining areas that needed more background, context and clues to scaffold a student's understanding of texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hartford educators have been pleased with the progress their 4th-8th grade students are making using the blended learning curriculum and with the collaboration generally. They are currently piloting the program in the eight schools with the highest population of English language learners. “The curriculum is not static,” said Mary-Beth Russo, a Hartford ELL coach about the program's flexibility. “It’s online, but you can take parts of it and build out, and it’s theme based.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before, Hartford used a typical model that included both helping English learners within their subject area classes and pulling them out to work on language specifically. If a class was reading \u003cem>The House on Mango Street\u003c/em>, the ELL teacher might try to front-load important vocabulary with students so they would have some idea of what was going on in the book, but often limited language skills still kept those students from participating in discussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comparison, the Middlebury blended curriculum is grouped by overarching themes and subthemes. Each subtheme follows a predictable progression of modules that focus on vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and speaking. Students are working towards completing a project in each module. Since the curriculum is meant to be used as a supplement to in-person instruction, ESL teachers can build off the modules however they see fit, adding elements the connect explicitly back to curriculum in other classes or differentiating for individual students as they see fit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>RIGOROUS CONTENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“None of the curricular components are watered down,” said Monica Quinones, director of English Language Learners Support Services for Hartford Public Schools. “That’s something we were very adamant about. We were able to take grade-level appropriate content and scaffold it so they can access it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a big leap for a group of students who are often thought to be less smart because they don’t understand English as well. A big part of helping those students access their content coursework is to help them develop the academic English they will be expected to use throughout their school careers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A piece that’s really different is the rigor of the content,” Russo said. “We worked hard to align it to the Common Core.” For example, in sixth grade, Common Core State Standards recommend reading work by Frederick Douglass. Helping a student who only knows a few words of English understand this difficult text requires lots of supports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program does this by helping the learner deconstruct the text. Difficult words have pop-up boxes with visual, audio and written definitions. Activities are built in to help learners identify key words that signal an idea is being introduced or an example given. They work on identifying word roots, common prefixes and suffixes that give clues about whether the word is a noun or a verb and families of words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The activities also use the well-worn practice of modeling by offering students examples of the written or oral statement they have been asked to produce. “We expect that at first the learner will model his sentence on the model,” Germain-Rutherford said. “And bit by bit, he will become more independent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quinones and Russo said Hartford ESL teachers were wary of the pilot at first, believing the content would be too challenging for very new English speakers. “Now those teachers are coming back and saying they can’t believe the quality of work their students are producing,” Russo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GOOD INITIAL RESULTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Hartford won’t have real data for several more years, Russo and Quinones say students in the pilot courses are accelerating their reading, writing and speaking skills more quickly than those not in the course. They’ve shown improvement on benchmark tests and seem more engaged in their work. Teachers are reporting better attendance and, interestingly, more engagement from parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big part of the curriculum is recognizing that students come with a culture and a set of skills from their first language that they can use to learn English. Rather than suppressing the first language, the curriculum celebrates it. “Research really shows that the more you help the students develop a multicultural and multilingual identity….the more students are engaged and motivated,” Germain-Rutherford said. The projects included in each module always connect back to the student’s culture. Students are encouraged to talk about who they are and where they come from in English. This celebration has in turn made parents feel more welcome at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Students are] so invested in learning,” Quinones said. “The discussions they have amongst each other, even if they aren’t in agreement, these are things we haven’t seen before.” Students even feel empowered to give direct feedback on the program to Middlebury. One student wrote to the Middlebury Interactive Languages CEO, Jane Swift, with some recommendations about the user interface and a complaint that his country’s flag wasn’t represented on the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Districts have to know what the program is and understand that there’s no silver bullet that’s going to answer everybody’s needs to grow ELLs overnight,” Russo said. But, after 28 years as an ELL teacher and coach, she says the Middlebury program is the best technology tool she’s seen. It’s flexible enough for teachers to incorporate their own lessons, provides a predictable path for students and engages them in high level work. Russo says it takes five to seven years for a child to acquire language, but she’s hoping in a few years time, the bet her district made on Middlebury will pay off.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">Learning to speak a second language often starts with memorizing words and phrases like colors, numbers and salutations. Soon teachers introduce present-tense verbs and students work to build simple sentences like, “I go to the store.” In the classroom, students practice dialogue with one another and the teacher, hoping that by slowly adding conjugations and more vocabulary, they’ll be able to apply the language in real life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Middlebury Interactive Languages is trying to flip that model on its head with an online program that expects a lot from beginners. Based in pedagogy developed at Middlebury College’s immersive summer language programs in collaboration with the technical expertise of K12 Inc., the program is trying to redefine how language has been taught for years both online and in brick-and-mortar classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the basic principles behind Middlebury’s pedagogy is that students must interact with authentic language as it is spoken in reality. To do this, course developers traveled all over the world filming real conversations between people in different countries speaking the language. For the Spanish curriculum, they might have conversations from Spain, Venezuela, Cuba, Guatemala and Argentina, demonstrating the various accents, dialects and cultures associated with the Spanish language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Culture and language are inseparable in this model, which currently includes instruction in French, Spanish and Chinese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The videos are the basis of all the activities in the online program. “It’s really taking what’s truly happening in an immersive situation,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/about-us/our-expertise-history/leadership-aline-germain-rutherford\" target=\"_blank\">Aline Germain-Rutherford\u003c/a>, chief academic officer of Middlebury Interactive Languages and linguistics professor at Middlebury College.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'We activate the normal skills that anybody has in a new situation. We really try to use everything we know in context to make sense [of the language].'\u003ccite>Aline Germain-Rutherford, Chief academic officer of Middlebury Interactive Languages\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These real-world interactions are not simplified or slowed down for beginner language learners. Germain-Rutherford says initially teachers often push back against the Middlebury curriculum, arguing students must learn basic building blocks of language before they can be exposed to more complicated, authentic forms of speaking. Middlebury’s program takes the opposite approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We present the language first, and then help the student to develop learning strategies and reading and listening skills to identify key words and make sense of it,” Germain-Rutherford said. Using immersion as the point of departure, the program’s activities scaffold strategies to find meaning. And often learners have more skills to unravel language than teachers give them credit for -- after all, they learned their primary language without any trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We forget all the prior knowledge of the learner, all the skills we have in our first language,” Germain-Rutherford said. “We need to remember that there’s a lot of resemblance between families of languages. And when we are new to a language, we rely a lot on the resemblances. We don’t need to understand every single word in order to make sense of a situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers often think of students beginning a new language as empty vessels that need to be slowly and carefully filled with words and structures, Germain-Rutherford said. But that’s not how people learn, and there are a lot of contextual clues in a video that can help learners decipher a conversation and begin to make meaning for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At level one, the Middlebury curriculum has students watch a conversation between native speakers with the sound off the first time. Students are prompted to hypothesize about the conversation based on body language and other locational clues. “We activate the normal skills that anybody has in a new situation,” Germain-Rutherford said, “We really try to use everything we know in context to make sense [of the language].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the videos are never simplified or artificial, the tasks asked of students are level-appropriate. Beginners might be asked to count how many times they hear a certain word or to answer whether they think a speaker is angry or not. The tasks become progressively harder as the learner moves through the course, but the base material always features native speakers engaged in authentic conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DO SOMETHING WITH INFORMATION\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We learn not just by receiving something, but by doing something with it,” Germain-Rutherford said. “So a lot of our activities are task-based.” The program tries to simulate project-based learning, which research shows both helps students internalize what they’ve learned and gets them thinking about themselves as learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A student might be asked to create an itinerary for a monthlong group visit to a country where the target language is spoken. Students must research the country on websites using that language to learn about its transportation, tourist attractions, lodging and food. Just as they would when researching in English, students have to make choices about what information is both useful and reliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"pc4q7yulLOuY5NsQV5NwYFaWtHQv7kxN\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have at different moments self-assessment rubrics or self-reflective rubrics, where students look at what they’ve done,” Germain-Rutherford said. These activities are intended to prompt students to think about strengths and weaknesses and find strategies to fill in gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more a student is apt to monitor his learning, the more engaged he is,” she said. It’s also important to help online learners become autonomous and self-directed, as they don’t have the structure of a physical class to keep them on track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most difficult parts of a language class to transfer online is practice speaking. Germain-Rutherford says there’s really no substitute for engaging in real conversations with other people, which is one of the reasons she is fond of the districts that are using the Middlebury curriculum in blended learning classrooms. Still, the program tries to give students speaking practice with exercises that require students to record themselves and submit audio to their online instructor. The teacher can then send written or oral feedback on those audio clips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grammar can be a tedious part of learning a second language for many students, but Germain-Rutherford says she and the other course designers have done their best to embed grammar in interesting ways that require critical thinking, not just rote memorization. For example, the program might present a student with a transcript of a conversation with some parts highlighted. The student is asked to identify patterns in the highlighted text and make a hypothesis about a grammar rule. The program then serves up practice activities to test that hypothesis, which are immediately graded. After the student has had this chance to engage with the material, the program offers the actual grammar rule and asks the student to complete practice activities to solidify the rule. Finally, the student is asked to use the rule in relation to the authentic text or video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40144\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-40144\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1440x810.jpg\" alt=\"The elementary school curriculum consists of animated fairy tales from target language countries.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-768x432.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The elementary school curriculum consists of animated fairy tales from target language countries. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Middlebury Interactive Languages)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is quickly put back into the reality of the context, so we never look at the language as just a combination of structures and words,” Germain-Rutherford said. “It’s a way of engaging the reasoning of the students. If it’s just receiving the explanation of the rule, the retention won’t be as great as if we have been participating in making that rule.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is adamant that if a student hasn’t helped create an understanding of the language or made something with it, then they haven’t learned it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>WHAT DO SCHOOLS THINK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore County Public Schools are using Middlebury Interactive Languages to pilot a Spanish-language program in fourth and fifth grade. The district is making a big push to graduate students proficient in a second language by the end of high school, so they are starting language instruction earlier. As a brand-new program in just 10 pilot schools, the curriculum has been developed in tandem with Middlebury’s online content, so that two teachers can move between the 10 schools supporting students who are doing much of their learning online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/video/111540238?byline=0&portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Middlebury did the best job at providing opportunities for students to speak,” said Brian Schiffer, director of social studies, fine arts and world languages for the district. “Teachers can go in and hear them as they’re recording words.” The elementary school curriculum, which is new to Middlebury’s portfolio this year, is based on fairy tales from target-language countries. The stories are animated, but the speakers are still native. Schiffer said he and his colleagues like the fact that the program is both a cultural and lingual immersion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Baltimore’s blended model, students complete the Middlebury curriculum in the computer lab with another teacher there to help with any technical problems. When the language teacher is present one day a week, the focus is on speaking with one another and group work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Middlebury’s program was developed to stand alone, the company has found that increasingly districts are choosing to use the curriculum in a blended environment. “Some activities are best when you do them in class, in groups, and the teacher can go from one to another and guide the students,” Germain-Rutherford said. “However, there are other learning moments when you can individually work on it and go deep on it either in class or at home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebury also contracted \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/research-resources/research/johns-hopkins-university-center-for-research-and-reform-in-education\" target=\"_blank\">Johns Hopkins researchers to conduct a third-party evaluation \u003c/a>of the program's effectiveness, which was published in 2013. Overall, the Johns Hopkins team found that students and teachers liked the program, felt it aligned with curriculum standards and provided an engaging way to develop language competency, although it's worth noting the study was limited, based on interviews at one Kentucky school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CRITICISMS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Language teachers use Middlebury’s pedagogy for its engaging videos, opportunities to practice speech and immersive qualities. But some are less enamored of the technology itself. Jason Noble, a high school Spanish teacher, has been using Middlebury for three years, first through a partnership with \u003ca href=\"http://www.csionline.org/home\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Schools International\u003c/a>, where he was an online teacher, and now through \u003ca href=\"http://www.iowalearningonline.org/\">Iowa Learning Online\u003c/a>, the state-supported online learning platform. He has been complaining about a glitch when students submit assignments to the program that are supposed to be auto-graded and added to the grade book, but instead disappear. It happens only to a few students and is easy for a teacher to miss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t know that something didn’t get submitted until a student emails you and says it’s not showing up in the gradebook -- if the student is conscientious enough to do that,” Noble said. He complained that Middlebury’s customer support has been poor and the problem has persisted for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.csionline.org/home\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Schools International\u003c/a> (CSI) ended up dropping Middlebury in part because of problems connecting their learning management system to the program. Teachers found grading difficult, and when Middlebury tried to improve that aspect, CSI lost some of the flexibility to change content that they liked about Middlebury in the first place, said Marita Damghani, a consultant to CSI. In the end, the consortium moved over to \u003ca href=\"http://www.sevenstar.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Sevenstar\u003c/a>, an online learning company that had the Christian content they wanted, teachers and materials all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am concerned if they reached out with a phone call or a chat, and they weren't told the solution,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/about-us/our-expertise-history/leadership-jane-swift\" target=\"_blank\">Jane Swift\u003c/a>, CEO of Middlebury Interactive Languages. Over the past two years, she says, the company has been adding more and better qualified customer service people to try to address complaints like Noble’s. The company has also hired regional implementation leaders with education backgrounds that make school visits to identify and solve common issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'In a perfect world, all schools in the U.S. would have perfect connectivity and modern hardware and software that could connect to ours.'\u003ccite>Reinhold Lange, Senior director of digital strategy\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The auto-grading problem that has so frustrated Noble is a loading issue, according to Swift. If a student clicks to another screen while an assignment is in the process of being submitted, it never gets saved. That processing time is a little longer than students expect because big audio files are bouncing between the school’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/13/techniques-for-unleashing-student-work-from-learning-management-systems/\" target=\"_blank\">learning management system\u003c/a>, like Blackboard or Moodle, back to Middlebury and then back to the school again. Swift says Middlebury is working to integrate more features like “the spinning wheel of death,” which gives students clues that if they move on they’ll lose their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been monitoring our support statistics for the past two years and have seen significant improvement, both in the time it takes us to resolve a concern and being able to provide an acceptable resolution for a client,” Swift said. That’s come from a lot of hard work, and basic tech support for schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most problems arise when the school's learning management system tries to integrate Middlebury’s platform. The company’s tech team has found that schools have different versions of software and very little technological support. While some problems originate at Middlebury, many are either a function of how the program is being used or slow Internet at the school sites. Middlebury’s program is bandwidth-intensive because of the video and audio elements, making it difficult for many schools to support it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a perfect world, all schools in the U.S. would have perfect connectivity and modern hardware and software that could connect to ours,” said Reinhold Lange, senior director of digital strategy. “But what we have found more often than not is that there are problems downstream from our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If students and teachers are having challenges, we are going to be forefront in the industry to address those challenges,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s clear the mission of the company is to provide strong language pedagogy to students who might not otherwise have access. In today’s reality, that means providing a lot of tech support that could be more efficiently offered by school districts themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">Learning to speak a second language often starts with memorizing words and phrases like colors, numbers and salutations. Soon teachers introduce present-tense verbs and students work to build simple sentences like, “I go to the store.” In the classroom, students practice dialogue with one another and the teacher, hoping that by slowly adding conjugations and more vocabulary, they’ll be able to apply the language in real life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Middlebury Interactive Languages is trying to flip that model on its head with an online program that expects a lot from beginners. Based in pedagogy developed at Middlebury College’s immersive summer language programs in collaboration with the technical expertise of K12 Inc., the program is trying to redefine how language has been taught for years both online and in brick-and-mortar classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the basic principles behind Middlebury’s pedagogy is that students must interact with authentic language as it is spoken in reality. To do this, course developers traveled all over the world filming real conversations between people in different countries speaking the language. For the Spanish curriculum, they might have conversations from Spain, Venezuela, Cuba, Guatemala and Argentina, demonstrating the various accents, dialects and cultures associated with the Spanish language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Culture and language are inseparable in this model, which currently includes instruction in French, Spanish and Chinese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The videos are the basis of all the activities in the online program. “It’s really taking what’s truly happening in an immersive situation,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/about-us/our-expertise-history/leadership-aline-germain-rutherford\" target=\"_blank\">Aline Germain-Rutherford\u003c/a>, chief academic officer of Middlebury Interactive Languages and linguistics professor at Middlebury College.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'We activate the normal skills that anybody has in a new situation. We really try to use everything we know in context to make sense [of the language].'\u003ccite>Aline Germain-Rutherford, Chief academic officer of Middlebury Interactive Languages\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These real-world interactions are not simplified or slowed down for beginner language learners. Germain-Rutherford says initially teachers often push back against the Middlebury curriculum, arguing students must learn basic building blocks of language before they can be exposed to more complicated, authentic forms of speaking. Middlebury’s program takes the opposite approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We present the language first, and then help the student to develop learning strategies and reading and listening skills to identify key words and make sense of it,” Germain-Rutherford said. Using immersion as the point of departure, the program’s activities scaffold strategies to find meaning. And often learners have more skills to unravel language than teachers give them credit for -- after all, they learned their primary language without any trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We forget all the prior knowledge of the learner, all the skills we have in our first language,” Germain-Rutherford said. “We need to remember that there’s a lot of resemblance between families of languages. And when we are new to a language, we rely a lot on the resemblances. We don’t need to understand every single word in order to make sense of a situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers often think of students beginning a new language as empty vessels that need to be slowly and carefully filled with words and structures, Germain-Rutherford said. But that’s not how people learn, and there are a lot of contextual clues in a video that can help learners decipher a conversation and begin to make meaning for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At level one, the Middlebury curriculum has students watch a conversation between native speakers with the sound off the first time. Students are prompted to hypothesize about the conversation based on body language and other locational clues. “We activate the normal skills that anybody has in a new situation,” Germain-Rutherford said, “We really try to use everything we know in context to make sense [of the language].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the videos are never simplified or artificial, the tasks asked of students are level-appropriate. Beginners might be asked to count how many times they hear a certain word or to answer whether they think a speaker is angry or not. The tasks become progressively harder as the learner moves through the course, but the base material always features native speakers engaged in authentic conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DO SOMETHING WITH INFORMATION\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We learn not just by receiving something, but by doing something with it,” Germain-Rutherford said. “So a lot of our activities are task-based.” The program tries to simulate project-based learning, which research shows both helps students internalize what they’ve learned and gets them thinking about themselves as learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A student might be asked to create an itinerary for a monthlong group visit to a country where the target language is spoken. Students must research the country on websites using that language to learn about its transportation, tourist attractions, lodging and food. Just as they would when researching in English, students have to make choices about what information is both useful and reliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have at different moments self-assessment rubrics or self-reflective rubrics, where students look at what they’ve done,” Germain-Rutherford said. These activities are intended to prompt students to think about strengths and weaknesses and find strategies to fill in gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more a student is apt to monitor his learning, the more engaged he is,” she said. It’s also important to help online learners become autonomous and self-directed, as they don’t have the structure of a physical class to keep them on track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most difficult parts of a language class to transfer online is practice speaking. Germain-Rutherford says there’s really no substitute for engaging in real conversations with other people, which is one of the reasons she is fond of the districts that are using the Middlebury curriculum in blended learning classrooms. Still, the program tries to give students speaking practice with exercises that require students to record themselves and submit audio to their online instructor. The teacher can then send written or oral feedback on those audio clips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grammar can be a tedious part of learning a second language for many students, but Germain-Rutherford says she and the other course designers have done their best to embed grammar in interesting ways that require critical thinking, not just rote memorization. For example, the program might present a student with a transcript of a conversation with some parts highlighted. The student is asked to identify patterns in the highlighted text and make a hypothesis about a grammar rule. The program then serves up practice activities to test that hypothesis, which are immediately graded. After the student has had this chance to engage with the material, the program offers the actual grammar rule and asks the student to complete practice activities to solidify the rule. Finally, the student is asked to use the rule in relation to the authentic text or video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40144\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-40144\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1440x810.jpg\" alt=\"The elementary school curriculum consists of animated fairy tales from target language countries.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-768x432.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/ELEM-French-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The elementary school curriculum consists of animated fairy tales from target language countries. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Middlebury Interactive Languages)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is quickly put back into the reality of the context, so we never look at the language as just a combination of structures and words,” Germain-Rutherford said. “It’s a way of engaging the reasoning of the students. If it’s just receiving the explanation of the rule, the retention won’t be as great as if we have been participating in making that rule.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is adamant that if a student hasn’t helped create an understanding of the language or made something with it, then they haven’t learned it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>WHAT DO SCHOOLS THINK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore County Public Schools are using Middlebury Interactive Languages to pilot a Spanish-language program in fourth and fifth grade. The district is making a big push to graduate students proficient in a second language by the end of high school, so they are starting language instruction earlier. As a brand-new program in just 10 pilot schools, the curriculum has been developed in tandem with Middlebury’s online content, so that two teachers can move between the 10 schools supporting students who are doing much of their learning online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/video/111540238?byline=0&portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Middlebury did the best job at providing opportunities for students to speak,” said Brian Schiffer, director of social studies, fine arts and world languages for the district. “Teachers can go in and hear them as they’re recording words.” The elementary school curriculum, which is new to Middlebury’s portfolio this year, is based on fairy tales from target-language countries. The stories are animated, but the speakers are still native. Schiffer said he and his colleagues like the fact that the program is both a cultural and lingual immersion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Baltimore’s blended model, students complete the Middlebury curriculum in the computer lab with another teacher there to help with any technical problems. When the language teacher is present one day a week, the focus is on speaking with one another and group work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Middlebury’s program was developed to stand alone, the company has found that increasingly districts are choosing to use the curriculum in a blended environment. “Some activities are best when you do them in class, in groups, and the teacher can go from one to another and guide the students,” Germain-Rutherford said. “However, there are other learning moments when you can individually work on it and go deep on it either in class or at home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebury also contracted \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/research-resources/research/johns-hopkins-university-center-for-research-and-reform-in-education\" target=\"_blank\">Johns Hopkins researchers to conduct a third-party evaluation \u003c/a>of the program's effectiveness, which was published in 2013. Overall, the Johns Hopkins team found that students and teachers liked the program, felt it aligned with curriculum standards and provided an engaging way to develop language competency, although it's worth noting the study was limited, based on interviews at one Kentucky school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CRITICISMS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Language teachers use Middlebury’s pedagogy for its engaging videos, opportunities to practice speech and immersive qualities. But some are less enamored of the technology itself. Jason Noble, a high school Spanish teacher, has been using Middlebury for three years, first through a partnership with \u003ca href=\"http://www.csionline.org/home\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Schools International\u003c/a>, where he was an online teacher, and now through \u003ca href=\"http://www.iowalearningonline.org/\">Iowa Learning Online\u003c/a>, the state-supported online learning platform. He has been complaining about a glitch when students submit assignments to the program that are supposed to be auto-graded and added to the grade book, but instead disappear. It happens only to a few students and is easy for a teacher to miss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t know that something didn’t get submitted until a student emails you and says it’s not showing up in the gradebook -- if the student is conscientious enough to do that,” Noble said. He complained that Middlebury’s customer support has been poor and the problem has persisted for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.csionline.org/home\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Schools International\u003c/a> (CSI) ended up dropping Middlebury in part because of problems connecting their learning management system to the program. Teachers found grading difficult, and when Middlebury tried to improve that aspect, CSI lost some of the flexibility to change content that they liked about Middlebury in the first place, said Marita Damghani, a consultant to CSI. In the end, the consortium moved over to \u003ca href=\"http://www.sevenstar.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Sevenstar\u003c/a>, an online learning company that had the Christian content they wanted, teachers and materials all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am concerned if they reached out with a phone call or a chat, and they weren't told the solution,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.middleburyinteractive.com/about-us/our-expertise-history/leadership-jane-swift\" target=\"_blank\">Jane Swift\u003c/a>, CEO of Middlebury Interactive Languages. Over the past two years, she says, the company has been adding more and better qualified customer service people to try to address complaints like Noble’s. The company has also hired regional implementation leaders with education backgrounds that make school visits to identify and solve common issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'In a perfect world, all schools in the U.S. would have perfect connectivity and modern hardware and software that could connect to ours.'\u003ccite>Reinhold Lange, Senior director of digital strategy\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The auto-grading problem that has so frustrated Noble is a loading issue, according to Swift. If a student clicks to another screen while an assignment is in the process of being submitted, it never gets saved. That processing time is a little longer than students expect because big audio files are bouncing between the school’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/13/techniques-for-unleashing-student-work-from-learning-management-systems/\" target=\"_blank\">learning management system\u003c/a>, like Blackboard or Moodle, back to Middlebury and then back to the school again. Swift says Middlebury is working to integrate more features like “the spinning wheel of death,” which gives students clues that if they move on they’ll lose their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been monitoring our support statistics for the past two years and have seen significant improvement, both in the time it takes us to resolve a concern and being able to provide an acceptable resolution for a client,” Swift said. That’s come from a lot of hard work, and basic tech support for schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most problems arise when the school's learning management system tries to integrate Middlebury’s platform. The company’s tech team has found that schools have different versions of software and very little technological support. While some problems originate at Middlebury, many are either a function of how the program is being used or slow Internet at the school sites. Middlebury’s program is bandwidth-intensive because of the video and audio elements, making it difficult for many schools to support it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a perfect world, all schools in the U.S. would have perfect connectivity and modern hardware and software that could connect to ours,” said Reinhold Lange, senior director of digital strategy. “But what we have found more often than not is that there are problems downstream from our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If students and teachers are having challenges, we are going to be forefront in the industry to address those challenges,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s clear the mission of the company is to provide strong language pedagogy to students who might not otherwise have access. In today’s reality, that means providing a lot of tech support that could be more efficiently offered by school districts themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "What Does a School Need to Enable Learning Based on Student Competency?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36701\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/what-makes-an-extreme-learner/mindshift1_illo2_72/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36701\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg\" alt=\"By Jane Mount/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36701\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Jane Mount/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Many teachers have long been frustrated with static, canned curriculum that doesn’t seem connected to kids' lives, and testing requirements that drive the learning experience. So they, often in partnership with daring leaders, are pushing back, trying to find ways to meet the long-held goal of educators: Meeting each student’s needs and helping all to be successful. Three main ways schools are attempting this work are through technology use, an emphasis on personalizing learning and moving toward a mastery-based or competency-based evaluation system. While not all the same, these approaches share some commonalities and require significant structural changes to the education system if they are to be implemented well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CompetencyWorks report, \u003ca href=\"http://www.competencyworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CompetencyWorks-Maximizing-Competency-Education-and-Blended-Learning.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">“Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts,”\u003c/a> looks at ways that the movement for personalization dovetails with blended learning and competency-based learning to achieve a more student-centered approach to school. The report also identifies some key system changes that would support the grass-roots work that has already begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report defines personalized learning as “tailor[ing] learning to students’ strengths, needs, interests and experiences.” The authors are careful to point out that adaptive learning software that allows \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/what-do-we-really-mean-when-we-say-personalized-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">self-paced learning is not the same thing as personalized learning\u003c/a>. Good teachers are crucial to help students identify their learning strengths and weaknesses, to offer various learning modalities and to push students to apply their learning to their personal interests. No two students are the same, and a personalized model recognizes the same tools and approaches won’t be appropriate for every student.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'The accountability system right now is getting in the way of what’s right for kids.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Competency education refers to a break from the traditional time-based school model. Rather than moving students on to the next grade with their age-based cohort, regardless of gaps in their foundational knowledge, educators allow students to move on only when they have demonstrated mastery of topics. This can lead to a chaotic classroom, with students at many different stages in their learning, which is partly why many competency-based schools rely on technology to help meet students' varied needs along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we just keep doing what we’re doing today, we are still going to end up with kids with huge gaps, even if they advance incrementally,” said Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.inacol.org/\" target=\"_blank\">International Association for K-12 Online Learning\u003c/a> (iNACOL) and co-author of the report. She notes that some critics of competency education worry it will widen opportunity gaps as advanced students move quickly ahead, leaving struggling students even further behind. Patrick says that shouldn’t happen if teachers hold all students to high standards and make sure to examine data on student learning every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a competency-based system you have to know where every student is when they come in, be honest about that and address those learning gaps,” Patrick said. She doesn’t believe that it works to rely exclusively on technology to help students catch up. Too often digital tools are used to drill struggling students and get them “back on track.” But without opportunities to research, analyze and apply learning, those students are not being given the same chance to dive deeply into their learning, part of a good personalized program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>LEADERSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transformation of this kind requires a \u003ca href=\"http://www.competencyworks.org/understanding-competency-education/virgel-hammonds-six-insights-into-leadership/\" target=\"_blank\">special kind of leader\u003c/a>, one that our current training programs aren’t producing. While there are many excellent leaders in education, they have often picked up their adaptive leadership qualities on their own, out of necessity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are talking about a whole significant, complex transformation of the system, from being one around time -- which is quite frankly easier to manage -- to one that is around learning and meeting every student’s needs,” Patrick said. That takes a clear long-term vision and the ability to plan five to 10 years ahead. During a transformation of this magnitude, even the best-laid plans shift, challenges arise and adjustments will be needed. The change leader has to manage every eventuality as it pops up, while being \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/when-school-leaders-empower-teachers-better-ideas-emerge/\" target=\"_blank\">careful not to do so in a top-down way\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"p0o4DscWxKpF7g8O8oEuzjGytj8JoTwE\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this kind of transformation to work, leaders have to work cooperatively with everyone in the school and broader community. Often districts start the communication and outreach process three years before implementing a plan. This step is easy to overlook, but is crucial to success. Teachers, parents and students are at the core of the education system, and if they aren’t co-designers of the process it won’t succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal should be to create a shared understanding of why change is needed, what parents and community members want for their children, and how district leaders can work together to build a shared purpose for all stakeholders,” the report notes. That requires districts to engage often and transparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since this work is still quite new, one of the strongest assets innovative leaders have is one another. Strong professional learning communities, with exemplars of what has worked and even observation of one another’s progress, can help move the work forward. Leaders should be given credit for finding their own professional learning opportunities, especially since there is so little formally recognized training that teaches leaders how to be catalysts for whole-system transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ACCOUNTABILITY RULES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a real lack of knowledge of how much this is holding back the education leaders who are leading competency-based models,” Patrick said. Some district leaders are even running two parallel accountability models, one to satisfy federal and state testing requirements and another that fits with their competency-based model. That takes resources and time, which are both in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39850\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/what-does-a-school-need-to-enable-learning-based-on-student-competency/competencyworks/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39850\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-39850\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/CompetencyWorks-300x403.png\" alt='From the CompetencyWorks report, \"Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts.\"' width=\"300\" height=\"403\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From the CompetencyWorks report, \"Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts.\"\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You start to really see how, in the broader system, issues are frozen into place,” Patrick said. “We need new structures that are competency-based and personalized.” She points to the fact that state and federal accountability measures are predicated on the time-based, age-cohort model of teaching common for over a century. It \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/report-federal-rules-impede-competency-based-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">offers little flexibility\u003c/a> to districts trying to meet the needs of today’s students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick would like to see modular assessment offered at public libraries. Rather than taking one point-in-time standardized test meant to encapsulate all a student has learned in a year, students would take a test at the end of each module, whenever they finish it. “Then you are actually aligning the accountability system to student-centered learning,” Patrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The modular accountability system Patrick suggests would offer a way for students to show their growth. Right now, if a ninth-grade teacher has a student who comes in at a fourth-grade reading level and she helps him improve to a sixth-grade reading level, he still performs poorly on the ninth-grade test. She gets no credit for the growth she helped that student achieve. “The accountability system right now is getting in the way of what’s right for kids,” Patrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers have always wanted to provide their students with individualized support, but they often haven’t had the resources to accomplish that goal. Now technology can help by offering a diverse set of tools to be used when appropriate. Technology has the potential to help schools break away from a time-based model and give teachers insights into student understanding. While not a silver bullet, and ineffective in the hands of a teacher without a plan, when the right tech tool is used at the right time with the right student, it can support mastery for every student.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36701\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/what-makes-an-extreme-learner/mindshift1_illo2_72/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36701\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg\" alt=\"By Jane Mount/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36701\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Mindshift1_illo2_72-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Jane Mount/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Many teachers have long been frustrated with static, canned curriculum that doesn’t seem connected to kids' lives, and testing requirements that drive the learning experience. So they, often in partnership with daring leaders, are pushing back, trying to find ways to meet the long-held goal of educators: Meeting each student’s needs and helping all to be successful. Three main ways schools are attempting this work are through technology use, an emphasis on personalizing learning and moving toward a mastery-based or competency-based evaluation system. While not all the same, these approaches share some commonalities and require significant structural changes to the education system if they are to be implemented well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CompetencyWorks report, \u003ca href=\"http://www.competencyworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CompetencyWorks-Maximizing-Competency-Education-and-Blended-Learning.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">“Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts,”\u003c/a> looks at ways that the movement for personalization dovetails with blended learning and competency-based learning to achieve a more student-centered approach to school. The report also identifies some key system changes that would support the grass-roots work that has already begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report defines personalized learning as “tailor[ing] learning to students’ strengths, needs, interests and experiences.” The authors are careful to point out that adaptive learning software that allows \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/what-do-we-really-mean-when-we-say-personalized-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">self-paced learning is not the same thing as personalized learning\u003c/a>. Good teachers are crucial to help students identify their learning strengths and weaknesses, to offer various learning modalities and to push students to apply their learning to their personal interests. No two students are the same, and a personalized model recognizes the same tools and approaches won’t be appropriate for every student.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'The accountability system right now is getting in the way of what’s right for kids.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Competency education refers to a break from the traditional time-based school model. Rather than moving students on to the next grade with their age-based cohort, regardless of gaps in their foundational knowledge, educators allow students to move on only when they have demonstrated mastery of topics. This can lead to a chaotic classroom, with students at many different stages in their learning, which is partly why many competency-based schools rely on technology to help meet students' varied needs along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we just keep doing what we’re doing today, we are still going to end up with kids with huge gaps, even if they advance incrementally,” said Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.inacol.org/\" target=\"_blank\">International Association for K-12 Online Learning\u003c/a> (iNACOL) and co-author of the report. She notes that some critics of competency education worry it will widen opportunity gaps as advanced students move quickly ahead, leaving struggling students even further behind. Patrick says that shouldn’t happen if teachers hold all students to high standards and make sure to examine data on student learning every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a competency-based system you have to know where every student is when they come in, be honest about that and address those learning gaps,” Patrick said. She doesn’t believe that it works to rely exclusively on technology to help students catch up. Too often digital tools are used to drill struggling students and get them “back on track.” But without opportunities to research, analyze and apply learning, those students are not being given the same chance to dive deeply into their learning, part of a good personalized program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>LEADERSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transformation of this kind requires a \u003ca href=\"http://www.competencyworks.org/understanding-competency-education/virgel-hammonds-six-insights-into-leadership/\" target=\"_blank\">special kind of leader\u003c/a>, one that our current training programs aren’t producing. While there are many excellent leaders in education, they have often picked up their adaptive leadership qualities on their own, out of necessity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are talking about a whole significant, complex transformation of the system, from being one around time -- which is quite frankly easier to manage -- to one that is around learning and meeting every student’s needs,” Patrick said. That takes a clear long-term vision and the ability to plan five to 10 years ahead. During a transformation of this magnitude, even the best-laid plans shift, challenges arise and adjustments will be needed. The change leader has to manage every eventuality as it pops up, while being \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/when-school-leaders-empower-teachers-better-ideas-emerge/\" target=\"_blank\">careful not to do so in a top-down way\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this kind of transformation to work, leaders have to work cooperatively with everyone in the school and broader community. Often districts start the communication and outreach process three years before implementing a plan. This step is easy to overlook, but is crucial to success. Teachers, parents and students are at the core of the education system, and if they aren’t co-designers of the process it won’t succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal should be to create a shared understanding of why change is needed, what parents and community members want for their children, and how district leaders can work together to build a shared purpose for all stakeholders,” the report notes. That requires districts to engage often and transparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since this work is still quite new, one of the strongest assets innovative leaders have is one another. Strong professional learning communities, with exemplars of what has worked and even observation of one another’s progress, can help move the work forward. Leaders should be given credit for finding their own professional learning opportunities, especially since there is so little formally recognized training that teaches leaders how to be catalysts for whole-system transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ACCOUNTABILITY RULES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a real lack of knowledge of how much this is holding back the education leaders who are leading competency-based models,” Patrick said. Some district leaders are even running two parallel accountability models, one to satisfy federal and state testing requirements and another that fits with their competency-based model. That takes resources and time, which are both in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39850\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/what-does-a-school-need-to-enable-learning-based-on-student-competency/competencyworks/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39850\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-39850\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/CompetencyWorks-300x403.png\" alt='From the CompetencyWorks report, \"Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts.\"' width=\"300\" height=\"403\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From the CompetencyWorks report, \"Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts.\"\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You start to really see how, in the broader system, issues are frozen into place,” Patrick said. “We need new structures that are competency-based and personalized.” She points to the fact that state and federal accountability measures are predicated on the time-based, age-cohort model of teaching common for over a century. It \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/report-federal-rules-impede-competency-based-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">offers little flexibility\u003c/a> to districts trying to meet the needs of today’s students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick would like to see modular assessment offered at public libraries. Rather than taking one point-in-time standardized test meant to encapsulate all a student has learned in a year, students would take a test at the end of each module, whenever they finish it. “Then you are actually aligning the accountability system to student-centered learning,” Patrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The modular accountability system Patrick suggests would offer a way for students to show their growth. Right now, if a ninth-grade teacher has a student who comes in at a fourth-grade reading level and she helps him improve to a sixth-grade reading level, he still performs poorly on the ninth-grade test. She gets no credit for the growth she helped that student achieve. “The accountability system right now is getting in the way of what’s right for kids,” Patrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers have always wanted to provide their students with individualized support, but they often haven’t had the resources to accomplish that goal. Now technology can help by offering a diverse set of tools to be used when appropriate. Technology has the potential to help schools break away from a time-based model and give teachers insights into student understanding. While not a silver bullet, and ineffective in the hands of a teacher without a plan, when the right tech tool is used at the right time with the right student, it can support mastery for every student.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/pencil-tree/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39578\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/Pencil-tree.jpg\" alt=\"Pencil-tree\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-39578\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The excerpt below is from the book “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Moonshots-Education-Launching-Learning-Classroom/dp/1934276200\">Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom\u003c/a>,” by Esther Wojcicki, Lance Izumi and Alicia Chang. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “Trick in the Blended Classroom,” written by Wojcicki.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">It all started in 1987, when I got a grant from the State of California. The state sent me eight Macintosh computers, never asking if I knew how to use them, and when they arrived I had no idea how to even turn them on. I realized then that I was going to fail if I didn’t get some help quickly. I looked around for colleagues who could help, but none of them had any idea. Our school had no IT department. So I took a leap of faith and confessed to my students that I had no idea how to use the new computers and that I needed help. This turned out to be a stroke of good luck, even though I did not see it that way at the time. It was the beginning of my new teaching methodology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were absolutely thrilled to help me (can you imagine being asked to help a teacher?!), and that was the beginning of my collaborative teaching model. Only, at that point, it did not have a name, and in fact I had to hide it from other teachers who might have frowned on what I was doing. The students and I ended up spending hours after school and on weekends figuring out the computers and how to network them. I had never even heard the word “network” in a computer context. I was one of the first teachers in California to use computers in the classroom, and possibly the first in the nation to use computers in a journalism classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was soon sold on the idea of collaboration, respect, and trust in the classroom. And it turns out that building a culture of collaboration, respect, and trust is key to a successful blended classroom. The first action a teacher needs to take in the fall when school starts is to set up the culture. On the surface, this may sound like a waste of time, but in fact its importance cannot be overemphasized. Part of such a culture is understanding that the teacher is not the only expert in the room; in fact, students can know more than the teacher about some aspects of what they will be doing together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Computers, tablets, and other electronic devices alone are not going to change the classroom. It is the change in culture that will make the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help everyone remember what it takes to set up a culture that works, I have come up with an acronym, TRICK. Each letter stands for an important part of the culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>T = trust \u003cbr>\nR = respect\u003cbr>\n I = independence\u003cbr>\nC = collaboration\u003cbr>\nK = kindness\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Trust\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe first thing to establish in the classroom is a culture of trust. That does not mean the students are given complete freedom to run wild and do what they want; it means the students trust each other to help in the learning process and the teacher trusts the students. The boundaries need to be established early in the semester. There are a variety of exercises to build trust that a teacher can use, ranging from the blind man’s game to walking into walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the teacher is the one in control, it is he or she who must take the initiative. Teachers need to put themselves into situations that require students to be trustworthy. Opportunities arise every day. For example, having students work in teams and be responsible to the team teaches trust. Creating a group blog or website gives students a natural way to develop trust in the team, and, if the teacher trusts the team, it builds a community of trust in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"UAYTedL6j1TwtBx1ziBdjUJipSmnwzQO\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the key to building trust is to actually trust the students. While that may seem counterintuitive to many teachers, it is really the only way to effectively build trust. For example, in my advanced journalism class, the students each have an individual story assignment, so no two students are doing the same thing. Some of the stories are particularly sensitive about issues in the school, the district, or the city. It takes a leap of faith on my part to trust students to get the information right and to write it up in an objective way. We publish the results online— typically garnering thousands of views—and in hard copy for three thousand local residents. Students have told me that trusting them to write the stories is significant in building their self-esteem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students also put out a newspaper or magazine. The newspaper class has an enrollment of seventy students, who work in teams on the paper. Six editors-in-chief are in charge of the class, giving the students critical leadership experience and a sense of control over the publication. The magazine classes have an enrollment of thirty-five and an editorial board of three editors. Each student in each class has a title that correlates to his or her responsibilities. Examples are news editor, editorial-page editor, feature-page editor, or reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides having the students produce actual publications, a second suggestion is to allow the students to teach the class on a regular basis. For example, the teacher can designate one day a week when the kids take over the class for an hour or so. Having kids teach each other in small groups on a regular basis also creates a sense of trust in the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also encourage the students to help with the technological side of the program. I use Google Docs to create documents and Adobe software to publish. New products come out daily, and many of those might be useful for me, but I have little time to investigate them. Thus, I ask my students to watch out for new software that might be useful for the program, tell me about it, and, if it seems appropriate, learn how to use it. They then share it with the rest of the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third suggestion to enhance trust is to give students your home phone number, cell number, and e-mail and tell them to contact you when they have problems, but not later than a specified time in the evening. Just giving out that information provides for a culture of trust and caring. All students also have the same contact information for all other students including home phones, cell phones and addresses as well as my contact information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth suggestion is for the teacher to laugh at his or her own mistakes on a regular basis. We all make mistakes, and teaching students that mistakes are part of life is an important lesson in helping them accept themselves. I do that every day in class, and the mistakes are not difficult to find: Every day there is something that does not go as planned. Teachers who are willing to show that they are not perfect, don’t know everything, and can laugh at themselves can more easily develop trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, and perhaps most important, is to put students in situations requiring them to think for themselves. They may stumble and have difficulties, but the key is to support them in their efforts while letting them solve the problem themselves. This builds trust in themselves, in the class as a whole, and between teacher and students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Respect\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTeachers need to have sincere respect for their students, especially in today’s world, where the members of a class may come from very different backgrounds and experiences. But each one has unique gifts even if he or she also has unique problems. As a teacher I know how difficult it can be to respect students who create problems in the classroom, but it is up to the teacher to show respect. It goes a long way in making the student feel better about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Respect is part of trust. I trust the kids and respect them, and in turn they trust and respect me. Someone has to start the process, and it cannot be the students, since the teacher is in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giving students respect does not mean letting go of expectations. In fact, it means the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39560\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/esther-wojcicki-joi-ito/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39560\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/Esther-Wojcicki-Joi-Ito-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Esther Wojcicki (Credit: Joi Ito/Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39560\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Esther Wojcicki (Credit: \u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2593396471/in/photolist-anWWLG-aoRV5G-aoRUpE-cv31m1-4XaQqg-4X97qF-7X231d-anLvZq-q6QteJ-iw3kqX-6Fg42Y-cveWoU-anXjzj-5CEgTq-inW4pR-4Xehjt-inW2Zh-5CEfH3-5CzY3i\">Joi Ito/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Teachers need to respect them as individuals and expect them to achieve at a high level. My expectations are high and I encourage my students to reach those standards by giving them the opportunity to revise their work on a regular basis. I use the mastery system model (which means students work on a skill until they master it) and grade only when students have finally mastered the standard. An innovative internet company called MasteryConnect.com has software that sup- ports this pedagogy. Grades can be very discouraging for kids but if teachers return an assignment with suggestions on how to improve or correct the errors and kids understand it is part of the process of learning, they will still be excited to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Famed psychologists Albert Bandura talks about the power of self-efficacy and how a student’s self image determines how they feel about themselves. He defines self-efficacy as a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations and says that self efficacy plays a major role in how people (especially students) approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. According to Bandura’s theory, people with high self-efficacy—that is, those who believe they can perform well—are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bandura\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Kelley, CEO of IDEO and head of Stanford University’s d.school, has a similar philosophy which he calls Creative Confidence. He says the key to being creative and achieving is “believing in your ability to create change in the world around you. It is the conviction that you can achieve what you set out to do. We think this self-assurance, this belief in your creative capacity, lies at the heart of innovation. Creative confidence is like a muscle--it can be strengthened and nurtured through effort and experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Kelley\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carol Dweck, social psychologist from Stanford University, talks about the power of “mindset” and how if people think their intelligence is flexible and can grow, they will achieve, but if they think it is fixed and there is nothing they can do about it, they tend to be afraid to try. People with a growth mindset understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They think that if they persevere, (mastery learning concept) they will succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is nothing new, but it is harder to do than to say. Students will rise to meet the expectations of their teachers and parents. By giving students the respect and having the expectation, teachers will be empowering kids. In my experience, students will achieve at levels far beyond what is expected if you give them the opportunity. Just believing in them helps them believe in themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Independence\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We all like independence; it is the foundation of our nation. For most children it starts when they are two years old and want to do everything themselves—to the chagrin of their parents. In elementary school, students want to be independent too, but as they progress through the system, they become more dependent on the teacher. By the time they are in high school—if they have been taught according to the old model—they are waiting to be told what to do. However, high school is a time when the students’ drive for independence should be at its peak. One way teachers can encourage this drive is to give students an opportunity to come up with their own projects within defined guidelines. For example, students could have a writing assignment, but one in which they pick the topic. It could be a restaurant review, with each student reviewing a restaurant of his or her choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/moonshots-cover/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39581\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/moonshots-cover-300x368.png\" alt=\"moonshots cover\" width=\"300\" height=\"368\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-39581\">\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>Collaboration\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collaboration is an important part of the culture of the blended classroom. Students love to work with their peers, especially if they are working on a project they selected themselves. In fact, the main attraction of school for most students is being with their peers. So if teachers can make the environment a friendly, collaborative work space in which students feel comfortable, more learning will take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This type of learning is important for several reasons: 1) most workplaces today require collaboration and students need to practice those skills at school 2) students learn more when they are responsible for another students work 3) collaboration increases student interest in learning especially if it is on a common project such as a newspaper, magazine, video, or website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kindness\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kindness is self-evident. If students feel that the teacher is kind, they want to learn. I can remember many instances of being kind to students who had made mistakes. It paid off a hundred times, because the students were so grateful, it made them feel relaxed and accepted. Being kind not only in school, but in life in general, makes the difference. As the American religious leader William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962) put it: “Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Wojcicki\">Esther Wojcicki\u003c/a> teaches journalism and English at Palo Alto High School in California. She served as Chair of Creative Commons and is currently a vice-chair of Creative Commons and an advisor to The University of the People, a global online non-profit free university. You can follower her on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/estherwojcicki\">@EstherWojcicki\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/pencil-tree/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39578\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/Pencil-tree.jpg\" alt=\"Pencil-tree\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-39578\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The excerpt below is from the book “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Moonshots-Education-Launching-Learning-Classroom/dp/1934276200\">Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom\u003c/a>,” by Esther Wojcicki, Lance Izumi and Alicia Chang. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “Trick in the Blended Classroom,” written by Wojcicki.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">It all started in 1987, when I got a grant from the State of California. The state sent me eight Macintosh computers, never asking if I knew how to use them, and when they arrived I had no idea how to even turn them on. I realized then that I was going to fail if I didn’t get some help quickly. I looked around for colleagues who could help, but none of them had any idea. Our school had no IT department. So I took a leap of faith and confessed to my students that I had no idea how to use the new computers and that I needed help. This turned out to be a stroke of good luck, even though I did not see it that way at the time. It was the beginning of my new teaching methodology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were absolutely thrilled to help me (can you imagine being asked to help a teacher?!), and that was the beginning of my collaborative teaching model. Only, at that point, it did not have a name, and in fact I had to hide it from other teachers who might have frowned on what I was doing. The students and I ended up spending hours after school and on weekends figuring out the computers and how to network them. I had never even heard the word “network” in a computer context. I was one of the first teachers in California to use computers in the classroom, and possibly the first in the nation to use computers in a journalism classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was soon sold on the idea of collaboration, respect, and trust in the classroom. And it turns out that building a culture of collaboration, respect, and trust is key to a successful blended classroom. The first action a teacher needs to take in the fall when school starts is to set up the culture. On the surface, this may sound like a waste of time, but in fact its importance cannot be overemphasized. Part of such a culture is understanding that the teacher is not the only expert in the room; in fact, students can know more than the teacher about some aspects of what they will be doing together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Computers, tablets, and other electronic devices alone are not going to change the classroom. It is the change in culture that will make the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help everyone remember what it takes to set up a culture that works, I have come up with an acronym, TRICK. Each letter stands for an important part of the culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>T = trust \u003cbr>\nR = respect\u003cbr>\n I = independence\u003cbr>\nC = collaboration\u003cbr>\nK = kindness\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Trust\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe first thing to establish in the classroom is a culture of trust. That does not mean the students are given complete freedom to run wild and do what they want; it means the students trust each other to help in the learning process and the teacher trusts the students. The boundaries need to be established early in the semester. There are a variety of exercises to build trust that a teacher can use, ranging from the blind man’s game to walking into walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the teacher is the one in control, it is he or she who must take the initiative. Teachers need to put themselves into situations that require students to be trustworthy. Opportunities arise every day. For example, having students work in teams and be responsible to the team teaches trust. Creating a group blog or website gives students a natural way to develop trust in the team, and, if the teacher trusts the team, it builds a community of trust in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the key to building trust is to actually trust the students. While that may seem counterintuitive to many teachers, it is really the only way to effectively build trust. For example, in my advanced journalism class, the students each have an individual story assignment, so no two students are doing the same thing. Some of the stories are particularly sensitive about issues in the school, the district, or the city. It takes a leap of faith on my part to trust students to get the information right and to write it up in an objective way. We publish the results online— typically garnering thousands of views—and in hard copy for three thousand local residents. Students have told me that trusting them to write the stories is significant in building their self-esteem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students also put out a newspaper or magazine. The newspaper class has an enrollment of seventy students, who work in teams on the paper. Six editors-in-chief are in charge of the class, giving the students critical leadership experience and a sense of control over the publication. The magazine classes have an enrollment of thirty-five and an editorial board of three editors. Each student in each class has a title that correlates to his or her responsibilities. Examples are news editor, editorial-page editor, feature-page editor, or reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides having the students produce actual publications, a second suggestion is to allow the students to teach the class on a regular basis. For example, the teacher can designate one day a week when the kids take over the class for an hour or so. Having kids teach each other in small groups on a regular basis also creates a sense of trust in the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also encourage the students to help with the technological side of the program. I use Google Docs to create documents and Adobe software to publish. New products come out daily, and many of those might be useful for me, but I have little time to investigate them. Thus, I ask my students to watch out for new software that might be useful for the program, tell me about it, and, if it seems appropriate, learn how to use it. They then share it with the rest of the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third suggestion to enhance trust is to give students your home phone number, cell number, and e-mail and tell them to contact you when they have problems, but not later than a specified time in the evening. Just giving out that information provides for a culture of trust and caring. All students also have the same contact information for all other students including home phones, cell phones and addresses as well as my contact information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth suggestion is for the teacher to laugh at his or her own mistakes on a regular basis. We all make mistakes, and teaching students that mistakes are part of life is an important lesson in helping them accept themselves. I do that every day in class, and the mistakes are not difficult to find: Every day there is something that does not go as planned. Teachers who are willing to show that they are not perfect, don’t know everything, and can laugh at themselves can more easily develop trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, and perhaps most important, is to put students in situations requiring them to think for themselves. They may stumble and have difficulties, but the key is to support them in their efforts while letting them solve the problem themselves. This builds trust in themselves, in the class as a whole, and between teacher and students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Respect\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTeachers need to have sincere respect for their students, especially in today’s world, where the members of a class may come from very different backgrounds and experiences. But each one has unique gifts even if he or she also has unique problems. As a teacher I know how difficult it can be to respect students who create problems in the classroom, but it is up to the teacher to show respect. It goes a long way in making the student feel better about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Respect is part of trust. I trust the kids and respect them, and in turn they trust and respect me. Someone has to start the process, and it cannot be the students, since the teacher is in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giving students respect does not mean letting go of expectations. In fact, it means the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39560\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/esther-wojcicki-joi-ito/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39560\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/Esther-Wojcicki-Joi-Ito-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Esther Wojcicki (Credit: Joi Ito/Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39560\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Esther Wojcicki (Credit: \u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2593396471/in/photolist-anWWLG-aoRV5G-aoRUpE-cv31m1-4XaQqg-4X97qF-7X231d-anLvZq-q6QteJ-iw3kqX-6Fg42Y-cveWoU-anXjzj-5CEgTq-inW4pR-4Xehjt-inW2Zh-5CEfH3-5CzY3i\">Joi Ito/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Teachers need to respect them as individuals and expect them to achieve at a high level. My expectations are high and I encourage my students to reach those standards by giving them the opportunity to revise their work on a regular basis. I use the mastery system model (which means students work on a skill until they master it) and grade only when students have finally mastered the standard. An innovative internet company called MasteryConnect.com has software that sup- ports this pedagogy. Grades can be very discouraging for kids but if teachers return an assignment with suggestions on how to improve or correct the errors and kids understand it is part of the process of learning, they will still be excited to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Famed psychologists Albert Bandura talks about the power of self-efficacy and how a student’s self image determines how they feel about themselves. He defines self-efficacy as a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations and says that self efficacy plays a major role in how people (especially students) approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. According to Bandura’s theory, people with high self-efficacy—that is, those who believe they can perform well—are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bandura\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Kelley, CEO of IDEO and head of Stanford University’s d.school, has a similar philosophy which he calls Creative Confidence. He says the key to being creative and achieving is “believing in your ability to create change in the world around you. It is the conviction that you can achieve what you set out to do. We think this self-assurance, this belief in your creative capacity, lies at the heart of innovation. Creative confidence is like a muscle--it can be strengthened and nurtured through effort and experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Kelley\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carol Dweck, social psychologist from Stanford University, talks about the power of “mindset” and how if people think their intelligence is flexible and can grow, they will achieve, but if they think it is fixed and there is nothing they can do about it, they tend to be afraid to try. People with a growth mindset understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They think that if they persevere, (mastery learning concept) they will succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is nothing new, but it is harder to do than to say. Students will rise to meet the expectations of their teachers and parents. By giving students the respect and having the expectation, teachers will be empowering kids. In my experience, students will achieve at levels far beyond what is expected if you give them the opportunity. Just believing in them helps them believe in themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Independence\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We all like independence; it is the foundation of our nation. For most children it starts when they are two years old and want to do everything themselves—to the chagrin of their parents. In elementary school, students want to be independent too, but as they progress through the system, they become more dependent on the teacher. By the time they are in high school—if they have been taught according to the old model—they are waiting to be told what to do. However, high school is a time when the students’ drive for independence should be at its peak. One way teachers can encourage this drive is to give students an opportunity to come up with their own projects within defined guidelines. For example, students could have a writing assignment, but one in which they pick the topic. It could be a restaurant review, with each student reviewing a restaurant of his or her choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/how-to-grow-a-classroom-culture-that-supports-blended-learning/moonshots-cover/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39581\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/moonshots-cover-300x368.png\" alt=\"moonshots cover\" width=\"300\" height=\"368\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-39581\">\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>Collaboration\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collaboration is an important part of the culture of the blended classroom. Students love to work with their peers, especially if they are working on a project they selected themselves. In fact, the main attraction of school for most students is being with their peers. So if teachers can make the environment a friendly, collaborative work space in which students feel comfortable, more learning will take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This type of learning is important for several reasons: 1) most workplaces today require collaboration and students need to practice those skills at school 2) students learn more when they are responsible for another students work 3) collaboration increases student interest in learning especially if it is on a common project such as a newspaper, magazine, video, or website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kindness\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kindness is self-evident. If students feel that the teacher is kind, they want to learn. I can remember many instances of being kind to students who had made mistakes. It paid off a hundred times, because the students were so grateful, it made them feel relaxed and accepted. Being kind not only in school, but in life in general, makes the difference. As the American religious leader William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962) put it: “Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Wojcicki\">Esther Wojcicki\u003c/a> teaches journalism and English at Palo Alto High School in California. She served as Chair of Creative Commons and is currently a vice-chair of Creative Commons and an advisor to The University of the People, a global online non-profit free university. You can follower her on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/estherwojcicki\">@EstherWojcicki\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Some Benefits and Drawbacks of Blended Learning",
"title": "Some Benefits and Drawbacks of Blended Learning",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8444_slide-37da08449a23f5b17613cd4f4fd2bc415b882eb3-e1421069729890.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38958\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8444_slide-37da08449a23f5b17613cd4f4fd2bc415b882eb3-e1421069729890.jpg\" alt=\"A blended learning classroom at David Boody Jr. High School in New York City. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A blended learning classroom at David Boody Jr. High School in New York City. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By William Huntsberry, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/12/370966699/meet-the-classroom-of-the-future\">NPR\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(This post has been corrected by NPR. To see the corrections and updates, please see the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/12/370966699/meet-the-classroom-of-the-future\">original story\u003c/a>.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The classroom of the future probably won't be led by a robot with arms and legs\u003cem>,\u003c/em> but it may be guided by a digital brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may look like this: one room, about the size of a basketball court; more than 100 students, all plugged into a laptop; and 15 teachers and teaching assistants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn't just the future, it's the sixth grade math class at David Boody Jr. High School in Brooklyn, near Coney Island. Beneath all the human buzz, something other than humans is running the show: algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kind of complex computer calculations that drive our Google searches or select what we see on our Facebook pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms choose which students sit together. Algorithms measure what the children know and how well they know it. They choose what problems the children should work on and provide teachers with the next lesson to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This combination of human capital and technology is called \"blended learning.\" And regardless of whether it makes you uneasy, the program, \u003ca href=\"http://www.newclassrooms.org/reimagine.html\">Teach to One\u003c/a>, seems to be serving Boody Jr. High well. \u003ca href=\"http://www.newclassrooms.org/resources/Teach-to-One_Report_2013-14.pdf\">A recent study\u003c/a> of the 15 schools using Teach to One, had mixed results, but showed they are outperforming their peers nationally on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It can be used as an effective tool, but so far it has had moderate and unstable effects on student performance,\" said Justin Reich, a researcher at Harvard who has reviewed the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He believes Teach to One can mechanize some of the more mundane parts of teaching, like grading and assessing whether a student has mastered a topic. But, he added, it also ends up teaching to standardized tests and doesn't work better than some non-digital interventions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how does it work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"mu4mgUEBd1ElScc5E8tFJmYkfZbRxBb1\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When these sixth graders get to class, they either log onto their laptop or check a monitor at the front of the room. It tells each student where to go — the room is quasi-divided by book shelves and small dividers into 10 sections, with names like \"Botanical Gardens\" and \"Brighton Beach.\" The computer also tells them what kind of lesson they'll do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, most students in the large room are engaged in individual work on their laptops, lessons called \"Virtual Instruction\" and \"Virtual Reinforcement.\" Still others are engaged in group work, being led by a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \"Kew Gardens,\" Devon Myers, who has taught for seven years, is conducting what Teach to One calls a \"live investigation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stands silently next to a smart board and clicks a mouse. A tinny voice, a cousin of iPhone's Siri perhaps, begins the lesson. \"\u003cem>How do you say two-point-zero-five-three? To read this, break it into two parts\u003c/em>,\" commands the disembodied voice from a computer's speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers assists: \"Does anybody know how you say this?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sabrina Giagrande, a girl who has already answered several questions, reaches her arm into the sky, like it's being pulled on and shaken by an invisible force. Myers pushes his disinterested class of 20, urging someone else to answer, but ultimately defers to Sabrina: \"Two and fifty-three thousandths.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's right,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"In this lesson you've learned to name decimal numbers through the thousandths by using place value\u003c/em>,\" the algorithm's voice informs the class in a matter-of-fact tone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether they've gotten it or not, the algorithm will ultimately find out. At the end of class the kids do a short quiz called an \"exit slip,\" which the algorithm uses to gauge what they've learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In five questions, this exit slip gives the algorithm the information it uses to decide which students will be grouped together the next day, and what work each of them will do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sixth-grade class, in theory, students might be working on everything from 4th grade level math to 8th grade level math. Around 5 p.m. every day, teachers get an alert telling them how students will be grouped and what lessons they'll need to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many teachers I talked with gave the program cautious praise. Aaron Kaswell, who uses Teach to One at M.S. 33, another middle school in Brooklyn, says all this sorting frees him up to be a better teacher. But he adds that helping his students learn is no easier than it was before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since he only gets his material 12 hours in advance, that means he has to be ready to create lessons on the fly and make a plan for students who need additional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You still have to make the teaching your own,\" he said. But not everyone does that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"A lot of people just take what's given to them [from the program] and do what they're told: 'This is my script, these are my kids who are here.'\" When used that way, Teach to One won't work, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Myers' lesson at Boody Jr. High, some students seem engaged, others appear distracted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christien Williams, a smartly-dressed sixth grader with corn rows, stabs his pen into the rubbery flesh of an eraser with a level of satisfaction and obsession one might get from popping bubble wrap. He went over the material earlier in the period and says he's bored at the thought of doing it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The class is divided into two 25 minute periods and during the first Christien did a \"virtual instruction\" tutorial. With headphones in, he went through a series of fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"In this lesson you'll learn how to identify decimals to the hundredths and thousandths\u003c/em>,\" an upbeat voice says into his headphones, while a pulsing '80s synth beat plays in the background. If he answers a question correctly, it lets him move on. If he doesn't, the computer attempts to tell him where he went wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"Sorry that is incorrect\u003c/em>,\" the voice says. \"\u003cem>You want to write the decimal in forty and fifty-three thousandths in standard form. We will use a place value chart to answer the problem.\"\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38961\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8483_slide-7b50b0e2b4bfbdf6ace20766a846feebe40fffe0-e1421071267525.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38961\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8483_slide-7b50b0e2b4bfbdf6ace20766a846feebe40fffe0-e1421071267525.jpg\" alt=\"Students engaged in group work, being led by a teacher. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students engaged in group work, being led by a teacher. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The problem with algorithms, critics have argued, is that they make it easier to teach to standardized tests and ultimately detract from enriching teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Computers, for instance, are good at measuring the simplistic, computational tasks required by a standardized test, but not critical thinking, argues Reich, the Harvard researcher. He argues that has implications for the students later on: Math jobs that require a human generally involve higher-order thinking, whereas computational math jobs are already being done by computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you care about children having full lives in the world of mathematics in the future, then this is a terrible system,\" he said. \"But these high-stakes tests matter. If I were a principal and had kids on the proficiency border, I would use these programs to move them across the line.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poor test scores, in fact, were Boody Jr. High's main impetus for signing onto the program. \"We hadn't made math gains in a long time. Why not try something new?\" said Principal Dominick D'Angelo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the success, argues D'Angelo, comes from Teach to One acting as a robotic enforcer. He knows exactly what lesson plans his teachers are going over every day and whether they got through them or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Go to a school on the Monday after Thanksgiving. You show me how many teachers were doing some powerful instruction,\" he said. \"The design of this program forces the issue.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the sense that Teach to One is \"adaptive\" and \"self-improving,\" it's a form of artificial intelligence, which is important because schools performed much better in the second year of the study. They performed 47 percent better on average than their peers nationally, in fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company's co-founder, Joel Rose, credits that to the algorithm's ability to improve itself, but also to second-year schools becoming more acclimated with the program and learning how to train teachers to better use the software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You gotta build the plane while you're flying,\" Rose said of blended learning. \"Luckily, we've worked with good schools that have understood that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not all partner schools have understood. Improvements were mediocre at some schools and grades actually dropped at others. Of three New York schools, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/nyc-chancellor-joel-klein-highly-touted-school-math-project-dropped-2-3-schools-pilot-program-article-1.1152131\">two dropped out.\u003c/a> (Neither of those schools returned our request for comment.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city had managed to raise $9 million in outside funds for the pilot program, which was set to last three years, raising another important question: Is, as many of its proponents contend, blended learning actually cheaper than traditional teaching? \u003ca href=\"http://www.wnyc.org/story/is-digital-learning-more-cost-effective-maybe-not/\">A recent study\u003c/a> found, among successful programs, it isn't.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, blended learning costs more, agrees Rose, but he does think that once the programs get better and schools have invested in hardware, it could become cheaper one day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the money issue, the big question is this: Do kids actually learn more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms may be better task managers than people\u003cem>. \u003c/em>It's likely they can reduce a great amount of a teacher's workload when grading assignments and tracking student progress. They can more easily keep pace with the changes in a standardized test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What remains unclear is the point at which standardization could begins to take away from those other educational hallmarks: creativity and critical thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Meet+The+Classroom+Of+The+Future+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8444_slide-37da08449a23f5b17613cd4f4fd2bc415b882eb3-e1421069729890.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38958\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8444_slide-37da08449a23f5b17613cd4f4fd2bc415b882eb3-e1421069729890.jpg\" alt=\"A blended learning classroom at David Boody Jr. High School in New York City. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A blended learning classroom at David Boody Jr. High School in New York City. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By William Huntsberry, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/12/370966699/meet-the-classroom-of-the-future\">NPR\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(This post has been corrected by NPR. To see the corrections and updates, please see the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/12/370966699/meet-the-classroom-of-the-future\">original story\u003c/a>.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The classroom of the future probably won't be led by a robot with arms and legs\u003cem>,\u003c/em> but it may be guided by a digital brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may look like this: one room, about the size of a basketball court; more than 100 students, all plugged into a laptop; and 15 teachers and teaching assistants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn't just the future, it's the sixth grade math class at David Boody Jr. High School in Brooklyn, near Coney Island. Beneath all the human buzz, something other than humans is running the show: algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kind of complex computer calculations that drive our Google searches or select what we see on our Facebook pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms choose which students sit together. Algorithms measure what the children know and how well they know it. They choose what problems the children should work on and provide teachers with the next lesson to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This combination of human capital and technology is called \"blended learning.\" And regardless of whether it makes you uneasy, the program, \u003ca href=\"http://www.newclassrooms.org/reimagine.html\">Teach to One\u003c/a>, seems to be serving Boody Jr. High well. \u003ca href=\"http://www.newclassrooms.org/resources/Teach-to-One_Report_2013-14.pdf\">A recent study\u003c/a> of the 15 schools using Teach to One, had mixed results, but showed they are outperforming their peers nationally on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It can be used as an effective tool, but so far it has had moderate and unstable effects on student performance,\" said Justin Reich, a researcher at Harvard who has reviewed the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He believes Teach to One can mechanize some of the more mundane parts of teaching, like grading and assessing whether a student has mastered a topic. But, he added, it also ends up teaching to standardized tests and doesn't work better than some non-digital interventions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how does it work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When these sixth graders get to class, they either log onto their laptop or check a monitor at the front of the room. It tells each student where to go — the room is quasi-divided by book shelves and small dividers into 10 sections, with names like \"Botanical Gardens\" and \"Brighton Beach.\" The computer also tells them what kind of lesson they'll do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, most students in the large room are engaged in individual work on their laptops, lessons called \"Virtual Instruction\" and \"Virtual Reinforcement.\" Still others are engaged in group work, being led by a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \"Kew Gardens,\" Devon Myers, who has taught for seven years, is conducting what Teach to One calls a \"live investigation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He stands silently next to a smart board and clicks a mouse. A tinny voice, a cousin of iPhone's Siri perhaps, begins the lesson. \"\u003cem>How do you say two-point-zero-five-three? To read this, break it into two parts\u003c/em>,\" commands the disembodied voice from a computer's speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers assists: \"Does anybody know how you say this?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sabrina Giagrande, a girl who has already answered several questions, reaches her arm into the sky, like it's being pulled on and shaken by an invisible force. Myers pushes his disinterested class of 20, urging someone else to answer, but ultimately defers to Sabrina: \"Two and fifty-three thousandths.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's right,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"In this lesson you've learned to name decimal numbers through the thousandths by using place value\u003c/em>,\" the algorithm's voice informs the class in a matter-of-fact tone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether they've gotten it or not, the algorithm will ultimately find out. At the end of class the kids do a short quiz called an \"exit slip,\" which the algorithm uses to gauge what they've learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In five questions, this exit slip gives the algorithm the information it uses to decide which students will be grouped together the next day, and what work each of them will do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a sixth-grade class, in theory, students might be working on everything from 4th grade level math to 8th grade level math. Around 5 p.m. every day, teachers get an alert telling them how students will be grouped and what lessons they'll need to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many teachers I talked with gave the program cautious praise. Aaron Kaswell, who uses Teach to One at M.S. 33, another middle school in Brooklyn, says all this sorting frees him up to be a better teacher. But he adds that helping his students learn is no easier than it was before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since he only gets his material 12 hours in advance, that means he has to be ready to create lessons on the fly and make a plan for students who need additional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You still have to make the teaching your own,\" he said. But not everyone does that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"A lot of people just take what's given to them [from the program] and do what they're told: 'This is my script, these are my kids who are here.'\" When used that way, Teach to One won't work, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Myers' lesson at Boody Jr. High, some students seem engaged, others appear distracted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christien Williams, a smartly-dressed sixth grader with corn rows, stabs his pen into the rubbery flesh of an eraser with a level of satisfaction and obsession one might get from popping bubble wrap. He went over the material earlier in the period and says he's bored at the thought of doing it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The class is divided into two 25 minute periods and during the first Christien did a \"virtual instruction\" tutorial. With headphones in, he went through a series of fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"In this lesson you'll learn how to identify decimals to the hundredths and thousandths\u003c/em>,\" an upbeat voice says into his headphones, while a pulsing '80s synth beat plays in the background. If he answers a question correctly, it lets him move on. If he doesn't, the computer attempts to tell him where he went wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\"Sorry that is incorrect\u003c/em>,\" the voice says. \"\u003cem>You want to write the decimal in forty and fifty-three thousandths in standard form. We will use a place value chart to answer the problem.\"\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38961\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8483_slide-7b50b0e2b4bfbdf6ace20766a846feebe40fffe0-e1421071267525.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38961\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/img_8483_slide-7b50b0e2b4bfbdf6ace20766a846feebe40fffe0-e1421071267525.jpg\" alt=\"Students engaged in group work, being led by a teacher. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students engaged in group work, being led by a teacher. (Courtesy of New Classrooms)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The problem with algorithms, critics have argued, is that they make it easier to teach to standardized tests and ultimately detract from enriching teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Computers, for instance, are good at measuring the simplistic, computational tasks required by a standardized test, but not critical thinking, argues Reich, the Harvard researcher. He argues that has implications for the students later on: Math jobs that require a human generally involve higher-order thinking, whereas computational math jobs are already being done by computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you care about children having full lives in the world of mathematics in the future, then this is a terrible system,\" he said. \"But these high-stakes tests matter. If I were a principal and had kids on the proficiency border, I would use these programs to move them across the line.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poor test scores, in fact, were Boody Jr. High's main impetus for signing onto the program. \"We hadn't made math gains in a long time. Why not try something new?\" said Principal Dominick D'Angelo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the success, argues D'Angelo, comes from Teach to One acting as a robotic enforcer. He knows exactly what lesson plans his teachers are going over every day and whether they got through them or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Go to a school on the Monday after Thanksgiving. You show me how many teachers were doing some powerful instruction,\" he said. \"The design of this program forces the issue.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the sense that Teach to One is \"adaptive\" and \"self-improving,\" it's a form of artificial intelligence, which is important because schools performed much better in the second year of the study. They performed 47 percent better on average than their peers nationally, in fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company's co-founder, Joel Rose, credits that to the algorithm's ability to improve itself, but also to second-year schools becoming more acclimated with the program and learning how to train teachers to better use the software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You gotta build the plane while you're flying,\" Rose said of blended learning. \"Luckily, we've worked with good schools that have understood that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not all partner schools have understood. Improvements were mediocre at some schools and grades actually dropped at others. Of three New York schools, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/nyc-chancellor-joel-klein-highly-touted-school-math-project-dropped-2-3-schools-pilot-program-article-1.1152131\">two dropped out.\u003c/a> (Neither of those schools returned our request for comment.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city had managed to raise $9 million in outside funds for the pilot program, which was set to last three years, raising another important question: Is, as many of its proponents contend, blended learning actually cheaper than traditional teaching? \u003ca href=\"http://www.wnyc.org/story/is-digital-learning-more-cost-effective-maybe-not/\">A recent study\u003c/a> found, among successful programs, it isn't.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, blended learning costs more, agrees Rose, but he does think that once the programs get better and schools have invested in hardware, it could become cheaper one day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the money issue, the big question is this: Do kids actually learn more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms may be better task managers than people\u003cem>. \u003c/em>It's likely they can reduce a great amount of a teacher's workload when grading assignments and tracking student progress. They can more easily keep pace with the changes in a standardized test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/11/ST-Math.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-38437\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/11/ST-Math-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"ST Math\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">ST Math\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Technology is making its way into many classrooms across the country, easing the way for schools to use educational software as one part of instruction. While the proliferation of ed-tech products and software programs can seem unending, the research backing up the claims made by companies has yet to catch up. This environment makes it \u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/11/13/13procurement.h34.html\" target=\"_blank\">challenging for school leaders to make informed decisions\u003c/a> about products that have a big impact on how teachers teach and students learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.wested.org/resources/stmathevaluation2014/\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> completed by the independent, not-for-profit research and development agency \u003ca href=\"http://www.wested.org/\" target=\"_blank\">WestEd\u003c/a> is an effort by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mindresearch.net/\" target=\"_blank\">MIND Research Institute\u003c/a> to document if its program, \u003ca href=\"http://www.mindresearch.net/play/\" target=\"_blank\">ST Math\u003c/a>, makes a measurable difference on student test scores. The institute commissioned the study to compare the state test scores of 19,980 second-to-fifth-graders in California, who had access to ST Math’s program in the 2010-2011 school year, with a comparison group of students who did not have the program. All teachers who used ST Math got the same training and teacher support from the ST Math staff on how to use the software. They also received help on how to integrate the technology for use in face-to-face teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'I hope this is one of what will be many scientific studies coming from the industry.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers found that 65 percent of students who had access to ST Math scored proficient or advanced on the California Standards Test, as compared with 62.5 percent in the comparison group. That difference is statistically significant, but in real terms doesn’t appear to be a very big effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, not all classrooms that used ST Math took a comprehensive approach. For grades that “fully implemented the program,” meaning at least 85 percent of the students used the program to cover at least 50 percent of the content for the class, the difference was greater. These schools invested time in program adoption, rather than just having access to the program and using it intermittently. For that group, 68 percent of students scored proficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"sQ9EU4UiaegKlqgRp5jXh0wkoRHGmnyo\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest limitation is the fact that we’re doing a matched comparison study,” said John Rice, senior research associate at WestEd. It’s a quasi-experimental research setup -- not the gold standard randomized control study by any means -- but the best that could be done in this case. Researchers adjusted for factors like race, socioeconomics and starting levels of proficiency, to make the data as even as possible, but comparing grade-level cohorts in this manner is inherently opaque.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The grades that implemented ST Math selected themselves to do this, so there may have been other factors that influenced improvement besides the program,” Rice said. Still, the results indicate that teachers who invested more heavily in the program saw better results on tests. Rice said a longitudinal study that looks at individual student growth would give more detailed information about the program’s effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While tests are only one measure of learning, they are often the most public indicator of a school’s performance. For this study, WestEd researchers excluded high-performing schools from the sample, hoping to take a deeper look at how the program affects underperforming students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>HOW DOES THE PROGRAM WORK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ST Math features a penguin that guides students through math concepts in a visual way. It doesn’t rely on language to teach math concepts the way a textbook does. “We don’t usually consider the extra cost in complexity of introducing students to math using language,” said Andrew Coulson, chief strategist at the MIND Research Institute, ST Math's publisher. He said that introducing the concepts without the burden of language allows kids to grasp the ideas before learning the vocabulary and symbols that go along with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has the side benefit that you don’t need to be proficient in English-language skills in order to use the program,” Coulson said. The MIND Research Institute opened its doors as a nonprofit in 1998 as a spinoff of work done by several professors at UC Irvine. Now, a combination of grants, donations and licensing revenue from schools using ST Math helps pay for research, development and even some reduced-cost licenses for schools who can’t afford to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope this is one of what will be many scientific studies coming from the industry,” Coulson said. He hopes to conduct a similar study in several years to see how effective the program is at teaching Common Core State Standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole industry needs to grow up and say we’re going to track what we’re doing and report out,” Coulson said. So far, that level of accountability and transparency around outcomes has been rare.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/11/ST-Math.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-38437\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/11/ST-Math-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"ST Math\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">ST Math\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Technology is making its way into many classrooms across the country, easing the way for schools to use educational software as one part of instruction. While the proliferation of ed-tech products and software programs can seem unending, the research backing up the claims made by companies has yet to catch up. This environment makes it \u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/11/13/13procurement.h34.html\" target=\"_blank\">challenging for school leaders to make informed decisions\u003c/a> about products that have a big impact on how teachers teach and students learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.wested.org/resources/stmathevaluation2014/\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> completed by the independent, not-for-profit research and development agency \u003ca href=\"http://www.wested.org/\" target=\"_blank\">WestEd\u003c/a> is an effort by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mindresearch.net/\" target=\"_blank\">MIND Research Institute\u003c/a> to document if its program, \u003ca href=\"http://www.mindresearch.net/play/\" target=\"_blank\">ST Math\u003c/a>, makes a measurable difference on student test scores. The institute commissioned the study to compare the state test scores of 19,980 second-to-fifth-graders in California, who had access to ST Math’s program in the 2010-2011 school year, with a comparison group of students who did not have the program. All teachers who used ST Math got the same training and teacher support from the ST Math staff on how to use the software. They also received help on how to integrate the technology for use in face-to-face teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'I hope this is one of what will be many scientific studies coming from the industry.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers found that 65 percent of students who had access to ST Math scored proficient or advanced on the California Standards Test, as compared with 62.5 percent in the comparison group. That difference is statistically significant, but in real terms doesn’t appear to be a very big effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, not all classrooms that used ST Math took a comprehensive approach. For grades that “fully implemented the program,” meaning at least 85 percent of the students used the program to cover at least 50 percent of the content for the class, the difference was greater. These schools invested time in program adoption, rather than just having access to the program and using it intermittently. For that group, 68 percent of students scored proficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest limitation is the fact that we’re doing a matched comparison study,” said John Rice, senior research associate at WestEd. It’s a quasi-experimental research setup -- not the gold standard randomized control study by any means -- but the best that could be done in this case. Researchers adjusted for factors like race, socioeconomics and starting levels of proficiency, to make the data as even as possible, but comparing grade-level cohorts in this manner is inherently opaque.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The grades that implemented ST Math selected themselves to do this, so there may have been other factors that influenced improvement besides the program,” Rice said. Still, the results indicate that teachers who invested more heavily in the program saw better results on tests. Rice said a longitudinal study that looks at individual student growth would give more detailed information about the program’s effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While tests are only one measure of learning, they are often the most public indicator of a school’s performance. For this study, WestEd researchers excluded high-performing schools from the sample, hoping to take a deeper look at how the program affects underperforming students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>HOW DOES THE PROGRAM WORK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ST Math features a penguin that guides students through math concepts in a visual way. It doesn’t rely on language to teach math concepts the way a textbook does. “We don’t usually consider the extra cost in complexity of introducing students to math using language,” said Andrew Coulson, chief strategist at the MIND Research Institute, ST Math's publisher. He said that introducing the concepts without the burden of language allows kids to grasp the ideas before learning the vocabulary and symbols that go along with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has the side benefit that you don’t need to be proficient in English-language skills in order to use the program,” Coulson said. The MIND Research Institute opened its doors as a nonprofit in 1998 as a spinoff of work done by several professors at UC Irvine. Now, a combination of grants, donations and licensing revenue from schools using ST Math helps pay for research, development and even some reduced-cost licenses for schools who can’t afford to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope this is one of what will be many scientific studies coming from the industry,” Coulson said. He hopes to conduct a similar study in several years to see how effective the program is at teaching Common Core State Standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole industry needs to grow up and say we’re going to track what we’re doing and report out,” Coulson said. So far, that level of accountability and transparency around outcomes has been rare.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_31426\" class=\"wp-caption center\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-31426\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108.jpg\" alt=\"10_11.15_newtech_0173\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Educators who work in low-income schools understand technology could help them understand student needs better and create more engaging learning experiences. But tight budgets make some of the more ambitious schemes, like one-to-one computer access a distant dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet it’s precisely the schools with under-served student populations that stand to gain the most from technology. Class sizes are often large and teachers are looking for ways to keep the class engaged and focused when they work one-on-one with a struggling student. Smart use of technology could save them time with grading and tracking student progress, for example. Still some high-needs schools are only just beginning to push for school technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://encompass.ousd.k12.ca.us/index.php\">Encompass Academy\u003c/a> is an elementary school in one of the most violent and poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Oakland, California. All students at Encompass qualify for free and reduced lunch and 70 percent are English language learners. “We’re in one of the top two homicide beats in Oakland for the last 10 years, so our kids come in with a lot,” said Minh-Tram Nguyen, Encompass’ founding principal. “We have a lot of urgency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, however, Encompass managed to roll out a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/four-essential-principles-of-blended-learning/\">blended learning\u003c/a> program for first through fifth grades last year and has added \u003ca href=\"http://www.vincigenius.com/\">Vinci tablets\u003c/a> to its kindergarten class this year. Nguyen has worked in cash-strapped public school districts for a long time and knows how to seek out partnerships with private companies that can offer free products, how to invest in infrastructure when the district has money and how to be strategic about integrating technology and supporting teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. KEEP GOALS AND MISSION IN MIND\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the frenzy and confusion of implementing new strategies it’s easy to lose sight of a school’s mission. Technology shouldn’t force a school away from its guiding principles; it should be implemented thoughtfully to complement those goals, she says. For example, Encompass teaches to the \u003ca href=\"http://encompass.ousd.k12.ca.us/about_us.php#guiding_principles\">whole child\u003c/a> and has a heavy focus on engaging parents and community, so Nguyen looked for tech products that had strong family communication tools in several languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. TECH SHOULD COMPLIMENT NOT REPLACE \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We teach a math program that’s very computational and algorithmic focused,” Nguyen said. “But we also knew we needed to do more conceptual building.” That’s why she chose \u003ca href=\"http://web.stmath.com/\">ST Math \u003c/a>as a supplemental online program to in-class learning. She didn’t worry kids would be repeating what they’d done in class on the computer because the program focuses on a different side of math skills, one that is increasingly important with Common Core. Nguyen also felt the program fit her students the best. “[The program designer] designed it so it’s not English language dependent,” Nguyen said. “So with the high number of English language learners that we have, they don’t have to read English fluently. It’s more pictorial problem solving.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_31356\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-31356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/welcome-back640x300-300x140.jpg\" alt=\"welcome-back640x300\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. INVOLVE FAMILIES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any educator will tell you how important parents are to student success. But in high poverty schools where many parents don’t speak English, the barriers to active parental engagement are higher. Encompass makes a big effort to involve families in their school community, but not necessarily measured by parent volunteers. They think about how parents can engage with every aspect of the curriculum including new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Vinci donated tablets to its kindergarten students, Encompass had the company train parents on how to use them. The school uses Achieve3000 in Language Arts because it offers letters home in Spanish, access to student dashboards by mobile device and even an audio function so parents can listen to the articles their students read. “Our family members who want to engage and read and practice and develop their literacy could engage and do it side by side with their child,” Nguyen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. DON'T LET TRENDS DICTATE DECISIONS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although tablets and laptops are trendy right now, Nguyen decided to get desktop computers for her classrooms because they are durable. She also already had some that were going unused that she could leverage to extend her budget. Her classrooms have eight to ten computers in them, but they don’t take up too much space and there is a computer lab as well. Nguyen took advantage of one-time district money available and doesn’t want to have to update or buy new devices too soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. SUPPORT TEACHERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time our computers were available, but they weren’t really used, except for word processing,” Nguyen said. She knows that’s because teachers didn’t feel comfortable integrating the technology into their lessons. They need professional development and the ability to offer input into what software and models the school uses. “It’s not about the online content, it’s about the structures and putting it in a meaningful way for teachers to use it,” Nguyen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. USE TECH TO FREE UP TEACHER TIME\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about releasing the kids to do the work,” Nguyen said. “You actually have to teach them how to be successful.” Computers aren’t teachers, but they can offer a space for students to practice skills they’ve learned or explore new ones while a teacher is working with smaller group of students. The software can help grade assignments, track progress and give insight into where the teacher should focus time and effort. For example, Encompass piloted a rotational model with its fourth and fifth grade students last year. Rather than staying with one teacher for all the subjects as most elementary schools do, the kids rotated between English, math and the computer lab. Since teachers often have a subject area where they shine, each student got the best teacher for each subject and the computer lab helped keep classes small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. TRACK DATA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data can be extremely time-consuming and finding software that can pull in the disparate streams of data into one, useable place can be expensive or nonexistent. Still, Nguyen tracks data using Excel. It takes a lot of time, but she is able to produce a report after each benchmark and get a snapshot of how students are doing. “How do you say, ‘teach to the whole child’ if you don’t know where the child is?” she said. “Even then it’s not going to be precise enough because it’s three times year!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. EXPECT EXCELLENCE, NOT ACHIEVEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In private schools it’s about excellence, it’s not about achievement,” said Nguyen. She highlighted the subtle difference in expectation for kids at high poverty schools as a way the school system undermines their ability to succeed. “When you strive for excellence and quality and opportunity for kids in an equitable way, they respond, but the content has to be of high quality.” Nguyen has not adopted any technology tools that she didn’t find to be pedagogically sound, based on research and well suited to her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. UNDERSTAND START-UP WORLD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nguyen has had good luck working with small start-up businesses, in part because she’s entered those relationships with her eyes open. “They were hungry; they were willing to be nimble,” Nguyen said. She found that useful, but when a start-up company changed its business model, deciding not to work directly with schools anymore she wasn’t surprised or taken off guard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She appreciated what they gave her, but was able to pivot when it didn’t work out as she expected. “I’m used to having to do things despite what infrastructure already exists in our system,” Nguyen said, a mindset that serves her well as she moves with the ups and downs of implementing a blended learning curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>10. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH VENDORS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nguyen has been very clear with companies seeking to partner with her school that Encompass has a mission and plans to stick to it. When she interviews a potential tech partner she is looking for how responsive the company will be to her school’s needs and whether they can produce data in useable ways. She’s also careful to continue building relationships after its already underway, checking in and continually realigning the two visions for the partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This last point gets philosophical. “We get so resource hungry that sometimes we’ll go with whoever will give us resources,” Nguyen said. “But if we come from a place of abundance instead of deficit -- even if you don’t have that much -- you will find a way to then say, \"these are what our needs are, and the people who are of quality will filter through.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_31426\" class=\"wp-caption center\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-31426\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108.jpg\" alt=\"10_11.15_newtech_0173\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/10_11.15_newtech_0173-e1379525337108-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Educators who work in low-income schools understand technology could help them understand student needs better and create more engaging learning experiences. But tight budgets make some of the more ambitious schemes, like one-to-one computer access a distant dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet it’s precisely the schools with under-served student populations that stand to gain the most from technology. Class sizes are often large and teachers are looking for ways to keep the class engaged and focused when they work one-on-one with a struggling student. Smart use of technology could save them time with grading and tracking student progress, for example. Still some high-needs schools are only just beginning to push for school technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://encompass.ousd.k12.ca.us/index.php\">Encompass Academy\u003c/a> is an elementary school in one of the most violent and poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Oakland, California. All students at Encompass qualify for free and reduced lunch and 70 percent are English language learners. “We’re in one of the top two homicide beats in Oakland for the last 10 years, so our kids come in with a lot,” said Minh-Tram Nguyen, Encompass’ founding principal. “We have a lot of urgency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, however, Encompass managed to roll out a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/four-essential-principles-of-blended-learning/\">blended learning\u003c/a> program for first through fifth grades last year and has added \u003ca href=\"http://www.vincigenius.com/\">Vinci tablets\u003c/a> to its kindergarten class this year. Nguyen has worked in cash-strapped public school districts for a long time and knows how to seek out partnerships with private companies that can offer free products, how to invest in infrastructure when the district has money and how to be strategic about integrating technology and supporting teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. KEEP GOALS AND MISSION IN MIND\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the frenzy and confusion of implementing new strategies it’s easy to lose sight of a school’s mission. Technology shouldn’t force a school away from its guiding principles; it should be implemented thoughtfully to complement those goals, she says. For example, Encompass teaches to the \u003ca href=\"http://encompass.ousd.k12.ca.us/about_us.php#guiding_principles\">whole child\u003c/a> and has a heavy focus on engaging parents and community, so Nguyen looked for tech products that had strong family communication tools in several languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. TECH SHOULD COMPLIMENT NOT REPLACE \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We teach a math program that’s very computational and algorithmic focused,” Nguyen said. “But we also knew we needed to do more conceptual building.” That’s why she chose \u003ca href=\"http://web.stmath.com/\">ST Math \u003c/a>as a supplemental online program to in-class learning. She didn’t worry kids would be repeating what they’d done in class on the computer because the program focuses on a different side of math skills, one that is increasingly important with Common Core. Nguyen also felt the program fit her students the best. “[The program designer] designed it so it’s not English language dependent,” Nguyen said. “So with the high number of English language learners that we have, they don’t have to read English fluently. It’s more pictorial problem solving.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_31356\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-31356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/09/welcome-back640x300-300x140.jpg\" alt=\"welcome-back640x300\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. INVOLVE FAMILIES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any educator will tell you how important parents are to student success. But in high poverty schools where many parents don’t speak English, the barriers to active parental engagement are higher. Encompass makes a big effort to involve families in their school community, but not necessarily measured by parent volunteers. They think about how parents can engage with every aspect of the curriculum including new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Vinci donated tablets to its kindergarten students, Encompass had the company train parents on how to use them. The school uses Achieve3000 in Language Arts because it offers letters home in Spanish, access to student dashboards by mobile device and even an audio function so parents can listen to the articles their students read. “Our family members who want to engage and read and practice and develop their literacy could engage and do it side by side with their child,” Nguyen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. DON'T LET TRENDS DICTATE DECISIONS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although tablets and laptops are trendy right now, Nguyen decided to get desktop computers for her classrooms because they are durable. She also already had some that were going unused that she could leverage to extend her budget. Her classrooms have eight to ten computers in them, but they don’t take up too much space and there is a computer lab as well. Nguyen took advantage of one-time district money available and doesn’t want to have to update or buy new devices too soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. SUPPORT TEACHERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time our computers were available, but they weren’t really used, except for word processing,” Nguyen said. She knows that’s because teachers didn’t feel comfortable integrating the technology into their lessons. They need professional development and the ability to offer input into what software and models the school uses. “It’s not about the online content, it’s about the structures and putting it in a meaningful way for teachers to use it,” Nguyen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. USE TECH TO FREE UP TEACHER TIME\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not about releasing the kids to do the work,” Nguyen said. “You actually have to teach them how to be successful.” Computers aren’t teachers, but they can offer a space for students to practice skills they’ve learned or explore new ones while a teacher is working with smaller group of students. The software can help grade assignments, track progress and give insight into where the teacher should focus time and effort. For example, Encompass piloted a rotational model with its fourth and fifth grade students last year. Rather than staying with one teacher for all the subjects as most elementary schools do, the kids rotated between English, math and the computer lab. Since teachers often have a subject area where they shine, each student got the best teacher for each subject and the computer lab helped keep classes small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. TRACK DATA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data can be extremely time-consuming and finding software that can pull in the disparate streams of data into one, useable place can be expensive or nonexistent. Still, Nguyen tracks data using Excel. It takes a lot of time, but she is able to produce a report after each benchmark and get a snapshot of how students are doing. “How do you say, ‘teach to the whole child’ if you don’t know where the child is?” she said. “Even then it’s not going to be precise enough because it’s three times year!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. EXPECT EXCELLENCE, NOT ACHIEVEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In private schools it’s about excellence, it’s not about achievement,” said Nguyen. She highlighted the subtle difference in expectation for kids at high poverty schools as a way the school system undermines their ability to succeed. “When you strive for excellence and quality and opportunity for kids in an equitable way, they respond, but the content has to be of high quality.” Nguyen has not adopted any technology tools that she didn’t find to be pedagogically sound, based on research and well suited to her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. UNDERSTAND START-UP WORLD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nguyen has had good luck working with small start-up businesses, in part because she’s entered those relationships with her eyes open. “They were hungry; they were willing to be nimble,” Nguyen said. She found that useful, but when a start-up company changed its business model, deciding not to work directly with schools anymore she wasn’t surprised or taken off guard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She appreciated what they gave her, but was able to pivot when it didn’t work out as she expected. “I’m used to having to do things despite what infrastructure already exists in our system,” Nguyen said, a mindset that serves her well as she moves with the ups and downs of implementing a blended learning curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>10. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH VENDORS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nguyen has been very clear with companies seeking to partner with her school that Encompass has a mission and plans to stick to it. When she interviews a potential tech partner she is looking for how responsive the company will be to her school’s needs and whether they can produce data in useable ways. She’s also careful to continue building relationships after its already underway, checking in and continually realigning the two visions for the partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This last point gets philosophical. “We get so resource hungry that sometimes we’ll go with whoever will give us resources,” Nguyen said. “But if we come from a place of abundance instead of deficit -- even if you don’t have that much -- you will find a way to then say, \"these are what our needs are, and the people who are of quality will filter through.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30805\" class=\"wp-caption center\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-30805\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_8760\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">As schools become more savvy about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/blended-learning/\">blended-learning tactics\u003c/a>– the practice of mixing online and in-person instruction -- guidelines and best practices are emerging from lessons learned. Here are four crucial factors to keep in mind as schools plunge in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. EVERY SCHOOL NEEDS A VISION.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The single biggest piece of advice offered by most blended learning pioneers is to have a cohesive vision for how the technology will enhance specific learning goals, how it will ease the burden on teachers, and how it can make both teachers and students more creative learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big part of creating that vision is having \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/how-leadership-can-make-or-break-classroom-innovation/\">strong leadership at all levels\u003c/a>. A district superintendent who sees the value in a model will help remove old policies that inhibit the work. A strong leader will remove barriers, support professional development for teachers, celebrate successes and help move past challenges. And that person will value the student experience most. “We put students behind the wheel with our guidance, recognizing they will make mistakes, but we’ll be there to get them back on track,” said Eric Williams, Superintendent of York County School Division in Virginia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Equally important is to have that same kind of visionary leadership from principals and teachers willing to lead by example in the classroom. A shared vision means each tier of a school’s hierarchy must work towards the same goals. Teachers and principals must be \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/experimenting-and-innovating-finding-the-best-tools-and-tactics/\">given room to try new things, fail, innovate and evolve\u003c/a> until they find the right balance. That requires a lot of flexibility, another important feature of implementing this new style of learning that will seem foreign to many parents, students and teachers. Moving to a blended learning model won’t work perfectly just because it’s being done on a tablet or through a new learning management system.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\"> “Shifting some work online to complement traditional classrooms creates much needed time and space in the classroom.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Part of the overall vision needs to include considering how to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/how-can-teachers-prepare-kids-for-a-connected-world/\">give students more agency \u003c/a>over their learning. If the technology is canned content meant to turn out strong test takers who can’t apply the knowledge they’ve learned, is it meeting the broader learning goals? Similarly, how can the technology help teachers become the most inspired, passionate and creative classroom facilitators possible? How can it encourage them to stay in the profession and offer creative outlets for their passions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no one best way to integrate digital learning into a classroom. If the vision, goals and desired outcomes are clear, there’s lots of room to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/whats-the-best-way-of-using-computers-in-schools/\">experiment with what works best\u003c/a>. It will depend on the student population and needs; some schools are dealing with vastly different kinds of student populations, while others may be trying to transition to a project-based learning model. Nothing is mutually exclusive, but needs are different and will determine the learning goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"lcp_catlist aside half left cats-by-2\">\n\u003ch2 class=\"feat-title\">Guide to Blended Learning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>[catlist categorypage=\"yes\" numberposts=\"5\" thumbnail=\"yes\" excludeposts=\"this\" class=\"\" title_tag=\"h3\" title_class=\"post-title\" thumbnail_class=\"thumbnail\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Blended learning also works differently for a variety of subjects. Overall, software developers have had more luck helping students to learn math concepts through a program than they have had with Language Arts, which \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/what-online-tools-work-for-language-arts/\">requires many skills at once that are not easily parsed\u003c/a>. “The biggest issue I still see is that people are still trying to break it down when it needs to be combined,” said Chris Liang-Vergara, director of instructional technology for personalized learning at Firstline, a public charter school company in New Orleans. Firstline depends on software to help its students catch up, but hasn’t found any really satisfactory software for Language Arts. This might be a subject where a patchwork of free or inexpensive web tools can better fill the need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. DON’T LET SOFTWARE DICTATE LEARNING GOALS.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As illustrated by Frontline’s frustrating experience finding Language Arts software that could help students with reading comprehension, writing, synthesis, and vocabulary at the same time, software isn’t always the answer. The tools are slowly improving, but they aren’t infallible and many are directed at a specific problem and don’t offer a cohesive learning strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>A program like ALEKS or Khan Academy videos might help student understand how to do certain math problems, but will they have the opportunity to show whether they can apply the knowledge in real-life scenarios? The flood of data from software can be helpful, if applied to agreed-upon learning outcomes, but that data might not be able to measure those outcomes.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. SUPPORT TEACHERS AND INCLUDE THEM IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESS.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers will always be the heart and soul of a classroom, and they should be considered a critical factor in deciding on what blended tactics to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter what kind of technology is being used, classrooms are full of rambunctious kids who need a teacher with strong\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/10/what-works-in-tech-tools-spotlight-on-classdojo/\"> classroom management\u003c/a> skills and the ability to set a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/09/teaching-social-and-emotional-skills-in-schools/\">positive classroom culture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most common arguments in favor of blended learning center on its ability to help schools tailor learning to the individual learner. The potential for that kind of differentiation is there, but it’s up to the teacher to find challenging learning opportunities for a kid ready to zoom ahead or to spend a little extra time with a struggling student. Not only does the teacher need to keep track of where each student is, but he or she also need to help each learner feel valued and connected to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest takeaway about implementing a blended learning program is that it won’t be easier. Some functions might be automated, like quiz grading, but only an energetic and passionate teacher can make the most of that new-found time. It’s unrealistic to plop a kid down at a computer and expect him to learn. In a blended classroom the teacher is constantly there providing support, helping students access new tools, pushing for more depth of understanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators are paying attention all the time and they are using the data they can get from software or other tools to help direct their energies. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/are-teachers-of-tomorrow-prepared-to-use-innovative-tech/\">Teachers of the future\u003c/a> are going to need stronger data analyzing skills, but they will also need to pull their heads out of the spreadsheet and recognize the social and emotional needs of their students, a function that only a real live teacher can offer.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30805\" class=\"wp-caption center\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-30805\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_8760\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/IMG_8760-e1377108401406-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">As schools become more savvy about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/blended-learning/\">blended-learning tactics\u003c/a>– the practice of mixing online and in-person instruction -- guidelines and best practices are emerging from lessons learned. Here are four crucial factors to keep in mind as schools plunge in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. EVERY SCHOOL NEEDS A VISION.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The single biggest piece of advice offered by most blended learning pioneers is to have a cohesive vision for how the technology will enhance specific learning goals, how it will ease the burden on teachers, and how it can make both teachers and students more creative learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big part of creating that vision is having \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/how-leadership-can-make-or-break-classroom-innovation/\">strong leadership at all levels\u003c/a>. A district superintendent who sees the value in a model will help remove old policies that inhibit the work. A strong leader will remove barriers, support professional development for teachers, celebrate successes and help move past challenges. And that person will value the student experience most. “We put students behind the wheel with our guidance, recognizing they will make mistakes, but we’ll be there to get them back on track,” said Eric Williams, Superintendent of York County School Division in Virginia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Equally important is to have that same kind of visionary leadership from principals and teachers willing to lead by example in the classroom. A shared vision means each tier of a school’s hierarchy must work towards the same goals. Teachers and principals must be \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/experimenting-and-innovating-finding-the-best-tools-and-tactics/\">given room to try new things, fail, innovate and evolve\u003c/a> until they find the right balance. That requires a lot of flexibility, another important feature of implementing this new style of learning that will seem foreign to many parents, students and teachers. Moving to a blended learning model won’t work perfectly just because it’s being done on a tablet or through a new learning management system.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\"> “Shifting some work online to complement traditional classrooms creates much needed time and space in the classroom.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Part of the overall vision needs to include considering how to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/how-can-teachers-prepare-kids-for-a-connected-world/\">give students more agency \u003c/a>over their learning. If the technology is canned content meant to turn out strong test takers who can’t apply the knowledge they’ve learned, is it meeting the broader learning goals? Similarly, how can the technology help teachers become the most inspired, passionate and creative classroom facilitators possible? How can it encourage them to stay in the profession and offer creative outlets for their passions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no one best way to integrate digital learning into a classroom. If the vision, goals and desired outcomes are clear, there’s lots of room to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/whats-the-best-way-of-using-computers-in-schools/\">experiment with what works best\u003c/a>. It will depend on the student population and needs; some schools are dealing with vastly different kinds of student populations, while others may be trying to transition to a project-based learning model. Nothing is mutually exclusive, but needs are different and will determine the learning goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"lcp_catlist aside half left cats-by-2\">\n\u003ch2 class=\"feat-title\">Guide to Blended Learning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>[catlist categorypage=\"yes\" numberposts=\"5\" thumbnail=\"yes\" excludeposts=\"this\" class=\"\" title_tag=\"h3\" title_class=\"post-title\" thumbnail_class=\"thumbnail\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Blended learning also works differently for a variety of subjects. Overall, software developers have had more luck helping students to learn math concepts through a program than they have had with Language Arts, which \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/what-online-tools-work-for-language-arts/\">requires many skills at once that are not easily parsed\u003c/a>. “The biggest issue I still see is that people are still trying to break it down when it needs to be combined,” said Chris Liang-Vergara, director of instructional technology for personalized learning at Firstline, a public charter school company in New Orleans. Firstline depends on software to help its students catch up, but hasn’t found any really satisfactory software for Language Arts. This might be a subject where a patchwork of free or inexpensive web tools can better fill the need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. DON’T LET SOFTWARE DICTATE LEARNING GOALS.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As illustrated by Frontline’s frustrating experience finding Language Arts software that could help students with reading comprehension, writing, synthesis, and vocabulary at the same time, software isn’t always the answer. The tools are slowly improving, but they aren’t infallible and many are directed at a specific problem and don’t offer a cohesive learning strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>A program like ALEKS or Khan Academy videos might help student understand how to do certain math problems, but will they have the opportunity to show whether they can apply the knowledge in real-life scenarios? The flood of data from software can be helpful, if applied to agreed-upon learning outcomes, but that data might not be able to measure those outcomes.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. SUPPORT TEACHERS AND INCLUDE THEM IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESS.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers will always be the heart and soul of a classroom, and they should be considered a critical factor in deciding on what blended tactics to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter what kind of technology is being used, classrooms are full of rambunctious kids who need a teacher with strong\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/10/what-works-in-tech-tools-spotlight-on-classdojo/\"> classroom management\u003c/a> skills and the ability to set a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/09/teaching-social-and-emotional-skills-in-schools/\">positive classroom culture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most common arguments in favor of blended learning center on its ability to help schools tailor learning to the individual learner. The potential for that kind of differentiation is there, but it’s up to the teacher to find challenging learning opportunities for a kid ready to zoom ahead or to spend a little extra time with a struggling student. Not only does the teacher need to keep track of where each student is, but he or she also need to help each learner feel valued and connected to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest takeaway about implementing a blended learning program is that it won’t be easier. Some functions might be automated, like quiz grading, but only an energetic and passionate teacher can make the most of that new-found time. It’s unrealistic to plop a kid down at a computer and expect him to learn. In a blended classroom the teacher is constantly there providing support, helping students access new tools, pushing for more depth of understanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators are paying attention all the time and they are using the data they can get from software or other tools to help direct their energies. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/are-teachers-of-tomorrow-prepared-to-use-innovative-tech/\">Teachers of the future\u003c/a> are going to need stronger data analyzing skills, but they will also need to pull their heads out of the spreadsheet and recognize the social and emotional needs of their students, a function that only a real live teacher can offer.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_30442\" class=\"wp-caption left\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/2965625438/sizes/z/in/photolist-5w4B85-7MMSrV-5wfvuz-6F4BWe-7NsqBg-3KEtA3-48LiYC-48GhuV-9QBbkU-3KEu5G-cg3Pqy-aM7YwV-aM81MV-aM7Vjn-aM7WAt-aM7YkD-aM7Z9R-aM8hje-aM7YNr-aM7VFv-aM7YXT-aM8gZF-aM7ZRc-aM81hR-4o7VTv-aM7XRM-arCySU-4Cq6Uj-69ZUuT-6a55Bq-6a55Fb-6a54Ud-69ZUwz-6a54T9-6a55DN-69ZUzx-6a54WA-69ZUBi-6a55AC-6a55Eq-6a552G-6a556h-7PA8iQ-69ZUhR-7PA7Fw-7Pw8vK-9evXmp-t4Bq-euZj1T-5F1T9s-7s7dUT/\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-30442\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/08/2965625438_266e481d09_z-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"2965625438_266e481d09_z\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">As the field of ed-tech has grown, research around the efficacy of technology has been hard to come by. Part of the difficulty is finding accurate comparisons because schools, administrations, districts and student populations across the country have their own individual sets of criteria and challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://carnegielearning.isebox.net/algebra-effectiveness/study/\">recent report by the RAND\u003c/a> Corporation, in partnership with the Department of Education, tries to provide an objective overview of blended learning. RAND conducted a national two-year randomized trial to determine whether a blended learning curriculum developed by \u003ca href=\"http://www.carnegielearning.com/\">Carnegie Learning, Inc\u003c/a>. had a positive effect on middle and high school algebra students. The report found that the curriculum, which included both instruction time on computers and in-person, improved high school performance by 8 percentile points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the study, RAND reached out to schools in rural, urban and suburban areas and included students living in high-poverty areas, places with high populations of ethnic minorities and every other kind of school. By choosing a diverse population of more than 18,000 students in 147 schools in seven states, the aim of the study was to ensure that the results could be applied to schools in any environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What happens a disappointing amount of time is you don’t find significant effects,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.rand.org/about/people/p/pane_john_f.html\">John Pane, senior scientist at RAND\u003c/a> and lead researcher for the study. “So to have identified something that is educationally meaningful is a success. Everything we did was with an eye to not interfering with how schools normally operate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the study, participating schools were given access to the software and teachers were trained without any additional supports, just as they would be if a school purchased the software on its own. Most restricted studies using certain products, Pane said, provide extra professional development or support, skewing the results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>\u003cspan style=\"color: #808080\">[RELATED: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/how-teachers-mix-online-math-with-classroom-instruction/\">How Teachers Mix Online Math With Classroom Instruction\u003c/a>]\u003c/span>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The DOE chose to study Carnegie Learning’s curriculum because of its track record of success in 46 other non-randomized studies. “We've done a large amount of field research coming into this that suggested that this approach would work better than others,” said Steve Ritter, chief product architect at Carnegie Learning. The company is an offshoot of cognitive psychology research at Carnegie Mellon dating back to the late 1980s. This curriculum has been in use since 1998. Its long track record is what prompted this expansive and expensive study. It cost $6 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other blended learning curriculum the Carnegie Learning approach relies on software to supplement teacher instruction. “We ask students to do a lot of writing about math, solving real world problems,” Ritter said. The company recommends using software two days a week and in-class instruction three days a week because things like classroom interaction, group discussion, collaborating on problem-solving helps cement the learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“The real goal is for students to learn math well enough to solve math problems in the real world they live in, not on tests.” \u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PROGRAM DETAILS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program itself asks students to solve long multi-step problems. The software tracks the student’s problem-solving strategies and gives feedback on the process along the way. “In our system we ask the student to show their work to the computer,” Ritter said. The curriculum also recommends in-class instruction focused on small group work, articulating the problem solving process and even writing in the textbook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algebra is the focus of study, Ritter said, because it’s a moment in math education where students often fall behind. “Algebra is the place where math goes from being concrete to abstract,” Ritter said. He pointed out that it’s an essential skill to making quantitative predictions about the world, a skill required for statistics, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But although students in the treatment group did improve, RAND could not definitively link that improvement to the software used. “Teaching was different in Carnegie Learning classrooms than in the control group classrooms; we can say that,” Pane said. “We can’t tell if it’s the software or something happening in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>\u003cspan style=\"color: #808080\">[RELATED: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/what-online-tools-work-for-language-arts/\">What Online Tools Work For Teaching Language Arts?\u003c/a>]\u003c/span>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a different study, RAND hopes to drill down on data from the software itself to find out its direct impact. When Carnegie Learning applied for the DOE grant seven years ago, the research question was whether the curriculum was effective, not whether the success was directly attributable to software – a more pressing question today as technology in the classroom proliferates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study did find that students performed better in the second year of implementation, no matter the experience of the teacher. In other words, even students taught by a teacher who had never used the blended curriculum before performed better than the control group. Both Ritter and Pane speculate that teachers adapted the curriculum in the second year and helped first year teachers along, thus improving its implementation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s worth noting that RAND gave all students in the study a standardized readiness exam at the beginning of the year and a proficiency exam at the end of the course to measure learning. However, the Carnegie Learning curriculum focuses more on performance assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The real goal is for students to learn math well enough to solve math problems in the real world they live in, not on tests,” Ritter said. Still, he’s happy the RAND results on multiple-choice tests were positive. “We do believe it’s a valuable test of our system because we know that kids are mostly taking these standardized tests,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A recent report by the RAND Corporation, in partnership with the Department of Education, tries to provide an objective overview of blended learning. RAND conducted a national two-year randomized trial to determine whether a blended learning curriculum developed by Carnegie Learning, Inc. had a positive effect on middle and high school algebra students. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>\u003cspan style=\"color: #808080\">[RELATED: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/how-teachers-mix-online-math-with-classroom-instruction/\">How Teachers Mix Online Math With Classroom Instruction\u003c/a>]\u003c/span>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The DOE chose to study Carnegie Learning’s curriculum because of its track record of success in 46 other non-randomized studies. “We've done a large amount of field research coming into this that suggested that this approach would work better than others,” said Steve Ritter, chief product architect at Carnegie Learning. The company is an offshoot of cognitive psychology research at Carnegie Mellon dating back to the late 1980s. This curriculum has been in use since 1998. Its long track record is what prompted this expansive and expensive study. It cost $6 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other blended learning curriculum the Carnegie Learning approach relies on software to supplement teacher instruction. “We ask students to do a lot of writing about math, solving real world problems,” Ritter said. The company recommends using software two days a week and in-class instruction three days a week because things like classroom interaction, group discussion, collaborating on problem-solving helps cement the learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“The real goal is for students to learn math well enough to solve math problems in the real world they live in, not on tests.” \u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PROGRAM DETAILS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program itself asks students to solve long multi-step problems. The software tracks the student’s problem-solving strategies and gives feedback on the process along the way. “In our system we ask the student to show their work to the computer,” Ritter said. The curriculum also recommends in-class instruction focused on small group work, articulating the problem solving process and even writing in the textbook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algebra is the focus of study, Ritter said, because it’s a moment in math education where students often fall behind. “Algebra is the place where math goes from being concrete to abstract,” Ritter said. He pointed out that it’s an essential skill to making quantitative predictions about the world, a skill required for statistics, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But although students in the treatment group did improve, RAND could not definitively link that improvement to the software used. “Teaching was different in Carnegie Learning classrooms than in the control group classrooms; we can say that,” Pane said. “We can’t tell if it’s the software or something happening in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>\u003cspan style=\"color: #808080\">[RELATED: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/what-online-tools-work-for-language-arts/\">What Online Tools Work For Teaching Language Arts?\u003c/a>]\u003c/span>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a different study, RAND hopes to drill down on data from the software itself to find out its direct impact. When Carnegie Learning applied for the DOE grant seven years ago, the research question was whether the curriculum was effective, not whether the success was directly attributable to software – a more pressing question today as technology in the classroom proliferates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study did find that students performed better in the second year of implementation, no matter the experience of the teacher. In other words, even students taught by a teacher who had never used the blended curriculum before performed better than the control group. Both Ritter and Pane speculate that teachers adapted the curriculum in the second year and helped first year teachers along, thus improving its implementation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s worth noting that RAND gave all students in the study a standardized readiness exam at the beginning of the year and a proficiency exam at the end of the course to measure learning. However, the Carnegie Learning curriculum focuses more on performance assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The real goal is for students to learn math well enough to solve math problems in the real world they live in, not on tests,” Ritter said. Still, he’s happy the RAND results on multiple-choice tests were positive. “We do believe it’s a valuable test of our system because we know that kids are mostly taking these standardized tests,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"meta": {
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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},
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"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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