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EdSurge
4 Big Shifts
That Can Personalize the Learning Journey
By Sam Peterson
Jul 30, 2018
What needs to happen to move your school or district toward an
effective implementation of personalized learning? According to EdSurge
Fusion conference speaker, Dr. Scott McLeod, there are Four Big Shifts
that propel “deeper learning schools” along their personalized learning
journey.
McLeod is the co-author of Different Schools for a Different World. As
is abundantly clear from the title of his book, McLeod is an advocate
for school change. He’s spent decades observing and coaching on school
change and has worked with several hundred schools, districts,
universities, and other organizations. He is the Founding Director of
the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in
Education (CASTLE), the only university center in the U.S. dedicated to
the technology needs of school administrators, and is the co-creator of
the popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). And although
he’s vocal in his sincere appreciation for the current and past efforts
of educators in the field, he also recognizes “that despite our very
best efforts, much of what we’re doing in schools isn’t working because
it isn’t relevant to the needs and demands of the world around us.”
Education needs to be modernized, contextualized, and personalized,
McLeod argues.
Based on his research on hundreds of schools, McLeod says he's seen
four changes that are key to making the learning process relevant and
personalized:
From factual recall to higher-level thinking: Moving from
pedagogy that requires students focus on factual recall and procedural
regurgitation to one in which students work on tasks of greater
complexity including creativity, critical thinking, problem solving,
and effective communication and collaboration.
From teacher control to student agency: Letting go of the
traditional teacher-controlled model and moving towards learning
environments with greater student agency. When students have “ownership
and control of what, how, when, where, who with, and why they learn,”
the promise of relevant learning becomes real, McLeod says.
From traditional activities to authentic work: Moving from
isolated academic work environments to providing students opportunities
to engage with and contribute to relevant local, national, and
international interdisciplinary communities.
From traditional resources to a technology-rich environment:
Infusing classrooms with more resources beyond the traditional paper
and pencil propel the previous three shifts into high gear.
So how does this work in practice? Exploring the implementation of
personalized learning—and its associated challenges and successes—was
the central focus of a year-long EdSurge Research project supported by
the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The project sought to chronicle the
personalized learning journey of school communities around the U.S. by
convening educators in 50 regions across the country at events called
Technology Leaders Circles (TLCs) and publishing a collection of 80
stories rooted in implementation and anchored in educator and student
experiences.
Despite our very best efforts, much of what we’re doing in schools
isn’t working because it isn’t relevant to the needs and demands of the
world around us.
And although we hadn’t set out to seek the trends that McLeod
describes, our stories and the interviews we conducted shared common
elements across approaches and challenges of McLeod’s Four Big Shifts.
At each point, McLeod recommends educators ask questions to assess if
the changes are in fact contributing to shifting practices. These
include:
Deeper learning. Did the work allow students to go beyond factual
recall and procedural regurgitation, to be creative, collaborative,
critical thinkers and problem-solvers?
Student agency. Did it allow students to drive their own learning
rather than being directed by teachers?
Authentic work. Did it allow students to be engaged with and/or make a
contribution to the world outside the school walls?
Digital tools. Did it allow students to use digital learning tools to
enhance their learning beyond traditional analog practices?
As we traveled around the country last year chronicling stories from
educators, we saw many teachers and administrators that were living the
answers to these questions every day in their classrooms and schools.
For instance:
Higher-level thinking:
What Personalized Learning Is Not - Kenya Ransey, an Edtech
Integration Specialist in Atlanta, Georgia, reflects on the struggle to
reach a common understanding of PL in addition to the many challenges
of implementation. In particular, she calls for a learning environment
that “allows students to take an active role in their learning, and
utilizes learners’ innate interests to fuel the processes of
investigation and discovery” and the importance of “allowing students
time to explore and make choices for themselves.”
Where’s the Humanity? The Case for Putting Language Arts Into
STEM - The Tech Challenge presents an impressive tale of real-world
collaboration and cross-curricular exploration, championing the modern
world’s demand for authentic learning opportunities with an engineering
program that’s “designed to give students a well-rounded experience
involving a broad set of academic and non-academic skills.”
Student Agency:
Let Learners Get in Their Zone (of Proximal Development) - John
Reyes, director of educational technology for the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles, and Matthew Peskay, Chief of Innovation and Technology at KIPP
LA Schools, offer their perspectives on the struggle to provide
students with an appropriate level of agency, so they can reach their
so-called Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): “the space between what a
learner can do independently, and what he or she can do with support.”
Redesigning the Syllabus to Reflect the Learning Journey - Mark
Engstrom, head of middle and upper school at Allen Academy in Bryan,
Texas, shares an encouraging story about rethinking curriculum to
encourage “students to make decisions and take a more active role as
learners.”
Authentic work:
Lessons from NASA: How a Space Camp Helps Teachers Meet Kids
Where They Are - Becky Fritchie, a 5th grade math and science teacher
at Spanish Lake Primary School in Geismar, Louisiana, isn’t just
concerned with the real world outside the school walls. She’s
connecting her students with the cosmos, employing practices collected
from a summer stint at NASA’s space camp to create “learning
experiences that put students in the driver’s seat.”
When It Comes to Trying to Shake Up K-12, Is College the Problem?
- California educators weigh in on the concern of many parents that the
kind of authentic work emphasized in PL isn’t actually preparing their
children for college or the real world where personalization may not be
allowed.
Technology Infusion:
Fighting Apathy, Neglect and Racism to Give Left-Behind Learners
a Chance - Farhat Ahmad, a 9th and 10th grade World, Multi, and
American Literature teacher at McClarin Success Academy in College
Park, Georgia, details his hard-fought battle to close learning gaps in
a traditionally underserved community by developing a tech-infused
personal learning environment.
‘Lost in the Cracks’: Alabama District Brings Personalized
Learning to Incarcerated Youth - And in nearby Athens, Alabama, we hear
about a revolutionary program rolled out by the Athens City School
District called Renaissance, which is a part-virtual and part-blended
learning school for incarcerated youth aimed at reducing the state’s
recidivism rate.
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