I spent three summers as a camp counselor in Harrisonburg, Virginia during my high school and college summers. This time below the Mason-Dixon line opened my eyes to the wonderment of a breakfast of fried apples, sausage and biscuits, my first foray into clogging, wonderful people and the phrase y’all (pronounced ‘yol).
 
It is a quick and efficient way to refer to a group of people, and how I usually addressed my cabin full of campers when it was time to get out of the pool. (As in, “Y’all get out now, we have to go!”) Travel most places in the South and you will hear it regularly woven into the vernacular.
 
It is also, come to think of it, regularly woven into how we group students in our schools.

• Y’all can come to school if you are 5 years old by September 1. 
• “Y’all are almost done with the 2nd grade. After the summer, y’all be 3rd graders.”

 
Notice there is no you. No individual recognition of a unique learner who learns at a different rate from others. No recognition of the unique gifts that they each possess or a unique learning style.  Just “y’all.”
 
Schools are starting to recognize that we need to shed the industrial, lock-step approach of our historical past and create a system that revolves around our learners instead of the other way around.
 
And if we are really honest with ourselves, we are a little scared that our learners are starting to realize this, as technology has unlocked many additional ways to learn at your own pace and when school is not in session.
 
David Price says it best in his book “Open.” Price writes, “The pace of societal change is outstripping the slow evolution of learning, so we may need some new ideas in formal learning if we’re to avoid irrelevance.”
 
Look at all that is changing and has changed over the last 10 years. I, for one, refuse to let irrelevance happen on my watch!
 
It’s time to stop thinking of our learners as y’all and time to start thinking of them as you. Anything less is a disservice to their unique learning styles and needs; and we must be better than that to meet their needs now, and in the future.

​I believe we are up to the challenge. We are fixin’ to change the system and would welcome others along for the ride.
 
(And yes! Fixin’ is pure “Southern Speak” meaning: To get set or be on the verge!)

After our previous exploration of mass customized learning and a closer look at Rate, Style and Technology,   here are three more things to consider: SIS, LMS, and GPS.

The focus of the new three is a revolution in communication and transparency for our learners and our parents. We hope to take the secret out of what happens in school each day and effectively put to rest the dreaded question: “What did you learn in school today?” When I was in high school, the answer I gave to my parents was, simply,  “Nothing.” My parents had no easy way to prove otherwise; the conversation stopped there. Today, we believe those days are numbered, due to technology.

Here’s how three technologies are helping us envision a new future in transparency between school and home.

• Student Information System (SIS) – We have always had an SIS in schools, whether hard copy or electronic. This is where we keep your home address and contact information, along with any number of other data points such as report cards, health information, and academic performance. SIS systems today have the ability to include additional items such as your cafeteria balance, number and type of health room visits, and attendance information. You can update your own contact information through an SIS and pick which phone number of yours will receive the two-hour delay “snow call.” Technology empowers you to log in to one system and manage all this information with the click of a button. 

• Learning Management System (LMS) – An LMS is an electronic software application where teachers place content, standards, links, worksheets, and assignments for their learners. If you think back to recent years and/or your own college experiences, you probably submitted your assignments in Blackboard or some similar LMS software. We use Schoology across the District as our LMS and provide learners and their parents with more information than ever before about what their child learns each day. Parents and guardians can use it as a window into their children’s classrooms, and even obtain notifications of when assignments have been submitted, if they are late, and what impact this has on their child’s experience in a course. Schoology removes the possibility of a learner simply answering “Nothing” when asked that question, making it easier than ever for parents/guardians to engage with their children about school.

• Global Positioning System (GPS) – Most of us are familiar with the acronym “GPS,” thanks to the evolution of the navigational systems in our cars, and their emergence as smartphone apps.  When a GPS receiver locks onto at least three satellites, you can calculate latitude and longitude. When the receiver locks onto 4 or more satellites, you can determine the user’s 3-D position, including altitude and other measures such as speed, bearing, trip distance and distance to destination. The Central Experience consists of 13 years (kindergarten to graduation). How then, can we use the science of a GPS system to dial in to a learner’s journey through our school system? How can we leverage technology to tell our learners, “You are Here!,” monitor the speed in which learners master concepts and or a subject, and forecast where learners most likely will be headed tomorrow and in the months (or years) ahead?
  
  

We envision a future in which parents/guardians can access information about their children’s learning like never before; a revolution in communication and transparency that will effectively put a fork in the question: “What did you learn in school today?” For our learners, this means they could gain complete awareness of where they are in a course and where they are headed; when they will arrive; if there is traffic ahead; and, finally how to best navigate through it to make it to their destination on their time. 

We are the last generation.

We are the last generation to be taught cursive.
 
We are the last generation that remembers the Sony Walkman and the VCR.

​ We are the last generation that will have to adapt from the pencil to the stylus.
 
As technology advances, my generation will have to travel farther away from the foundation of everything we learned growing up.

This is a good thing.

As an aunt and older sister, it is odd to see my 12-year-old sister doing the same things I did in ninth grade on the iPad. My 10-year-old niece probably knows more about the device than I do. My six-year-old niece and nephew have been using iPods and iPhones since they were two, learning from YouTube videos and exploring through children’s apps like Osmo.

Technology is shaping a generation into the vision of Steve Jobs.

Children are learning to code with the Hour of Code. They know how to use iMovie, and they are creating complex presentations for school projects. They no longer use big, standardized poster boards to display their work. They’re creating interesting, fun, and interactive Prezi and PowerPoint presentations.
I find myself asking my niece or sister how to use a certain app or how to get a certain effect on my presentation. True digital natives, they are teaching me how to be better connected.

Central York School District’s new wave of tech tools and application has created higher standards for all grades, and therefore better quality work. Students are not just using apps. They are creating them.
Technology and social media have the power to connect students with people who they might normally never have had the opportunity to collaborate with in person.

Central High School’s Improv team was born from a single tweet sent out to someone living in L.A. With one click of a send button, Mr. Hodge was able to start a new comedy-loving community that has connected over 20 students with professionals and rising stars in the industry.

This is the power of media and technology.

More kids are using screens and soft skills to create huge projects and becoming student entrepreneurs.
In our Apollo-- mass customized learning--  program, students have the opportunity to create their own non-profit organizations by crafting an in-depth outline and researching other groups who share similar interests.

Teachers are more interactive. They have more time to talk to students one-on-one.
They are provided both the tools and the skills used in today’s new workforce.

Recently, Forbes started looking for young people to head their Snapchat. Using and working with social media has become a whole job in itself. And Central York School District is giving kids  more experience for these kinds of jobs than other school districts in the county.

I am a part of the last generation.

But I am also the beginning of a brand new vision.

Steve Jobs said it best: “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”

What is mass customized learning?  Simply a way of approaching the traditional method of schooling that has dotted the educational landscape for over 100 years. In our conversations, we often discuss three core concepts that are key to MCL: Rate, Style & Technology.

​Here’s a deeper explanation of each of these. 
 
Rate
Wouldn't we all agree that humans learn at different rates?  Think of your own children. Did they all learn to talk and walk at the same age?  As you sat in math class in middle school, wasn't it apparent that some students in class just picked up the stuff faster than others?  This is a fundamental fact of human nature, yet we still hold true to a false notion that third grade must equal 180 days of school.  Or the notion that those middle school math geniuses must wait unit the end of the course to move on to more engaging and challenging material.  
 
Style
Wouldn't we all agree that we have different learning style preferences?  Some of us naturally connect with the written word and love to read and converse to make meaning of content.  Others need movement and a tactile approach to learn best.  Yet our school system churns out worksheets and one- size-fits-all projects.
 
Technology
Wouldn’t we all agree that technology has changed the landscape in every sector of our lives … except, perhaps, public education? Think online banking, online grocery ordering and delivery, booking car services via your smartphone, and the smartphone itself. Like these other innovations, an Internet connection and a device are revolutionizing our industry and people are making choices like never before.
 
So what does this mean for us?  

• If a third grade learner masters all the math that is required of her – midway through the school year, why can't she start fourth grade math?  If an eighth grader can do Algebra II, we must find a way to meet him where he is, not where we expect him to be.  We all learn at different rates, yet we move students in a pack mentality. Technology will help manage this.   
  
  
• Technology avails to us a massive amount of information that once was the domain of the teacher and a textbook alone.  What becomes of the fundamental role of teacher when everything we teach is online and easy to access?  Why would we need a textbook when the Internet holds more information than we can possibly consume? 
  
  
• Competition is at the front door.  Parents have more choices than ever before, and our stance of being “the only game in town” is over.  It makes no sense to debate which is better; it boils down to locus of control.  When you have a choice, you have some control.   We all know that bacon-cheese fries are not the healthiest option and yet … 
  
  
• We need to provide as much voice and choice as possible for our learners. Yes, some will not be able to manage total control of their schedules and their learning; but some can.  The Industrial-based system treated everyone as a cog in the machine.  True motivation will come when learners are provided a choice in how best to learn. 
  
  
• We need to embrace mastery learning.   When a student shows mastery of a concept or standard, they move on under the watchful eye of a teacher.   
  
  
• You noticed I referenced a teacher.  A human.  Public education has always been, and hopefully always will be, a human-to-human endeavor.  The human element is critical to improving the human condition.  Throughout history, despite the innovation or invention, it has always come down to humans sticking together and embracing the new, together; this time is no different.  

MCL is this and more.  It is not:

• Just technology;
• Letting students do whatever they want; or
• Requiring students learn only from a computer.

 
MCL done right means that our learners arrive each day to a learning environment that:

• Meets them at their level;
• Allows them to use their best learning styles;
• Engages them in learning skills and concepts with content of high interest to them;
• Inspires them to come to school; and
• Sets them up for challenges, and success, in school.

 
MCL honors rate, style and technology, but, most of all, it is a human-to-human endeavor, connecting learners with learning facilitators who help them achieve and succeed.

​That is the ideal learning environment. 

I recently listened as a graduate student presented his final exam to his classmates. He shared a story about his family’s annual, two-week vacation, during which his family members took turns assembling a large puzzle, piece-by-piece.
 
The episodic memory was one that created a special memory about his family; he shared the memory to illustrate who he is today, as a leader. As he spoke, it was not hard for all of us in the audience –professor or classmate – to conjure images of puzzle-building and family memories. He connected with us by sharing a story and an activity that we have all, at some point, experienced. Most of us can remember a time when we built a puzzle, using the puzzle box’s illustration of the “finished product” as guidance.
 
As I drive drove home after class, it dawned on me.  What many of us who are trying to reinvent and reimagine schooling struggle with is, simply, that there is no box top for this puzzle.
 
Imagine for a minute that you have to complete a difficult puzzle without a picture showing you where to fit the pieces, or what it should look like when you finished.  Now imagine trying to create the ideal learning environment for thousands of diverse and unique learners – without a box top picture, or school to visit where you can see what the change should look like as the pieces are assembled or, even better, when assembly is complete. Of course that is a natural course of action – to visit another school already implementing the change you seek (if you think about it, whatever the change, someone, somewhere had to go first). 
 
How would you approach the puzzle without the box top? I’m betting most of us would do the following:

• Begin with the end pieces, the easily identifiable pieces of the puzzle that form the outline, edges, limits of the puzzle and the change; and
• Examine the pieces and match colors and patterns that have some relationship and are easily identifiable. 

But how long would you stay with the puzzle?  If you could piece together the framework, and identify some inside pieces, but had no clear picture of the “end product” – how long would you continue to build? When would you reach your frustration level and abandon the puzzle?
 
We have assembled puzzles, or educational environments, or schools for years but, always, with the benefit of a box top. How might we paint a mental picture of the future (or the puzzle) so that you could move forward with us on the journey?
 
I encourage you to reflect on this, and what it means for schools, school leaders, and our efforts to provide an ideal learning environment for our thousands of learners. Share your thoughts with us, as we continue this dialogue. 

​So how can we return to a little bit of the one room schoolhouse feel?  How can we provide to our learners an opportunity to have some say in their day while maintaining the necessary control and accountability for hundreds in our school?
 
Curriculum Mapping - with the use of a Learning Management System - is one place to start. 
 
We must be clear about what we want our learners to know and be able to do.  This is simply good curriculum and curriculum mapping.  I learned this years ago from Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs (Read more here: http://www.curriculum21.com.) 
 
There is a 13-year progression (Kindergarten through 12th Grade) that our learners experience as they move through our system. How do we house the curricula (K-12) in a place that is easily accessible to our learners and their parents?  How can we make it crystal clear what our learners must know and be able to do to master the material in a unit? 
 
A curriculum map offers this information, and a learning management system helps effectively communicate it to everyone on the learner's team.  

We must give  parents access to information they can use to engage with their children about their school work - and the ability to see their child's successes and opportunities for growth.  Curriculum mapping and a learning management system  also  put an end to a child telling his parent, “I did nothing in school today” or “I have no homework.” 

Let's face it --  it has never been easy to be a parent.  But, today's schools can leverage technology to make parenting a school-aged, digital learner easier. If there is a list of standards or some common core version in your state, why is it such a secret to our students, and even harder for our parents to access? If we have the technology, and a learning management system, why can't parents know more detailed information about how their children are doing in school on any given day, with any given unit? 
 
If we are working on a unit in physics on velocity vectors, we can use a map that shares the standards, what our learners must know and be able to do, and a final project to calculate the distance that you would drift downstream while swimming across a river that is flowing four meters per second.  The map can also include information to assist the learner,  such as additional reading resources or videos that explain or demonstrate the concept. 
 
What if we allowed (really encouraged) a learner to think of another way to demonstrate velocity vectors?  They would need to present their idea to the teacher for approval, then begin.  We might be amazed at what they can do, given enough leeway to self-organize their learning!

The first step toward increasing student agency falls squarely on the big people in the organization.  Curriculum mapping and a learning management system are an important start, but there is much work to be done in other areas of our system!  We invite you to share your thoughts with us on today's blog, or any topic related to customizing education for our learners. How do you think we can give students more voice and choice in their education? Or parents more access to information needed to support their children in school? 

Think about how we, as adults, organize our daily lives. From the moment we wake each morning, many of us:

• Check our social media status and calendar
• Respond to emails from a portable device, usually a phone
• Review our schedules on the same device
• Check a weather app or “Ask Siri” if we will need an umbrella today
• Check out the latest news via a favorite news app or review whatever our RSS Feed has pushed to us since last night.

 
And, for a good number of us, this all happens before we even take one step out of bed in the morning. You see, as adults, we self-organize and self-determine our daily work and life activities using technology and involving other humans as we see fit. 
 
Yet where or HOW did we learn to balance using technology with the human element?

It certainly did not happen during our public education experiences. Think back to your school days. If they were like mine, you were told what to do. Handed a worksheet. Given a “Review Packet” before the big test. As an adult, when you hear a bell ring, you likely flashback to images of hundreds of your classmates and you filing into a crowded hallway and rushing to the next class before the late bell sounded. (This was the early version of the “Information Super Highway!”)
 
There was little to no self-organization, or student agency as we refer to it today in our schools.  It's not your fault nor was it mine; it is just the way schools were organized in the early 1900s, when more and more children in this country began to attend school. Enter the Industrial Era of schools, the stacking and racking of students by their manufacture dates. Efficiency reined supreme when it came to designing the educational experience.
 
Today, as we explore customizing education or the powerful combination of technology and the human element, we’re really talking about returning to that pre-Industrial Age one-room schoolhouse feel. We’re reimagining education so that operational efficiency and accountability do not override what’s best for our learners. We’re talking about how to give learners more opportunities to self-organize – without giving up the control and accountability we need in a school with hundreds of learners.
 
We believe there are ways we can make a dent in the lock-step approach to public education, and we are excited to start talking about these with you in the coming weeks. From Curriculum Mapping, to Voice & Choice to Structures, we will be writing and talking about three areas that can help us recapture the one-room feel for our learners.
 
Stay tuned … and share your thoughts with us, starting with this: What do you believe is the “Ideal Learning Experience” for today’s students? And what do we need to do to make it so?

​​​About a week ago, I was sitting in my car at a red light, headed to my office. While my mind and eyes wandered, waiting for the light to change, I noticed a mother pushing a stroller and her young son trailing behind her by about 3-5 feet. I immediately took notice of the young boy, because he was wearing a pair of sneakers similar to mine and - with his athletic gear and definite toddler swagger - had all the trademarks of a cool cat in the making!

As he and his mom approached the street corner, he darted away from mom and made a beeline to the crosswalk button. Standing on tiptoe, he pressed the button and fixed his gaze on the light, anticipating the desired change of color. I could tell by the way he walked, pushed and waited that this was not his first time at the crosswalk pole. Once assured the light had changed, he quickly redirected back toward his mother and continued to trail her as she made her way down the street.

That brief moment of time, while I waited for my light to change, and he waited for his, made me think. Children are inquisitive. They are thinkers, and more important, they are "touchers." When a child pushes a button - even a child as young as 2 or 3 - the child expects something to happen!

This is the generation that is coming to our schools where, by and large, we don't have a dynamic and interactive system. The real world, the one which they explore now and will face after high school graduation, is dynamic. It's interactive, ever-changing and responsive. Like the boy, our students push a button in these worlds and receive immediate feedback, or an instant response.

We offer plenty of hands-on experiences ... but are we interacting with our learners? Are schools meeting learners where they are, and preparing them for where they will go next?

In the book Inevitable Too! (Chuck Schwahn and Beatrice McGarvey), the authors suggest our younger generations (digital natives or DN) expect interaction. They write:

• "DN expect interaction; they no longer accept one-way broadcasts. They are not only consumers of information; they are also creators of information."
• "DN learned to manipulate technology early, and have never been afraid of it."

When my children were young, we brought them to a museum that allowed, even encouraged, them to touch everything. You see, back then, this was a destination, a place to visit. Today's children and their parents do not need to visit a museum or destination to have a hands-on experience with learning. Just watch a young child today when her parent hands her a device. She immediately consumes it, touches it and expects something to happen from this interaction.

Our children expect to be hands-on learners in and out of their classrooms. They do not just like interaction they expect it, as Schwahn and McGarvey point out in their book.

How can our schools, then, embrace this coming tide and become more interactive, more dynamic and more responsive to our learners, while still maintaining the public good and educating the masses?

As we begin another school year across this country, join me in pausing a moment to to acknowledge the human element in our schools.  These are our teachers, principals and bus drivers. They are also our nurses, assistants of all kinds, coaches, Board members, maintenance, custodial and  food service workers. They are our parents and community members and, of course, our learners.

The human element makes THE critical difference in a child’s education. Nothing can replace a caring person’s set of eyes on a student, whether it is their first day in kindergarten or their first day of their senior year. 

Let me give you some examples.

• The first day for kindergarteners to ride the bus is a big day for the child and for the parents, standing, nervously, 20 feet away.  After the final hug and wave to mom, a young child’s eyes fix on the bus driver’s as the child takes her first steps onto the bus. That first step for a kindergartener is a big one, both metaphorically and physically.   As she makes it to the second step, firmly holding onto the handle, the driver’s face, expression and eyes will tell you everything about the human element.  
• Your teacher, whether elementary or secondary, has a tremendous influence on your educational experience.  We receive letters all the time from students who talk about the power of the human element.  Here are three such statements from Central students:
  
  “I am always going to remember sitting with her after the coffee house and talking.  She talked to us like real people and actually cared about our feelings and who we are.  She made me fell like I mattered here.”
  
  “She was the best teacher, because she made me feel included in the class."
  
  “I remember when she told us her story on the first day and did a cartwheel.”
  

• If you injured yourself on the playground - running around the kickball bases or trying to break through "Red Rover, Red Rover,  send Michael right over,” the nurse would fix the raspberry on your knee and be ever so gentle, even though it still hurt.  
  
  

The human element comes in many forms in public schools across this country. These are just a few examples  worthy of mention that, day in and day out, make public education a wonderful public good. 

There is much talk today about technology and its impact on public education, with good reason.  When a device provides access to the sum of human knowledge, we must rethink our role in the classroom and schools across America. As we rethink our roles, however,  we must not lose sight of the critical role of the human element today.

Geoff Colvin’s book, Humans Are Underrated, emphasizes the need for humans to do what we do incredibly well.  As Colvin writes, and as the bus driver and Kindergarten family illustrate, “To look into someone’s eyes – that turns out to be, metaphorically and quite often literally, the key to high-value work in the coming economy.”

In an environment where people are predicting the end of jobs everywhere, the book reminds us that the most valuable people are, increasingly, relationship workers ... like the very people we mentioned above.

So Happy (New) School Year! Let’s celebrate the human element, the relationship workers who make a difference day in and day out in schools across the country. 

As our school year comes to an end, we are looking forward to taking some time this summer to reflect on our experiences stepping onto “The Road Less Traveled” this year.

We have enjoyed sharing our efforts to mass customize learning throughout the past few months. We have also appreciated your feedback and thoughts as we explored different topics, from curriculum and instruction to assessment, learner work, and technology. 

We are taking some time off from blogging, but will continue again in August. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you! What topics did you enjoy this year? Which ones would you like us to delve into more deeply when we return? 

Please take a moment to share your thoughts with us below. Help us create a blog that continues to offer you food for thought and spark meaningful dialogue on customizing education in the future. 

We look forward to continuing our journey with you soon!