Blog Archives

Assessment: Part I

3/27/2015

The Report Card Is Dead.

For starters, we must acknowledge that the report card as we know it is dead … we just haven’t let go.

Today’s secondary learners and their parents have 24/7 access to their progress through a device and a log-in account. Yet after 45 days, we insist on handing them a piece of paper telling them what they already know. It is time to let go. And it is also time to provide this access to elementary learners, parents and learning facilitators.

We understand our responsibility to prepare our learners for assimilation into the post-secondary world. Our colleges and universities are steeped in tradition and slow to change. While we take this road less traveled, we must continue to provide transcripts, credits and GPAs in our High Schools.

In the Information Age, though, we see a world where our learners and their parents have access to real-time, meaningful information about learning progression from kindergarten through grade 12.

Imagine if each of our learners had an e-portfolio containing their latest and best work that demonstrated their mastery of the learning standard. Imagine a world where our kindergarten learners posted work for their parents, grandparents, and others to view (think LinkedIn for learners). This e-portfolio might contain information about the learner and begin a digital footprint that will grow and evolve with them as they progress through the Central Experience.

Imagine:

The partnership created between parents, the learners and the schools to post and review their best work,
Our learners advocating for their best work to share with others, and
The ability to access this information 24/7 from any device. (There are resources already making this possible: www.seesaw.me / www.artsonia.com)

Let’s go back to our LinkedIn example. Imagine a learner, even at a very young age, completing her LinkedIn profile.

We know, there are age restrictions, but imagine what the profile might contain:

Profile - My resume as a second grader. Connections could also comment on my skills and endorsements. It would likely include my previous grades, teachers etc.
Connections - Mom/Dad, Grandma/Grandpa, friends, coaches, NASA and the factory around the corner that helped with my science fair project.
Jobs - What I am interested in pursuing. We all did this as children. Wouldn’t it be neat, as a high school student, to go back and see how my career aspirations have changed over the years? What if, based on my interests, information was readily available about my hopes and dreams?
Interests - This would be similar to the information in "Jobs," but go further. I could connect with other students who love Legos, dance, or coding.
My Work - This would be an addition, a twist on the traditional "LinkedIn." Here, our learners would post work that meets the standards. Each year, work would be replaced by grade level appropriate work as our learners mature.

We have the technology to make it so … only if we take the road less traveled.

1 Comment

Curriculum: customizing the learner's progression through the central experience

3/20/2015

0 Comments

The question of the day is this: How can we leverage technology and enable a learner to move through the Central Experience (Kindergarten through Grade 12) at his or her own pace? We call this tracking of advancement through our education system “Learner Progression, ” and we rely on curriculum maps for each course to properly track the progression of each learner.

Curriculum Mapping
Curricula have always defined what our learners must know and be able to do.  There is always something to teach in Grade 3, Algebra I, or World Cultures.  Central’s curriculum maps detail the following: what our learners need to know and do, the standards that apply, the instructional strategies and resources our teachers use, and the assessment methods established to determine if our learners have mastered the material.  All of this information resides in what we call a curriculum map.

Learner Progression
Imagine software that will enable a learner, a parent and a learning facilitator to access, 24/7, the exact point a learner is in his or her 13 year Central Experience (think GPS). This real-time access will allow all to locate the current progression point within the continuum.  Viewers could review completed units and preview units that are coming in the weeks and months ahead.  This access will empower a parent/guardian to track and support the learning as it occurs…not after it is completed.

Parent & Learner Access
Lindsay Unifed School District in California created a video and is working toward this very goal of access. Click here to view the video. This access creates seamless home-school communication and allows parents to truly support what is going on in school each and every day.  No longer will parents ask, and our learners say, they did "nothing" in school today. Imagine a world where all are on the same page throughout the school year.

It can be so ... if we take the road less traveled.

0 Comments

The Road Less Traveled

3/10/2015

7 Comments

Customizing Education in Central York School District

What if there were only two roads for today’s public educators?

Imagine one road similar to what we have been doing for the past 120 years. We’ll call that the Industrial-Based Road.

Now, imagine another road. We’ll call it the Road Less Traveled.

The Road Less Traveled is unfamiliar, difficult and to some, a threat.  It lacks the well-worn grooves needed for an easy, familiar passage. It is a road that our parents have not traveled, nor their parents and even most of us!

The Road Less Traveled is the Information Age Road, where students have a device and access to the internet, two game changing conditions according to Will Richardson.

If you experience discomfort with schools providing devices to students and embracing social media, it is OK.  You never experienced ... the possibility of two roads ... and only consider school in the framework of the 120-year-old Industrial-Based Road we all traveled in our youth.

If you judge what your local school district is doing based upon your schooling years ago, you might be confused or concerned.  Your experience is a one-lane road that has only known the industrial age road.  To suggest there is another way, is counter to your entire educational experience and your frame of reference.  It is OK, and I understand your reservation.

The Road Less Traveled, or the Information Age Road, is essentially the road to Mass Customized Learning. It is a road that empowers educators to customize our learners’ educational experience through technological advances and access to technology resources for everyday learning in our classrooms and beyond. Outside of school, we are very familiar with customization. Companies like Netflix, Pandora and Starbucks are customizing for billions of people worldwide. Gone are the days when you are forced to listen to a radio station for hours hoping the DJ plays your favorite song. Today, you are the DJ, and Pandora is your own personal radio station, accessible wherever and whenever you choose.

Remember when we grew up, and Sanka offered only two choices – regular or decaf? Consider the choices coffee consumers have in today’s Starbucks-laden environment. If you guessed today’s consumers have over 80,000 choices of beverage combinations, you are right.

Whether you like it or not, and most of us like it, the world is customizing for the consumer … except for most of us in public education.

Disagree?  Consider the following:

•   What if it only took you half a year to complete Algebra I?  Are you able to move at your own pace and select the next course?  Who made the rule that a course or grade level must be 180 days?

•   What if you were really ready for third grade, halfway through your second grade year?

•   What if we asked students, "How is this best learned?" and let them have voice and choice in the completion of their work as opposed to everyone receiving the same worksheet and one-size fits all instruction? (or in my day, that beautifully pixelated filmstrip that I had the pleasure of turning to the next frame at the sound of the beep).

•   What if parents, learners (formerly known as students) and learning facilitators (formerly known as teachers) could monitor a learner's progression 24/7 from any device.  Everyone would know exactly where they are in the grade or class and what was the next topic to master? I credit Chuck Schwahn and Bea McGarvey, authors of Inevitable at http://masscustomizedlearning.com.

How many organizations, businesses or sectors can lay claim to the ability to remain unchanged for over 120 years?  (Think Rip Van Winkle and what he would and would not recognize in today's world.)

We don’t have to look far to see what happens when a well-worn road becomes outdated, its grooves are no longer easy and familiar to travelers, but abandoned for other roads less traveled. Border’s Book Stores and Circuit City are two examples of a growing list.

How will we prepare our learners for their future, and not our educational past?  How can public education NOT recognize there is more than one road available for today’s learners … and how can we NOT respond, accordingly, with a learning experience that meets their needs?

Are we really future-focused?  Or are we putting our heads in the sand, ignoring the possibility of the Road Less Traveled, and content to stay in our well-worn groove until we travel the easy path to irrelevance and/or extinction?

7 Comments

Assessment: Part I

The Report Card Is Dead.

Curriculum: customizing the learner's progression through the central experience

The Road Less Traveled

Customizing Education in Central York School District

Author

Our Ecosystem

Archives

Categories