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  • 3 ways to reimagine learning spaces

    3 ways to reimagine learning spaces

    As schools depart from traditional instructional methods and environments, some education leaders are discovering how a combination of blended learning and reimagined physical learning spaces can lead to better student engagement and achievement.

    Redesigning physical learning spaces can lead to brain-friendly learning and encourage students to become more engaged.

    And when learning spaces are flexible, they provide more modern learning experiences and meet various needs, such as small-group collaboration, large-group instruction, and individual study or review.

    A whitepaper from Evergreen Education Group and Fuel Education explores how three schools’ blended learning programs have redesigned their learning spaces to encourage student and teacher success.

    (Next page: How each school uses learning space to its advantage)

  • How to reach high achievement through listening skills

    How to reach high achievement through listening skills

    [Editor’s note: This post is the third in a new column for eSchool News. In her column on ‘Personal Development’, eSchool News Columnist Jennifer Abrams focuses on tangible takeaways, tools and teachings that all those working in schools can use to develop their leadership. Read more about the column and browse future content here.]

    “When you listen to someone, it’s the most profound act of human respect.” -William Ury

    I remember when I began my work as a professional developer and coach. It was the first time in my daily work where students were not my immediate focus. My interactions on a daily basis were with adults, and I realized that I wasn’t as prepared for this type of communication given my credentialing and my graduate studies.

    I had a credential in how to teach students the subject of English, and what became increasingly clear was that I didn’t have a credential in how to work effectively with adults; and certainly didn’t have a background or an intentionally developed skillset on how to be an effective group member.

    Listening as a Learned Skill

    I worked on the skill of being an effective group member and continue to do so. Many of my consulting colleagues, within their work on coaching, collaborating and teaching focus on listening as a key skill to know inside and outside the classroom.

    At the Thinking Collaborative professional developers assist educators daily and intentionally in building this skillset. They speak to a number of collaborative skills that make a group member effective. [More on other skills in future columns.] This column will focus on one of those skill sets, listening.

    Much has been written about listening.  Listening is discussed and explained in books, in TED talks, on YouTube, and in countless articles in education, business and in health care. Why so many citations? Because we have a tendency to not do it well.

    It is a pivotal part of the skill building that we hope students learn. In fact, I have often stated that the Common Core State Standards on Speaking and Listening, such as 11-12 B and C “Work with peers to promote civil, democratic discussions and decision-making, set clear goals and deadlines, and establish individual roles as needed;” and, “Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives,” actually aren’t lived out in staff meetings that I participate in or witness in the schools in which I work.

    3 Types of Listening 

    Given that the work on active listening could take pages and pages to review, I will mention only the briefest yet, what I feel is one of the most powerful piece of advice on listening that I have received: In order to be more ‘other focused,’ pay attention to your listening ‘set asides.’

    Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman (www.miravia.com) speak to the idea of ‘setting aside’ certain stances we often take in communication.  Instead of truly being present and hearing the person intently we don’t set aside our needs and these needs get in the way of our communication. Our set asides include

    • Autobiographical listening: The minute we hear something that connects with our life, we share. We say, “Me too. I remember when…” or “That has happened to me!  In fact, just the other day…” When we share these ‘me too’ moments we might believe we are connecting and offering solace, but actually it might just be us taking the focus away from what the person was saying and putting the spotlight on us.
    • ‘Dishing the dirt’ listening: The other person comments on something and you add in a few more tidbits of information. “Did you know she was…” or “That isn’t the first time I have heard that. Joanne says…” There is a time to share background information that will serve the conversation. There is also just ‘dishing’ and that isn’t always a useful piece of information to share.
    • Solution-oriented listening: “You know what you need to do about that?” is something we immediately offer as a response if we are in the space of solution oriented listening. “You need to do this…” or “Have you tried…?”  Solutions can be very helpful in some situations but most of the time solutions aren’t empowering, nor do they show the person you are talking to that you feel they’ve ‘got this’ and can handle their own challenges. I am all for solutions and most of the time ask myself if a suggestion might be a better way to offer an idea. The key is to ask yourself, “What are my reasons for saying this? And “Does this serve my colleague to hear this?”

    There are so many other listening skills to develop as well, including:

    • how to paraphrase
    • how to craft a clarifying question
    • how to pay attention to your non-verbals
    • how to add your perspective.

    All of these listening skills are valid and critical to effective collaboration.

    Building up our listening ability can assist us in achieving at high levels in our schools. (See Hattie’s research on collective efficacy).

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  • 6 tips for making educational travel attainable for all students

    6 tips for making educational travel attainable for all students

    Setting up a structure for fundraising to support your students who want to travel is crucial regardless of their family income. Educational travel can be made attainable for all students if you create a plan and stick with it.

    Carrie A. Olson, PhD, researcher and teacher at West Leadership Academy, Denver Public Schools, presented with Carylann Assante, CAE, executive director of SYTA and the SYTA Youth Foundation, in “How We Helped 800 Students Participate in Educational Travel: Proven Tools and Tips.” The experts shared tips on planning for educational travel to make it accessible for all students.

    1. Look beyond base prices. When planning a trip for your students, start by figuring out how much money you will need and determine your deadlines. Travel companies may provide base prices, but this doesn’t include things like insurance, tip money, optional excursions, and more. Plan backwards with your money: This is how much money is needed, how much time is there until it’s due?

    2. Create checkpoints. Creating checkpoints along the way leading up to the trip also helps keep everyone involved on track. Mentors—such as members of the community or a child’s favorite teacher—can help the students with their fundraising and check in with them if there are any issues.

    3. Hold meetings for families. Holding regular monthly meetings, and providing that schedule to families at the beginning of the year, keeps everyone in the know. During the meetings at Olson’s school, teachers would introduce families to each other. Fostering these community connections encouraged families to fundraise together.

    4. Provide “exit tickets.” They also created an information packet to review at the very first meeting, explaining all the details of educational travel. At the end of the packet, the families were asked the fill out an “exit ticket.” If anyone had to leave the meeting early, or wanted to be contacted privately, they could say so on this form.

    5. Create fundraisers that are good for your school. Be creative, have a variety of fundraisers for families to get involved in, and research what sells well at your school. Examples of fundraisers include working school dances, selling concessions at school, home-cooked food to school staff, holiday grams, and wristbands for a pass to go without the school uniform for a day. Olson’s school hosted breakfasts and “happy hours” for potential donors, where students could ask for donations by explaining to people why they wanted to travel. The best piece of fundraising advice Olson received from a parent’s perspective was to hold a gathering for family and friends to ask how they can help fundraise for the student who wanted to participate in educational travel.

    6. Consider focus groups. Before starting a fundraiser, you’ll need to find out details like any approved vendors you need to go through, contracts that need to be signed, and if other fundraisers are going on at the school so you can plan around them. It could also help to create a focus group to provide a place for families to contribute fundraising ideas outside of regularly scheduled meetings. Last, have one person in charge of each fundraiser, so that person can be responsible for checking in with families.

    “If you (make the effort) with your very-beginning trips, and you think through a lot of this, the future trips are much, much easier,” Olson added. By working through the smallest details, educational travel can be made attainable for all your students.

    About the Presenters

    Carrie A. Olson, PhD, teaches grades 6-12 at West Leadership Academy in Denver Public Schools where she has taught since 1985. She teaches social studies in Spanish and English classes to recent immigrants and an AP seminar class. Her PhD is in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from the University of Denver. She received her BA from Wartburg College and her master’s in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in language, literacy, and culture from the University of Colorado at Denver. Dr. Olson is a National Board Certified Teacher since 1999. She is also a Museum Teacher Fellow for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She has traveled with over 800 students to Washington, DC since 1993 and to Europe since 2003, and is passionate about providing equity in educational travel for students.

    A seasoned tourism and association executive with more than 30 years of experience in the industry, Carylann Assante, CAE serves as the Executive Director of the Student & Youth Travel Association, the international association that promotes student and youth travel worldwide. Carylann is also the Executive Director of the SYTA Youth Foundation, the philanthropic arm that provides scholarships and education experiences for students and youth who are unable to travel due to financial and personal hardship.

    Join the Community

    Teach & Travel is a free professional learning community, and an educator’s resource for all things student travel, the educational benefits of student travel, and how to successfully initiate, organize, and conduct tours for their student groups.

    This broadcast was hosted by edWeb.net and sponsored by SYTA – The Student & Youth Travel Association.

    The recording of the edWebinar can be viewed by anyone here.

    [Editor’s note: This piece is original content produced by edWeb.net. View more edWeb.net events here.]

    Meris Stansbury
    Latest posts by Meris Stansbury (see all)

  • 4 ways to improve STEM professional development

    4 ways to improve STEM professional development

    In Charlotte County Public Schools (CCPS), all 10 of our elementary schools have a STEM lab. As early as kindergarten, students begin engaging in hands-on learning and exploring STEM careers. Yet, even with regular visits to the STEM lab throughout elementary school, our fifth graders struggled on the Florida Statewide Science Assessment. Another challenge was that our teachers didn’t have a defined STEM curriculum that was uniformly applied to all elementary STEM labs.

    To turn things around, we applied for a Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) grant from the Florida Department of Education. We were awarded the grant in 2015-16 to fund our “STEM Education Enhancement (SEE) for Student Success!” project.

    Train-the-Trainer Model

    As part of the project, the STEM lab teacher from each elementary school participated in a train-the-trainer model of professional development (PD), which consisted of nine full days of training throughout the school year. In addition, we provided all 10 teachers with the STEMscopes™ online, comprehensive STEM curriculum and hands-on exploration kits.

    Through the MSP grant project, our teachers improved their instructional capabilities and their confidence in STEM, which has really paid off in our STEM labs and classrooms.

    Following are four lessons we learned that helped us—and could help other schools—enhance the content knowledge and teaching skills of STEM teachers.

    1. Give teachers a say.
    Teachers often lack a voice and a choice in professional development. One of the first lessons we learned is that teachers should have a say in what they learn and they should feel comfortable enough to have a candid conversation about what they need or what they don’t know.

    Toward that end, in each of the nine PD sessions, teachers discussed and decided which science standards they thought should be included in their next training. Including teachers in the planning and decision-making helped them feel more empowered, which helped them embrace the training. It also resulted in PD tailored to their most pressing needs, and it helped them “own” the curriculum and strategies discussed in each session.

    2. Facilitate collaboration.

    Having nine days of on-site PD helped our STEM lab teachers develop a very strong sense of community. Throughout the training, the level of interaction and the sharing of ideas and materials were incredible, and that collaboration continued online between the sessions. As a result, teachers left each session energized and excited to return to their schools and train their peers on the knowledge and skills they learned.

    (Next page: 2 more tips for STEM PD)

    3. Dig deeper into the standards.

    One of our goals for the grant project was to help teachers develop a deeper understanding of the Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) for Science. So, within each PD session, the trainer led teachers in a frank discussion of the standards being covered, which helped them uncover their own misconceptions.

    For each standard, the trainer helped the teachers identify the most important part of the standard (e.g. what exactly students need to know) at each grade level. She also demonstrated how the standards are interrelated and vertically aligned throughout each grade level. The trainer then led the teachers through a lesson from the online, standards-based curriculum so they could see first-hand how to engage students and effectively teach the standard.

    Next, the teachers would return to their schools, try out the lesson with their students, and report back in the following PD session about what went well and what didn’t, and discuss how to improve.

    4. Model key instructional strategies.

    In addition to increasing teachers’ content knowledge, we wanted to expand their use of inquiry-based instructional strategies. So, throughout the PD, the trainer modeled the 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) inquiry model, which is what we expect teachers to implement with their students. Experiencing the 5E model first-hand gave teachers new insights into how effective and engaging this model is for students, and it helped them become much more comfortable with this approach in their own labs.

    Improving Teacher Effectiveness and Student Achievement

    An evaluation of our MSP project conducted by Dr. Laura Frost of Florida Gulf Coast University found that teachers felt that their knowledge and skills in STEM improved by participating in the SEE Student Success project. Results from a self-efficacy survey called the “Science Teacher Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI )” reflected positive changes due to the training.

    In addition, teacher buy-in and excitement were evidenced in a variety of ways during and after the training—from the presentations teachers made to their colleagues at faculty meetings to their increased usage of the online STEM curriculum and exploration kits.

    We also examined student achievement based on the fifth grade results from the Florida Statewide Science Assessment, which measures student achievement of the NGSSS. In 2014-15, the year before our MSP grant project began, our fifth graders’ proficiency rate was 50 percent. In 2016-17, it was 53 percent. In contrast, from 2015 to 2017, the average proficiency rate for the state of Florida dropped from 53 percent to 51 percent.

    Thanks to the MSP grant, the training, and the use of the online curriculum, our teachers now feel like experts in standards-based learning in STEM. They have a deeper knowledge of the content and the standards as well as inquiry-based instructional strategies, which will have a long-lasting impact on their effectiveness with students.

    For us, the training and curriculum were the missing pieces that helped teachers make sense of the standards and that allowed students to experience the science reflected by the standards. Even better, students enjoy learning STEM and they look forward to going to the STEM lab because they’re actually doing STEM.

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  • How to measure edtech impact in the ESSA era

    How to measure edtech impact in the ESSA era

    The Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) and Empirical Education Inc. recently released the Guidelines for Conducting and Reporting EdTech Impact research in U.S. K-12 Schools. These guidelines help clarify how research is conducted and how information is presented to users of edtech products based on the changes brought by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In “Measuring Edtech Impact in the ESSA Era,” experts delved into the details of the guidelines.

    The updated guidelines take into account nearly all edtech products today in the cloud, providing more access to teacher and student usage data. They also account for the timeline for compressed development of edtech products, and standards of evidence having changed to a more developmental scale with ESSA replacing No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

    Districts are more frequently asking for their own student and teacher product usage data to perform their own studies. The structure and definitions provided by these new guidelines are useful in helping them obtain what they need and figure out how to do their evaluations.

    The 4 Main Sections

    The guidelines are divided into four main sections: Getting Started, Designing the Research, Implementing the Design, and Reporting the Results.

    When getting started, using a logic model from the product provider is helpful in developing a model for how the product works. Logic models can show the factors that correlate with different outcomes.

    When moving on to designing the research, look at the four levels of evidence defined by ESSA. The first step is to use a logic model. Then, look at a correlational study, run a comparison study, and run a randomized experiment. It’s common to run comparison studies, since randomized experiments can often be time consuming and expensive.

    It is important to use caution when handling confidential information while implementing the design. With more personally identifiable student information available from both the school district and edtech products, privacy of edtech usage data has become a higher concern.

    Lastly, when reporting the results, keep in mind all findings from edtech product evaluations should be made available. For example, publishing the best evaluation out of five that were conducted will not help the market learn. A report should also have enough detail to know if results apply to a particular context. These details tell schools if a product will work for them, and not just the general average.

    For more details, download the full guidelines here.

    About the Presenters

    Denis Newman, lead author of ETIN’s guidelines for research on edtech impact, is the CEO of Empirical Education Inc., a research organization that conducts dozens of RCTs and other evaluations of school programs. He has 35 years of experience improving student-teacher learning processes and instructional technologies and is a pioneer in applying internet to student learning, professional development, and school administration. His Ph.D. in developmental psychology is from The City University of New York.

    Andrew Coulson, Chief Data Science Officer, oversees the development of expansion strategies, product-to-market operations and leads a team of data analysts to conduct evaluation of MIND’s activities. Prior to this position, he led MIND’s Education Division for 12 years, helping to devise and execute strategies and programs to scale the organization’s reach to now support student learning in 45 states across the country. Before joining MIND, Coulson was a program officer for a major Orange County foundation, specializing in education. He also worked for 17 years in upper management as a STEM professional in high-tech manufacturing engineering, acquiring experience in operations, process engineering, reliability and technology transfer.

    Bridget Foster has worked in all areas of the education market—from classroom teacher, to state level and industry leadership. As EVP & Managing Director of ETIN, she helps companies better understand the education market, so that they can grow their brands worldwide. She holds credentials in English, science, mathematics and school administration.

    Join the Community

    EdFocus: The EdMarketing Community is a free professional learning community that will help you connect with colleagues in the education industry to share information and resources, raise questions, and get advice.

    This broadcast was co-hosted by edWeb.net and MCH Strategic Data.

    The recording of the edWebinar can be viewed by anyone here.

    [Editor’s note: This piece is original content produced by edWeb.net. View more edWeb.net events here.]

    Meris Stansbury
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  • Why keeping parents and kids connected in the early years is critical

    Why keeping parents and kids connected in the early years is critical

    In more than 60 percent of all two-parent households, both parents work, and in nearly all of these households, at least one parent is employed. This means that the vast majority of parents in our country experience regular and prolonged periods of time away from their children. Since parental involvement is one of the most influential factors in students’ academic success, the question then becomes how to help working parents stay abreast of what their child does when they are apart.

    As a lead teacher at a YMCA Early Childhood Center, I believe children of all ages benefit from having their parents and teachers on the same page with their growth, health, and education on a regular basis. We offer care for more than 3,500 children (from infants through preschoolers) every year.

    Being a YMCA facility, we teach kids to make healthy choices, as well as teaching them the ABCs, and other important life skills, like good sportsmanship and how to be themselves. We know that the values and skills children learn early on become the building blocks for their future lives.

    Good Habits Start Early

    If you eat healthily as a child, you become more used to those kinds of food than unhealthy foods. For example, I myself didn’t grow up eating very healthy food—eating out was easier since both of my parents worked two jobs. Now that I am an adult, I don’t always make the best eating choices. On the other hand, when my sister was growing up, my mom was able to stay at home and give her home-cooked meals every day, and as a result she is fit and eats healthy foods all the time.

    At the Early Childhood Center, I encourage healthy eating habits by encouraging them to eat (or at least try) the food we provide, and modeling healthy eating and drinking habits while I am in the classroom. I also try to instill healthy habits by taking the children outside at least 60 minutes a day and doing small physical activities inside like yoga and GoNoodle throughout the day.

    Using Smartphones to Engage Parents

    Because our working parents only see their children a few hours a day, we want to keep them updated about all the fun things their children are doing during the day, and we also like to send home helpful information about health and wellness.

    For a long time, we communicated with parents using daily sheets we would type on the computer, print, and then make copies of. We used up a lot of paper this way. We also sent out a monthly newsletter featuring upcoming events and lessons. Personally, I prefer to communicate on a daily basis (both at drop-off and pick-up) so we can know anything that would be beneficial during the day and we can give parents an update of what happened each day.

    (Next page: Streamlining processes, better connecting parents and children)

    This whole process became a lot more streamlined when we began using the parent-teacher communication app Bloomz, which we started using as part of a pilot program through the Ohio American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in early 2017. With the pilot, we were able to share information about a wide range of topics, including how to reduce sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), constructive disciplining, screen-time management, and reading to children, directly to parents’ smartphones.

    Paperless communication allows us so much more flexibility and speed when it comes to contacting parents and families. We now encourage parents to message us electronically, so we get a notification on our classroom app and can get back to them in a timely manner. We post the children’s artwork and writing from around the classroom on a daily basis, as well as pictures of the kids.

    We can also collect all of these materials into a portfolio for each child. Parents now get reminders on their phones the night before extra activities such as gym, art, and music. I think the parents are happy to have a specific place where they can view pictures of their children doing activities throughout the day, and like and comment on posts in the same they do on Facebook.

    Connecting Parents and Children

    Since the switch to paperless communication, I’ve noticed an interesting difference in behavioral issues with my children at pick-up. I think it is because, instead of a parent reading what we did that day as they pick up their child, they come in the classroom already knowing what we did from reading the posts, and this makes the child feel more connected with their parents.

    I also had a student who was out sick when we cut open a pumpkin and cleaned it out. The child came back to school the next day and told us his mom showed him the pictures we had posted and she then went out and got a pumpkin and did the activity as a family that night.

    It’s become common to hear our children ask, “Are you going to post that?” after we take a picture of them. After all, every kid wants their parents to pay attention to them. (“Watch me, mom!”) And every parent wants to know what their child is doing during the day. Parents and children are the most important people in each other’s lives, so it’s vital to keep them connected, especially in the early years.

    We live in a world full of new technology that can keep parents and children more connected than they’ve ever been, so why wouldn’t we take advantage of every opportunity?

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  • This “open” innovation may indicate the future of learning

    This “open” innovation may indicate the future of learning

    My hometown of Gastonia is a quiet place. Scant traffic. Nice neighbors. Folks still offer you a sweet tea when you visit. By most accounts it’s a sleepy southern town, with roots in textiles and major manufacturers producing Wix air filters and Freightliner trucks. Just what you’d expect from a small town in the South. It’s my idea of heaven, but according to Wikipedia, its biggest claim to fame is that it is the second largest satellite city in the Charlotte metropolitan area.

    But get ready. Gastonia, though small and unimpressive to fancy outsiders like Wikipedia, is poised to take advantage of one of the greatest sea changes taking place in education in the last 200 years. Don’t let the headlines and the small-town charm fool you. Gastonia has potential!

    Even with all our new technology and the amazing strides we have made in the science of learning, our sons’ classrooms in Gastonia look a lot like my classroom did–and an awful lot like my father’s, who was born in 1923. My father attended classes for 11 years (there was no fourth year of high school then and no kindergarten), but even so, his classes were separated by grade levels and students were assessed by letter grades. Every student was required to learn the same things during the same chronological period. With no technology except a chalkboard, my father graduated high school as a very literate person who was highly proficient in mathematics and knew Latin and Greek.

    He was well-equipped for the world he entered, and went on to become a successful optometrist after fighting in WWII. In his day, life was very local. It was expected that after school a person might work the remainder of his life in one role for one company. Local communities were comprised of interlocking parts and ran very much like Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Theory–each individual worked for his own self-interest and played his part in the economy of individual communities. They didn’t need a “Buy Local” campaign to encourage commerce; they simply didn’t have a choice.

    How Much the World has Changed!

    Technology has transformed us. Many of the jobs that existed in my father’s world have disappeared. Many of the jobs that exist now in my world will be gone by the time our sons and their peers are running things. School used to be about gaining a shared body of knowledge. To a large degree, what constituted an educated person was agreed upon. To be educated, everyone learned the same things at the same time. If you were clever, paid attention, had good memorization skills and could afford it, you could even progress to college and possibly to graduate school, where your agreed-upon knowledge would qualify you for a profession.

    I am the product of a liberal arts education. I know a little about a lot of things. Languages. Poets. Writers. Mathematics. Psychology. History. Sociology. Thank goodness I don’t have to go out and find a real job. I have no verifiable job skills. No provable competencies. I am darn near unemployable. If I were to graduate college today, I might be one of the millions of kids who go back to live with their parents. Or worse, If I were to graduate with my un-provable skill set fifteen years from now, I would be wholly unprepared to make a living and take care of myself.

    Here’s the Sea Change: Open Badges

    Passing time in school no longer matters. Okay, you made it through high school. What did you learn? Now prove it. Or, you may spend 12 years in college, complete 300 credit hours of study, and know a lot about a lot of things. But unless you obtained degrees along the way, your 12 years are meaningless to employers. You have no way to prove what you know.

    Today, learning needs to be quantified. Not by time, but by skills and specific experience. And it needs to be verifiable. We also need the ability to display and share those skills, combine them and show how they are applicable to multiple industries. They need to be meaningful and transferable.

    The technology now exists to power the education system of the future. It is already in use, but in the next 15 years it will completely dwarf our current system of assessment.

    That’s amazingly quick in education-speak. Think about it. Education is an institution with two primary functions–to educate our children and to serve and maintain the institution itself. Because of the second function, education has been painfully slow to change. But the times they are a-changing.

    With these coming changes, there are several terms you should know. Credentialing. Micro-Credentialing. Badging. But the one you should get very familiar with is Open Badges.

    When I first met Wayne Skipper five or six years ago, he was already talking about badges and how they fit into the future of education. At that time, the education world was beginning to have some serious discussions about moving towards a competency-based model. The college presidents I knew were all talking about it. A few school districts were playing with it. But no one was successfully making the leap between education and industry, and no one had the vision to create a system for obtaining and displaying competencies that was sharable and open. There were some tech companies in the space that were talking about cornering the market in credentialing–they were intent on getting rich by owning the rights to credentialing or badging–and making everyone pay them to house and distribute credentials.

    My friend Wayne had a different idea. He wanted to make the whole thing open. And FREE.

    Fast forward a few years

    To date, nearly 15 million Open Badges have been issued in the US alone. Open Badges is a technology standard that allows the user to take any learning achievement, whether formal or informal, and recognize it with a portable micro-credential. Open Standards allow everyone to put all these types of learning activities on the same playing field and describe them in the same language. That means everything is interoperable. Businesses, schools, associations and learners, everyone can share information–everything works together. Verifiable skills are transferable from one job to another, even between completely different industries. It is the piece of the puzzle that makes everything possible.

    Wayne’s company, Concentric Sky, developed the Open Badges 2.0 specifications. The company wrote the developer’s tools, the developer’s guide and the open source badge validation tools. The MacArthur Foundation’s spinoff, Collective Shift, approached them in 2015 to take over stewardship of the Badge Alliance, which they held till 2017 before handing it to IMS Global Learning Consortium, a member-driven global standards body.

    That Sets the Stage for What’s Coming Next

    Business is becoming increasingly global. Future workers will be hired globally and work remotely. Most workers will be independent contractors, working for multiple businesses–sometimes at the same time. Think gigs, not jobs. That’s our future economy, and the way that our students, sons and daughters will make their living.

    The Internet has changed everything, but everything is going to change even more. The ability for our children to gain, display and distribute their credentials will be the way they find employment. A business’s ability to find and contract with skilled workers will be the difference between the success and failure of that business.

    The world is changing. Technology has democratized opportunity. The future is global. Fancy cities like Charlotte and Nashville are giving way to towns like Gastonia, with its scant traffic, nice neighbors and skilled workforce.

    And now, my fellow Gastonians have real options. Our middle son Stone is 15, and wants to be a radiologist. Many of the competencies he needs will be obtained online. He can also practice medicine online. His patients will come from all over the world. I’m reasonably sure the technology used to obtain his medical credentials will be some version of the Open Pathways technology, created by my friend Wayne Skipper.

    It’s really a small world to be so global. Of course, our youngest son Aidan still wants to be a professional motorcycle racer.

    I’m not sure they have an app for that.

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  • Richardson Independent School District – Texas, USA

    Richardson Independent School District – Texas, USA

    BARCO SOLUTION

    KEY BENEFITS

    • Improves student learning & drives engagement
    • Ease of use for teachers & stimulates interactive teaching
    • Supports different BYOD operating systems & perfectly integrates in the network

    The Richardson Independent School District in Texas, USA, was not looking for just any wireless solution. They wanted one that would accommodate all users. This is a must in an age when Bring Your Own Device practices reign supreme and every classroom is inhabited by a mix of Google, Apple, Android and Microsoft devices. For Technology Project Manager, Terry Balch, finding such a solution was far more difficult than it should have been:

    “We looked at five presentation solutions. Some were specific to one operating system. Or they didn’t work with our enterprise environment. They either couldn’t set up proxies or they wouldn’t work with our other layered security.”

    It gives teachers more flexibility and students more opportunity for engagement.Terry Balch, Technology Project
    Manager at the Richardson
    Independent School District – Texas, USA

    Balch found the solution he was looking for in Barco wePresent. It is designed to allow up to four people to simultaneously share content, no matter what devices they are using and no matter whether they are broadcasting to a projector or a television screen. There is no longer a question of which system is the right system; wePresent allows teachers to put the focus on helping their students to learn.

    “Students are more engaged during presentations, which, of course, increases classroom conversation and ultimately improves learning,” says Balch. “It gives teachers more flexibility and students more opportunity for engagement.”

    This flexibility is evident in the array of classroom subjects that wePresent has been used for. As well as career and technical education classes, the Richardson ISD has used it to help teach about everything from billing to basic medical procedures like taking blood pressure.

    The success is all too clear. While Barco representatives initially installed wePresent in administrative offices and one classroom, but Balch is looking to introduce it to classrooms in all 54 campuses of the school district.

    “Not only is wePresent a cost savings over the traditional route of using a matrix AV router with wiring,” Balch explains, “it offers a great deal of flexibility and ease of use for the teacher.”

    Barco Education offers solutions designed specifically for the educational market to enhance teaching and learning experiences within and beyond the classroom

    Ready to discover how technology can enable you to flip the classroom and help you achieve better learning outcomes?

    Join our webinar

    What you will learn:

    The flipped classroom is an active learning approach in which the learning is student-centred rather than teacher-centred. During this webinar, a Barco Representative will share with you his in-field expertise they have built up during his extensive discussions with deans and head of new learning on how to start with technology enhanced learning: what are their challenges, how they overcome them and how technology is enabling them to flip the classroom.

    Save your spot at: https://www.barco.com/en/page/wepresent-webinar

  • Understanding the Link Between Class Size and Student Achievement

    Understanding the Link Between Class Size and Student Achievement

    The discussion about the importance of class size has been ongoing for decades. While some still argue that class size doesn’t make a noticeable difference in the quality of education, research has shown that is not the case. Understanding the connection between class size and student achievement, as well as teacher retentions, is critical to the future of our educational system.

    The Link Between Class Size and Achievement

    Research into the impact of class size on student achievement has been ongoing for decades. According to an article in the Seattle Times, the effects “have been hard to isolate and measure,” which has led to disagreements over the results. The article suggested the disagreement may have more to do with benefits outweighing the costs as opposed to actual effectiveness. In fact, The National Center for Education Statistics points out that after the 2008 recession, pupil-teacher ratio increased.

    Even with some disagreement about the cost effectiveness of chasing the benefits of small class size, most researches agree that it does have a positive impact, particularly on students in younger grades.

    Perhaps one of the most famous studies to come to this conclusion was the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project in the 1980s. The STAR project randomly assigned students to either small classes (13 to 17 students per teacher) or large classes (22 to 25 students per teacher). In the kindergarten years alone, the study found a “definite advantage for small classes in achievement.”

    In 2011, the Brookings Institution reviewed the study and confirmed its findings that the 32% reduction in class size increased student achievement, giving those students an achievement advantage equivalent to an additional three months of education after four years.

    Twenty years after the STAR project was completed, the National Education Association (NEA) published a policy brief concerning class size. The NEA examined the research on STAR students and focused on the long-term results from the follow-up studies. Some of the long-term results of the students who were in the smaller classes include:

    • Higher student achievement levels in grade seven language, reading, science, math, and social studies classes
    • More positivity reported about participating in learning
    • High school transcripts indicated that STAR students who were in smaller classes for a minimum of three years were substantially more likely to graduate from high school

    These outcomes aren’t insignificant, suggesting there are many benefits to smaller class sizes. Let’s look at some in more detail.

    The Benefits of Small Class Sizes

    As mentioned above, smaller class sizes offer positive results. Small class sizes give both teachers and students several benefits that result in higher student achievement. Some benefits of a small class size include the following:

    Better Teacher/Student Relationships

    For a student, individual attention can make the difference between effectively developing skills and just coasting along. Generally, in smaller classes, students can establish stronger relationships with their instructors.

    Tyrone Howard, a professor of education who writes about research into students’ relationships with their teachers, said “I think schools in many ways have put the cart before the horse. What they’ve done is they want to jump right into academics and really dismiss or minimize the importance of relationships.”

    Those relationships matter to students and teachers and can lead to better outcomes for both.

    More Customized Instruction

    Teachers need to identify the specific problems that each student may have to be effective. In large classes, this may be a challenge for educators, not because their instruction is wrong, but because they don’t have the resources to do so.

    In an article in The Edvocate, Matthew Lynch, professor of education and author, stated:

    Small class sizes work because they give teachers an opportunity to offer students more personalized instruction, which is probably the reason that academic achievement goes up. Teachers don’t necessarily change what they are doing, they are just able to increase their efficacy.

    Teachers who can spend more time with each student is able to tailor their teaching to specific students’ needs and, in turn, learning outcomes improve.

    Classrooms Become More Collaborative

    In large classes, students tend to interact with people they know. It’s easy for some students to become outsiders or for cliques to form. In smaller classes, students will engage with each other and form relationships. The effect is a cohesive group of students who support and learn from one another.

    When students feel more comfortable with all their peers and their teacher, they’ll likely feel more relaxed engaging and asking questions. This can make it less likely for a student to fall behind and encourage them to become more engaged in their learning.

    Topics are Explored In-Depth

    Small class sizes let teachers reduce time spent on discipline and organization, meaning they spend more time with instruction. With fewer students in the classroom, teachers can explore topics in-depth and expand on themes that students show interest in.

    According to a statement from the National Council of Teachers of English, “In smaller classes students spend less time off-task or disengaged from the work of the class.”

    When teachers have more time to engage all their students consistently, students will likely get a deeper education on more topics. When their questions and interests can guide how a teacher dives into a topic, they’re likely to be more receptive to the lessons, as well.

    Teachers Stick Around

    Small class sizes make it easier to manage the learning environment and give educators a sense of pride in the classroom. Teachers are happier and feel more fulfilled when they can provide quality instruction. This means they will stick around longer, giving every school or university the benefit of expert instructors.

    Class size is a frequently cited reason teachers leave their jobs, with 10% of teachers who had left the profession or moved to another school stating that class sizes were the motive for making their move.

    Reducing teacher attrition is an important goal as the teacher shortage looms. Smaller class sizes are a step toward the goal of keeping experienced teachers in the profession.

    Lead the Way to Better Class Sizes

    Tomorrow’s teachers will undoubtedly need to take leadership roles in ensuring that education meets their student’s needs. Bethel University is ahead of the curve with small class sizes that have a positive impact on student achievement.

    Our online master’s degree in educational leadership program features a curriculum designed around the needs of working educators and builds on your current knowledge to help you advance your career. You’ll study topics like community relations, ethics, meeting the needs of diverse learners, budgeting, research, and more.  With accelerated seven-week courses and six start dates per year, you’ll be able to begin, pause, or expedite your learning at any time. Plus, our full-time program can be completed in as little as one year.

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  • 5 ways to create a community of learners

    5 ways to create a community of learners

    Relationships are the foundation of learning. When students feel connected to their teacher and their peers, they’re more likely to thrive. How can teachers forge these connections within a remote learning environment?

    For education consultant Lainie Rowell, that’s the central question facing educators as they’ve moved instruction entirely online amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Cultivating a community of learners is critical,” says Rowell, an author and international speaker who facilitates professional learning for the Orange County, Calif., Department of Education’s Institute for Leadership Development.

    Related content: Here’s the biggest mistake educators are making with remote learning

    Building community has always been important for educators. In an online learning environment, where teachers and students aren’t face to face every day, it’s even more critical for success. If students don’t feel like a valued and important member of a community of learners, then they aren’t as likely to engage in lessons remotely.

    Rowell hosts a podcast called “Lemonade Learning” with fellow educator and consultant Brianna Hodges. Based on ideas they discussed in their podcast and that Rowell shared in an interview, here are five effective strategies for building a community of learners online.

    Engage students in norm-setting.

    Just like they would in a face-to-face setting, teachers have to establish ground rules for acceptable behavior in learning online. Involving students in this process helps build a sense of community.