# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Adaptive Reasoning – Linear Measurement Tools.pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Procedural Fluency - Analyzing Data from Line Plots2.pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Strategic Competence – Problem Formation.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
If you would like to add some pics, let me know and we can add them.

# data[].attributes.body
Photo album from Istation East conference

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Experience Alicia photo slideshow entitled IMG_4460. It was created in minutes using the PhotoSnack slideshow creator.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PD is not a gamble, it's a winning hand! - Zeetings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Copy of Istation Math PD Descriptions.docx

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Two Ways to Search Quantiles-sc edits (1).pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Implementation Checklist Spanish w Notes 2.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Task Card page

# data[].attributes.body
Task Card page 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1Reading en Espanol_Book Levels Guide .pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Early Math Unit Descriptions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Early Math unit descriptions (1) (2).pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Grade 3-5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grade 2-5 SEM unit descriptions (1) (2).pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Quantile Skill Concept and skills defined (1).pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Copy of Revised Lexile Parameters for Timeless Tales.docx

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Funding Ed Tech

Grant Spotlight: $10,000 Teacher Grants for Blended Learning

Educators have until the end of the month to put their best online and blended learning ideas forward as possible recipients for grant money from the Foundation for Blended and Online Learning. The organization will be awarding up to $10,000 to winning proposals. The 2018 Innovative Educator Prize (IEP) recognizes and offers support to licensed K-12 educators developing practices or programs for addressing achievement gaps, boosting student engagement and personalizing learning through online and hybrid approaches.

Winners will document their projects as well as the outcomes for sharing with other education leaders. Previous recipients have developed an online credit recovery program, an open educational resources physics curriculum, and a blended dual-language kindergarten.

The foundation focuses on expanding technology-infused personalized learning models for students through research and funding programs.

The latest grant program isn't intended for hardware purchases or facility costs or salary or payroll expenses. The funds may be used, according to the application, for non-hardware technology as well as professional development, curriculum, software, classroom supplies and other materials.

"A great deal of excellent work is happening in technology-driven learning environments benefiting the educators and schools running these programs as much as their students. But creating and implementing digital learning programs often require funds beyond what a school or district is able to allocate and finding money outside of the operating budget is not always easy," the website for the program stated. "Through IEP, we are able to capture some of the powerful best practices and share these strategies with the community at large. In keeping the voices and experiences of the educators in the foreground of conversations about system-wide changes to educational policies and practice, we can help ensure decisions are well-informed and aligned to a collective vision for individual student success."

Applications are being accepted now through May 31, 2018. The portal can be accessed at https://www.blendedandonlinelearning.org/grant-program.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at dian@dischaffhauser.com or on Twitter @schaffhauser.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
how to win money for teaching with technology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
foundation for blended and online learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
foundation for online and blended learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grant Spotlight: $10,000 Teacher Grants for Blended Learning -- THE Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Funding Ed Tech Educators have until the end of the month to put their best online and blended learning ideas forward as possible recipients for grant money from the Foundation for Blended and Online Learning. The organization will be awarding up to $10,000 to winning proposals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a long-time music teacher and instructional technology coach, modeling has been key to my work for over a decade. The concept of gradual release of responsibility is second nature to me when working with students in grades K-12, but in my new role teaching graduate students in an education technology program, I am struggling to model so many of the practices I expect these teachers to use in their own classrooms. Why is it so hard to teach K-12 educators how to promote student agency and to provide choices around content and pacing-why is it so hard to teach educators how to personalize learning?

I am a faculty member at Loyola University Maryland in the Educational Technology Program for the School of Education. My official title is "lecturer," but that is a far cry from how I teach. Our students are current K-12 educators who have a passion for technology. In Fall 2017, our program began a fully online cohort and I am redesigning a course for the program called "Digital Innovative Schools," which focuses on the change needed in current K-12 schools.

I want students to use their passions to shape projects, control the pace of their content and set their own deadlines, but building this kind of learning environment is challenging. It's easier to provide a syllabus with structured projects and assignments that have assigned due dates and clear grading parameters.

I know that by putting some of these elements into the hands of my students, I can model how to transform learning environments beyond the traditional classroom. I realize that transferring control to my very capable students will allow me to move from managing their work process to providing the support they need to engage in deeper learning-but letting go of my structure, pace and definitions of success has been a grueling process.

Making "Voice and Choice" More Meaningful

"Voice and choice" has become a buzzword over the past few years, yet implementation is generally underwhelming. In many classrooms, voice has come to mean letting students choose their own projects and choices are often structured and limited. I wanted my course to provide a learning environment where students can use their voice to guide their projects and make choices that actually matter.

While designing a project about digital innovation in the classroom, I had an "aha" moment. I was creating guidelines for the end product, which was initially a presentation each student would design and share with an identified group of adults outside of our class. "You need to create a pitch, in video format, not to exceed two minutes, presented on a public forum," I wrote into the directions. In my attempt to be specific on my expectations of what they should create, I had limited my students.

It wasn't my intention to create such strict parameters, but I essentially left them with one choice: the platform. Even that was limited to some type of video creation tool. In the end, what I could expect was a series of cookie-cutter presentations.

After crying to a colleague about all of the time I spent developing these guidelines, I stepped back and asked myself: what do I want students to be able to do and why?

I wanted them to reflect on their digital innovation idea, share it beyond our classroom community and consider the next steps for implementation. BAM! There were my guidelines. By placing the structure in the purpose of the assignment, I opened up more possibilities. My students were no longer confined to a video presentation, but instead were free to explore the steps that were needed to implement their idea like designing lesson plans or submitting grant applications.

Balance of Support

When letting go of some structure to encourage student agency, the balance of support changes. There is more self-guided learning and less direct instruction. Each student is focused on different pieces of the content, learning through various means at unique paces, and has different experiences and prior knowledge to draw upon. Finding the appropriate balance of support for each student requires continuous communication. I'm constantly asking myself: when is there too much support and when is there not enough?

After building flexibility within the content to allow my students to design projects that are aligned to their passions and useful to their practice, I found myself facilitating 25 individual projects simultaneously.

I needed to create purposeful interactions with each student to effectively support agency. After conducting student conferences in K-12 classrooms for years, it was a natural progression to implement and model this strategy in my graduate classes. I hold conferences through synchronous individual online meetings and I have started using asynchronous communication to gather updates on progress and respond to questions.

This balance of support will be an ongoing consideration as I continue to redesign and teach the course. It has helped to simplify project guidelines, use conferences to provide more targeted support and to embed feedback and checkpoints within the course, but I realize that it will never be perfect. The needs of my students are diverse and will continue to evolve as teaching and learning changes over time.

Pacing Impacts Everything

In some ways, handing over control of the pace of the content seems simple. After all, most adult learners know when they understand something and are ready to move on, right? But it's more complex than that. When there are 25 students who each have control of their own pace, how do you engage them in meaningful discussions based on the content and ensure that they complete their work in a timely manner? Letting students control the pace changes everything.

I am still grappling with these questions.

I'm considering having students create their own course timelines, in which they determine their work flow, milestones and deadlines. In this case, I'd provide an end date to help them ensure that all work is completed with enough time for me to assess.

For example, a third grade teacher interested in integrating virtual reality into his classroom might develop a timeline including two weeks to research the technical elements necessary for VR integration and identify which programs are age-appropriate and relevant, and a third week to develop some lesson plans to pilot. A high school science teacher looking to blend her classroom to increase student agency might create a timeline with two weeks to conduct a series of student interviews to determine when and how her students learn best, and another two weeks to analyze the interviews. In both cases, the projects will be complete prior to the course ending, which gives me time to assess their work.

This concept raises other questions and causes hesitation, but if I'm not willing to risk leaving my comfort zone to experiment with pace, how can I expect my students to try it out in their classrooms?

Building a Community of Support When Your Peer Group Changes

Reflecting on my time in K-12, I recognize that a support system of other educators was key. The game-changer is that my peer group has changed. Now it's postsecondary instructional designers and instructors.

I've started connecting with new peers across the country through Twitter and Voxer and it has been helpful to communicate with people outside of my local network who are doing the things I want to try so I can learn alongside them. I am engaging in deeper conversations, learning new strategies and getting feedback on my ideas, and I need that. I also need people I can cry with when I've spent hours crafting guidelines only to throw them away, and in moments when managing 25 projects and timelines simultaneously feels impossible.

Redesigning this course is going to be a journey of reflection and possible failure, but I am hopeful. As I expand my community of support, I hope to create learning experiences that will inspire the K-12 educators I teach.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Is It so Hard to Teach K-12 Educators How to Personalize Learning? - EdSurge News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a long-time music teacher and instructional technology coach, modeling has been key to my work for over a decade.

# data[].attributes.body
Spanish

# data[].attributes.body
English

# data[].attributes.body
Cognitive Engagement in Math

# data[].attributes.body
e-book

# data[].attributes.body
e-book

# data[].attributes.body
What is it, and how can does Istation meet assist in the use of differentiated instruction?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Differentiation refers to a wide variety of teaching techniques and lesson adaptations that educators use to instruct a diverse group of students, with diverse learning needs, in the same course, classroom, or learning environment. Differentiation is commonly used in "heterogeneous grouping"-an educational strategy in which students of different abilities, learning needs, and levels of academic achievement are grouped together. In heterogeneously grouped classrooms, for example, teachers vary instructional strategies and use more flexibly designed lessons to engage student interests and address distinct learning needs-all of which may vary from student to student. The basic idea is that the primary educational objectives-making sure all students master essential knowledge, concepts, and skills-remain the same for every student, but teachers may use different instructional methods to help students meet those expectations.

Teachers who employ differentiated instructional strategies will usually adjust the elements of a lesson from one group of students to another, so that those who may need more time or a different teaching approach to grasp a concept get the specialized assistance they need, while those students who have already mastered a concept can be assigned a different learning activity or move on to a new concept or lesson. In more diverse classrooms, teachers will tailor lessons to address the unique needs of special-education students, high-achieving students, and English-language learners, for example. Teachers also use strategies such as formative assessment -periodic, in-process evaluations of what students are learning or not learning-to determine the best instructional approaches or modifications needed for each student.

Also called "differentiated instruction," differentiation typically entails modifications to practice (how teachers deliver instruction to students), process (how the lesson is designed for students), products (the kinds of work products students will be asked to complete), content (the specific readings, research, or materials students will study), assessment (how teachers measure what students have learned), and grouping (how students are arranged in the classroom or paired up with other students). Differentiation techniques may also be based on specific student attributes, including interest (what subjects inspire students to learn), readiness (what students have learned and still need to learn), or learning style (the ways in which students tend to learn material best).

Differentiation vs. Scaffolding

As a general instructional strategy, differentiation shares may similarities with scaffolding, which refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. Because differentiation and scaffolding techniques are used to achieve similar instructional goals-i.e., moving student learning and understanding from where it is to where it needs to be-the two approaches may be blended together in some classrooms to the point of being indistinguishable. That said, the two approaches are distinct in several ways. When teachers differentiate instruction, they might give some students an entirely different reading (to better match their reading level and ability), give the entire class the option to choose from among several texts (so each student can pick the one that interests them most), or give the class several options for completing a related assignment (for example, the students might be allowed to write a traditional essay, draw an illustrated essay in comic-style form, create a slideshow "essay" with text and images, or deliver an oral presentation). Alternatively, when teachers scaffold instruction, they typically break up a learning experience, concept, or skill into discrete parts, and then give students the assistance they need to learn each part. For example, teachers may give students an excerpt of a longer text to read, engage them in a discussion of the excerpt to improve their understanding of its purpose, and teach them the vocabulary they need to comprehend the text before assigning them the full reading.

The following comparison chart will help illustrate the differentiation concept and its major component strategies:

In English class, students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and discuss the messages it conveys about race and racism in the United States.

Students choose between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Invisible Man to discuss different messages about race and racism in the United States. The three groups share their knowledge with each other.

Assessment
In a math class, students take an exam and are given a percentage grade based on how many answers were correct.

Students take an exam and receive feedback on which mathematics standards they have mastered, which standards they are making progress on, and which standards need more attention. The feedback suggests remedies for students with learning gaps and new projects for students who have mastered all the required skills and knowledge.

Students are either grouped as a full class or they work independently most of the time.

Teachers use grouping strategies to address distinct learning needs. Students may be working independently, in small groups, in pairs, or using technology. Some groupings are by choice and some are assigned based on common learning needs. Some groupings or individual students work closely with the teacher and others have more independence.

Debate

Differentiation plays into ongoing debates about and "academic tracking" in public schools. One major criticism of the approach is related to the relative complexities and difficulties entailed in teaching diverse types of students in a single classroom or educational setting. Since effective differentiation requires more sophisticated and highly specialized instructional methods, teachers typically need adequate training, mentoring, and professional development to ensure they are using differentiated instructional techniques appropriately and effectively. Some teachers also argue that the practical realities of using differentiation-especially in larger classes comprising students with a wide range of skill levels, academic preparation, and learning needs-can be prohibitively difficult or even infeasible.

Yet other educators argue that this criticism stems, at least in part, from a fundamental misunderstanding of the strategy. In her book How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, the educator and writer Carol Ann Tomlinson, who is considered an authority on differentiation, points out a potential source of confusion: "Differentiated instruction is not the "Individualized Instruction" of the 1970s." In other words, differentiation is the practice of varying instructional techniques in a classroom to effectively teach as many students as possible, but it does not entail the creation of distinct courses of study for every student (i.e., individualized instruction). The conflation of "differentiated instruction" and "individualized instruction" has likely contributed to ongoing confusion and debates about differentiation, particularly given that the terms are widely and frequently used interchangeably.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Differentiation refers to a wide variety of teaching techniques and lesson adaptations that educators use to instruct a diverse group of students, with diverse learning needs, in the same course, classroom, or learning environment. Differentiation is commonly used in "heterogeneous grouping"-an educational strategy in which students of different abilities, learning needs, and levels of academic ...

# data[].attributes.headline
Personalized Learning: A Working Definition (Info-graphic)

# data[].attributes.subject
Personalized Learning: A Working Definition (Info-graphic)

# data[].attributes.body
(Cut up and determine which areas Istation can cater to, and in what ways)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Competency-Based Progression
Each student's progress toward clearly-defined goals is continually assessed. A student advances and earns credit as soon as he/she demonstrates mastery.

Flexible Learning Environments
Student needs drive the design of the learning environment. All operational elements-staffing plans, space utilization and time allocation-respond and adapt to support students in achieving their goals.

Personal Learning Paths
All students are held to clear, high expectations, but each student follows a customized path that responds and adapts based on his/her individual learning progress, motivations, and goals.

Learner Profiles
Each student has an up-to-date record of his/her individual strengths, needs, motivations, and goals.

Ongoing Assessment
In what ways and how frequently should we assess each student's level of mastery within the dimensions that we believe are essential for his/her success?

Operational Alignment
How might we deliver all of the learning experiences that our students need, with the resources we have available? What flexibility is in the design to enable us to respond and adapt to changing student needs?

Personalized Learning Plans
How can we ensure that each student has a learning plan that takes into account his/her strengths, changing needs, motivations, and goals?

Strengths & Needs
How do we capture each student's current level of mastery within each of the dimensions that we believe are essential for his/her success (e.g. academic standards, skills)? How can we highlight students' academic gaps to draw attention to their individual needs?

Individual Advancement
Can individual students pursue new learning experiences as soon as they have mastered the prerequisite content? How can students attain course credit based on mastery?

Staffing & Roles
In what ways might we structure teacher and other educator roles to support our instructional vision? What flexibility is needed to enable our staff to respond and adapt to changing student needs?

Varied Learning Experiences (Modalities)
What types of experiences (e.g. complex tasks, experiential learning) do students need to achieve their goals? What are the ideal methods for delivering (e.g. small group instruction, one-on-one tutoring, online learning) these experiences?

Motivations
How might we support each student in understanding and articulating his/her interests and aspirations?

Time Allocation
In what ways might we maximize the time each student spends pursuing his/her goals? How might our student and staff schedules respond and adapt to changing student needs?

Student Ownership
In what ways might we enable students to develop and manage their own learning paths?

Information & Feedback
In what ways and how frequently might we provide timely, actionable information and feedback to students, teachers, and families?

Space Utilization
How can the design of the physical space support our instructional vision? Can we use spaces beyond our walls, and if so, how?

Goals
How might we support each student in setting personalized goals within each dimension that we believe is essential for his/her success? In what ways and how frequently might we ask students to reflect on their progress and adjust their goals accordingly?

Grouping & Connections
How should we group students to enable the varied learning experiences we hope to offer and modify to their changing needs? In what ways might we facilitate personal connections among students, and between students and adults?

Sources: Developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Afton Partners, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, CEE Trust, the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Charter School Growth Fund, EDUCAUSE, iNACOL, the Learning Accelerator, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Silicon Schools, and educators
Design & Visualization: Stacey Decker

Coverage of personalized learning and systems leadership in Education Week and its special reports is supported in part by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Personalized Learning: A Working Definition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Competency-Based Progression Each student's progress toward clearly-defined goals is continually assessed. A student advances and earns credit as soon as he/she demonstrates mastery. Flexible Learning Environments Student needs drive the design of the learning environment. All operational elements-staffing plans, space utilization and time allocation-respond and adapt to support students in achieving their goals.

# data[].attributes.body
Personalized learning in today's schools essentially amounts to the "differentiation" of lessons for students of different skill levels, or efforts to help students move at their own pace, said Susan D. Patrick, the executive director of the  iNACOL, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Vienna, Va.
But she added that personalized learning must also promote "student agency"—basically, giving students more power through either digital tools or other means, accounting for how they learn best, what motivates them, and their academic goals. The most effective digital tools support that purpose, she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A number of education and technology organizations are seeking to forge a clearer understanding of what this concept really means

In the diverse and ever-changing world of educational technology, the term "personalized learning" seems to be everywhere, though there is not yet a shared understanding of what it means.

Many school officials, and companies scrambling to do business with them, use that omnipresent phrase to refer to efforts to tailor lessons to students of different ability levels-an appealing concept, given the pressures schools face to raise the achievement of students coming to academic topics from very different starting points.

Over the past few years, a number of education and technology organizations have sought to move beyond generalities to forge a clearer definition of what personalized learning really means -in the hope that the guidance will provide more specific and useful information to the K-12 community.

As it stands, districts see the potential in personalized learning to meet the demands of a student population that has grown more diverse, with a wide range of academic and language needs. And technology, in the view of many, offers a powerful tool for achieving that goal. They point to the myriad digital devices, software, and learning platforms offering educators a once-unimaginable array of options for tailoring lessons to students' needs-and for collecting data on each student's individual performance.

Yet many obstacles persist. School leaders are struggling to strike a balance between safeguarding sensitive student data and being able to collect and use such data to individualize learning. Districts are also facing challenges in making their personalized learning strategies work, and in determining how to evaluate the true impact of those strategies on student learning.

The challenge for schools is to bring those elements together in a holistic way, one that creates more opportunities for students, said Andrew Calkins, the deputy director of the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a grant competition that encourages personalized learning, among other goals.

"The thing to understand about personalized learning is that it describes a methodology, rather than just a set of goals," said Mr. Calkins, whose nonprofit organization, EDUCAUSE, manages the competition. EDUCAUSE, which promotes the use of technology to improve education, also has worked to create a clearer definition of what personalized learning means.

A core piece of that definition, in Mr. Calkins' view, is that "the default perspective is the student's-not the curriculum, or the teacher," and that schools need to adjust to accommodate not only students' academic strengths and weaknesses, but also their interests, and what motivates them to succeed.

Yet some say that too much of what is being labeled "personalized learning" in classrooms today misses the mark.

Shaping the Concept

Many technology-based approaches to personalized learning amount to nothing more than tailoring or personalizing the reading of texts to students of different abilities-rather than personalizing a mix of activities that give students a richer and more meaningful educational experience, said Elliot Soloway, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan who has studied and developed digital education tools.

"Everybody's saying they're doing it-but we have to go one level deeper when we say 'personalized learning,'" Mr. Soloway said. If schools and technology advocates don't set higher standards for what they mean, the movement "will not be sustainable," he predicted. "It will peter out."

The allure of personalized learning is evident in the way that both the education community, and companies trying to do business in schools, shape the term to suit their needs.

A perusal of the sessions at the 2014 International Society for Technology in Education conference, the biggest ed-tech gathering in the country, held in June, provides a glimpse of personalized learning's many permutations.

One session offered school administrators insights on "personalized digital toolboxes." Another advised audiences on how to use information technology to enable "personalized connected learning."

There was an event on "systemic adoption of personalized learning," and "self-sustaining personalized learning." There were sessions on personalized learning for entire districts, for kindergartners and 1st graders, for struggling students, and for new teachers.

One session said that personalized learning is tied to a "culture shift" within schools, while another described the "perfect storm of personalized learning."

But the prevailing enthusiasm for personalized learning has obscured a fundamental question: How should it be defined?

Personalizing learning, in some respects, is an age-old concept. For generations, teachers have sought to craft instruction to meet individual student needs-a manageable challenge when working with a relatively small group, but much more difficult for a class of 20 to 30 students.

Personalized learning in today's schools essentially amounts to the "differentiation" of lessons for students of different skill levels, or efforts to help students move at their own pace, said Susan D. Patrick, the executive director of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or iNACOL, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Vienna, Va.

But she added that personalized learning must also promote "student agency"-basically, giving students more power through either digital tools or other means, accounting for how they learn best, what motivates them, and their academic goals. The most effective digital tools support that purpose, she said.

"Technology can help provide students with more choices on how they're going to learn a lesson," Ms. Patrick said. "[It] empowers teachers in personalizing learning" and "empowers students through their own exercise of choice."

Essential Elements

Four years ago, a trio of organizations-the Software & Information Industry Association, a Washington based trade organization; the ASCD, a nonprofit focused on curriculum development; and the Council of Chief State School Officers-came together for a symposium and produced 10 "essential elements" and "policy enablers" for personalized learning.

Their definition emphasizes project-based learning, and more flexibility for students to set their learning paths, among other goals. An overwhelming majority of the symposium's attendees said technology played a key role in personalized learning; the essential elements also emphasized the importance of providing equal access to technology.

This year, in an effort to provide clearer direction for K-12 officials and others, iNACOL, along with a group of philanthropies, nonprofits, and technology advocacy organizations, created a " working definition of personalized learning."

That definition, crafted by organizations that included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and EDUCAUSE, rests on four pillars. ( Education Week receives support from the Gates Foundation for its coverage of college- and career-ready standards.) Each student should have a "learner profile," or a record documenting his or her academic strengths and weaknesses, motivations, and goals; students should have personal learning paths that encourage them to set and manage their individual academic goals; students should follow a "competency-based progression" through topics; and their learning environments-in most cases, schools-should be flexible and structured in a way to support their goals. (See graphic.)

Those pillars have been integrated into the request for proposals crafted by the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a grant program created in 2010 that pays for technology-based efforts in schools that promote preparation for, and completion of, postsecondary education.

Building Student Ownership

True personalized learning calls for a "rethinking and redesign" of schools, which could require them to overhaul classroom structures and schedules, curricula, and the instructional approaches of teachers, Mr. Calkins of EDUCAUSE argued. For instance, in an effective personalized learning model, teachers' roles are more like those of coaches or facilitators than "content providers," he said.

Many of the projects financed through the learning-challenges grants aspire to that goal, though there's certainly room for schools to integrate personalized approaches more slowly, he said.

In Wisconsin, the Kettle Moraine school system's foray into personalized learning has been ambitious, but also deliberate.

The 4,000-student district, located in the suburbs west of Milwaukee, has been a high-performing system for years. But district leaders became concerned that students were more focused on completing academic tasks than on setting their own learning goals, recalled Theresa Ewald, the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

"We were looking at ways of transferring the ownership of learning from teachers to students," Ms. Ewald said.

In 2005, the school board challenged the district's administration to "transform the educational delivery system" to better meet students' needs. The district eventually put personalized learning at the heart of that change.

Today, personalized learning comes in many forms in Kettle Moraine. The district has created interdisciplinary pathways for students, in areas such as advanced manufacturing, and it has given individual teachers greater flexibility to use lessons and digital tools as they see fit to promote student learning.

Yet, unlike many districts that have put personalized learning programs in place, Kettle Moraine decided not to invest heavily in digital devices to build a 1-to-1 computing environment. Instead, it relies on a bring-your-own-device program, and it has used Google systems for distributing assignments, scheduling, and communication between staff and students. In most cases, technology is used to support personalized learning, though it is not always the essential piece, district officials emphasized.

As its academic strategies have drawn attention, Kettle Moraine has been flooded with inquiries from vendors touting their own brands of personalized learning. Many of them fall short, either because they try to do too much or cost too much, Ms. Ewald said. Others focus primarily on customizing lessons to students' ability levels-which Ms. Ewald agrees is a part of personalized learning-but they don't offer a diversity of approaches for how a student experiences a topic, such as by engaging with it visually versus reading about it.

Ultimately, those tools have to mesh with the work of classroom teachers, who are making their own judgments about what's working in their classes, Ms. Ewald said.

"Nothing replaces the teacher, and [a] teacher's ability to know a student and what they need," she said. "You can't get that from a piece of software."

Published in Print: October 22, 2014, as 'Personalized Learning' Eludes Easy Definitions

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Back to Top

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
taking stock of personalized learning series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is 'Personalized Learning'? Educators Seek Clarity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the diverse and ever-changing world of educational technology, the term "personalized learning" seems to be everywhere, though there is not yet a shared understanding of what it means.

# data[].attributes.headline
How to Market to New Teaching and Learning Trends

# data[].attributes.subject
How to Market to New Teaching and Learning Trends

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Infographic: How to Market to New Teaching and Learning Trends - Agile Education Marketing, LLC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educators are adopting new teaching and learning methodologies to help them reach high academic goals and see all students succeed. In this latest infographic from Agile, learn which methodologies educators have implemented or are planning to implement soon. Also get seven tips for supporting educators as they support students by implementing these new initiatives.

# data[].attributes.body
e-book