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The Art of Reflection

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Portfolios allow students to regularly reflect on their learning process—deepening their connection to content.

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Rubrics

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The NTN Student Learning Outcomes and Rubrics

August 8, 2016

A key pillar in the New Tech Network model is the use of outcomes that matter to guide our schools' support of students and their long-term success.The NTN Student Learning Outcomes are a set of research-based outcomes aimed at preparing students for postsecondary college and career success. For each outcome, a rubric or set of rubrics has been developed to help ensure that students are being provided with regular feedback on their growth and needs in each of these areas. These outcome rubrics are an essential component of the project and problem-based learning curriculum and instruction model used by the schools that we support. Our project-based learning management system, Echo, is also designed to allow teachers the ability to provide feedback and support to students across each of these outcomes.
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Knowledge and Thinking

Develop academic mindset and take ownership over learning

The ability to be a productive member of diverse teams through strong interpersonal communication, a commitment to shared success, leadership, and initiative

The ability to communicate knowledge and thinking through effective oral presentations

The ability to communicate knowledge and thinking through writing

Please join us in a deeper dive into the New Tech Network Developing Student Literacy Series.

Related

Tags: Agency, Collaboration, Communication, Knowledge and Thinking, Learning Outcomes, Rubric

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The NTN Student Learning Outcomes and Rubrics - New Tech Network

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Resources We use outcomes that matter to guide our schools' support of students

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How it is impacting teaching and learning

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

What's in this Guide:
If you think data-in education, or any field-is cut and dry, think again. Working with data in the classroom, especially, can be either exhausting or exhilarating-depending on your fitness level. Data can be big, but also quite small. It's often quantitative, but is increasingly qualitative. It's predictive, but not always inclusive. It's private, but not always protected. But one thing's for certain: data has enormous power to impact teaching and learning.

It's also here to stay. Which is why we put together this muscle-building guide about data and education. If these kinds of discussions push you outside of your comfort zone, rest assured you'll find inspiration and actionable advice from the classroom. One teacher set up an online store to teach his students how to work with data. Another uses playlists to break her students' data into trackable skills and goals. A seasoned educator shares why he now thinks of grading as a scavenger hunt. And a former therapist describes his school's efforts to assess assess social emotional growth.

Administrators will find tips on using data to hire well, assessing the efficacy of data-driven tools, addressing data clutter, and how not to run afoul of student privacy laws. And for any data divas in the crowd, we've got you covered with insights into open standards, predictive analytics, and the ethics of responsible use.

Scroll down the page and you'll also find a few handy resources, including professional development opportunities for educators who work with data, a run-down of what data-focused digital tools can do, and more. We'll be adding articles over the coming weeks, so please check back soon.

Whether you're looking to do a little light stretching or some heavy lifting, we hope our data workout gets you in shape.

-Mary Hossfeld, Guide Editor

Here are a handful of professional development resources to get you started. All are self-paced; most are free. Have a suggestion? Please leave it in the Comments section at the bottom of this page.

Teachers report that a key challenge with digital tools-and the data they collect-is the time and effort it takes to understand, adopt, and put the information they generate to use. Many believe that data-focused tools are often overwhelming, incompatible, inconsistent, and too slow. Because teachers use multiple tools to assess, analyze and pivot their teaching, they must manually integrate data from each to gain a fuller understanding of their students' learning. Below are the distinct and separate roles teachers identify among data-focused digital tools, as reported by Teachers Know Best: Making Data Work for Teachers and Students; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2015.

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The Data Workout: How It's Impacting Teaching and Learning - EdSurge Guides

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation What's in this Guide: If you think data-in education, or any field-is cut and dry, think again. Working with data in the classroom, especially, can be either exhausting or exhilarating-depending on your fitness level. Data can be big, but also quite small.

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John Hattie

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What is the SAMR Model and what does it look like in schools?

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What is the SAMR Model and what does it look like in schools?

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What is the SAMR Model and what does it look like in schools?

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How to Set Up Your Digital Classroom for Success

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How to Set Up Your Digital Classroom for Success

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How to Set Up Your Digital Classroom for Success

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ISTE:  Tools to Support Digital Learning

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ISTE:  Tools to Support Digital Learning

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Sample Evaluation Rubrics

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The Guide to Implementing Digital Learning

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The Guide to Implementing Digital Learning

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Finally, two additional factors need to be considered throughout the selection and use of software in a school district: students' safety and the privacy of student data.

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5 Essential Media Literacy Questions to Ask Kids

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5 Essential Media Literacy Questions to Ask Kids

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Continue the program with an ongoing series of CONVERSATION CASES throughout the year. From the menu below, choose those Conversation Cases that will encourage small groups of parents to begin talking.

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The K-12 Blueprint: Produced by Clarity Innovations

Clarity Innovations matches the most promising technology with the evolving needs of education. By merging creativity, technology, and pedagogy, we create powerful learning experiences.

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How does learning change when students have access to digital resources and a learning environment that goes beyond the classroom walls? This toolkit is designed to help educators incorporate digital curriculum by showcasing the research-based practices that other schools have used to great success.

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Micro-credentials

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Kettle Moraine, a small suburban Wisconsin district about 30 miles west of Milwaukee, has taken the lead on micro-credentials. For the past several years the district has been focused on personalizing learning for its students by introducing more choice into classrooms, using blended learning strategies and offering multi-age classrooms. In 2011, when the teachers unions in Wisconsin lost much of its bargaining power through the passage of Act 10, Kettle Moraine's superintendent, Patricia Deklotz, watched as districts around the state responded by instituting performance-based evaluations. That worried her.

"I was extremely concerned that all the work I had been doing to build collaboration would be trashed as they competed," Deklotz said at a summit on micro-credentials hosted by Digital Promise. "I did not want teachers competing. I think the only way we serve students is collaboratively."

Deklotz decided that rather than focusing on competition in her district, she would use the new latitude to change the compensation structure for teachers so they could add to their base pay for completing micro-credentials of their choosing. Deklotz liked this approach because it would give her teachers the chance to personalize their own professional learning, and give them some of the choice and agency that she hoped they would turn around and apply in their classrooms. Deklotz acknowledges that initially there was pushback from the most senior teachers "until they realized that they could increase their compensation beyond what was the top of our salary scale."
DEVELOPING OWNERSHIP
Adamczyk said the most in-depth micro-credentials took him about nine or 10 weeks to complete, but said "the time is worth it when you see the results in your class." For him, being trusted to choose the courses that will most benefit his growth or a particular group of students is a big step toward treating teachers as professionals. And, knowing that earning a micro-credential will add to his base pay is a nice incentive to pursue these opportunities.

In Kettle Moraine teachers can earn $200, $400 or $600 toward their base pay, depending on the type of micro-credential. The district allows teachers to take courses through outside nonprofits like Digital Promise, district-created micro-credentials or individually proposed credentials. The micro-credential must be pre-approved in order to count toward compensation, so that district leadership can keep an eye on costs.

"It has created the most impact of any initiative I've ever had in education," Superintendent Deklotz said. As soon as the district instituted the policy, educators were developing ideas for micro-credentials. A literacy coach proposed a micro-credential on literacy across disciplines, and immediately 42 people signed up to take it.

"They were working on a goal we knew we wanted to accomplish, but doing it in a way to recognize the expertise of our educators," Deklotz said. Rather than bringing in an outside expert, the group worked together to read research, apply ideas in the classroom and discuss. Deklotz said it is the first time she has seen teachers take ownership over district goals that were previously top-down initiatives.

"There's an efficacy you see in teachers that are involved in this work that I think is awakening that sleeping giant. I think part of the power is giving them a voice in diagnosing and meeting the needs of students," she said.

Megan Sayas, a third-grade teacher at Cushing Elementary, has taken numerous micro-credentials, often with her grade-level team. She's found this approach particularly helpful because then she and her colleagues are on the same page about goals in the classroom. The third-grade team is unusually collaborative, often sharing students and rotating them between teachers for different subjects. Sayas and her two colleagues took a micro-credential about fostering a growth mindset in the classroom through Digital Promise last year, and are now jointly working to build in activities and habits of mind at the beginning of each school year.

Some of Sayas' colleagues have been skeptical that the micro-credential is just more work on top of the already hectic and overwhelming job of teaching. But Sayas says because the learning directly ties into her classroom goals, and she can see gains immediately, she doesn't feel that way. "I don't consider it extra work because you're picking what you want to learn about and you're getting to use it right away with the kids," she said. She, like Adamczyk, noted that being compensated for the work is a nice gesture from the district, but that the freedom to personalize her own professional growth has been rewarding on its own.

Last year Sayas tried to focus on tying together science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) concepts through design. She wasn't completely sure how to do that, although she knew it was one of the goals for elementary science, so she took a micro-credential on how to incorporate design thinking into her class. Her students designed, tested, built and iterated on boat designs that would not only float, but also hold as many pennies as possible. She was already planning to teach an integrated project, but the micro-credential gave her some resources and research backing to begin that process with some support.

WHAT'S HAPPENING ELSEWHERE?
While Kettle Moraine has the most developed micro-credential program, other districts and states are exploring the possibilities as well. Every district operates within its own context and has its own restraints, but many educators are excited at a type of professional development that is competency-based, grounded in research, and is assessed for how it was implemented in the classroom.

San Lorenzo School District science coordinator Jim Clark is grappling with the thorny problem of helping middle and high school teachers adapt to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) using a micro-credentialing model. He gives teachers the option of attending a two-hour workshop on a specific skill and then asks them to use that skill in their classrooms. Clark observes and gives feedback. Teachers get one micro-credential for this cycle and Clark is working to have micro-credentials recognized for advancement in the district's salary scale.

"It just seemed like a really good way to address one of my main concerns, which is that there is a widespread support network for all of our teachers, which means tapping into the expertise that our teachers have," Clark said. The NGSS represents a substantial shift in how teachers develop science lessons, and teachers need practice engaging students with content through interesting real-world phenomena. Clark sees micro-credentials as a way to recognize teachers' hard work to develop their teaching practice in key areas, and hopes those who have been through the process will become resources for other teachers in their buildings. Ultimately, he hopes the science department across the district will be a cooperative, teamlike environment that will make teachers want to stay in the district.

Tennessee is currently piloting micro-credentials as a pathway toward relicensure with 60 teachers. The state is in the early stages of its program, but is working with stakeholders across the state to address issues of quality, assessment and the experiences of teachers earning micro-credentials. Advocates of micro-credentials hope that if Tennessee's pilot progresses smoothly, it could be the first state to formalize micro-credentials in this way.

Seminole County Public Schools is also looking at how micro-credentials could shake up existing models of professional development after surveying its educators and finding that 70 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with workshops where they show up to "sit and get." Teachers want more follow-up, and help putting ideas into practice. While there is no district micro-credentialing program yet, 85 teachers in the district are currently working on one designed by the Florida Department of Education and Digital Promise.

Seminole County is also working to build a network of Central Florida districts that recognize micro-credentials before jumping in feet first, said Ryan Peetz, who manages blended learning and digital learning implementation for the district. "We shouldn't be creating something that isn't going to apply to the other districts around us," Peetz said. That way, if a teacher moves to a new district, he or she can go knowing their hard work will be recognized elsewhere.

These are just a few of the initiatives happening around the country.
CHALLENGES
The micro-credential movement is still quite small, and many districts are still exploring how it might fit into existing pay, licensing and evaluation structures. Digital Promise has been trying to ensure that the micro-credentials that do exist are high quality by emphasizing that they should be research-based, evidence-based and assessment-based. Advocates hope that setting standards for high-quality micro-credentials early will provide a strong foundation as more companies and nonprofits begin offering them.

If the movement grows, keeping the offerings high quality will be essential to their success, but it's also an expensive endeavor. So far, organizations like Center for Teaching Quality and Digital Promise have shouldered those costs using philanthropic dollars, but reviewing micro-credential submissions takes capacity and could be quite expensive. Kettle Moraine uses its own teachers to evaluate district-initiated micro-credentials and pays them for that work. Two reviewers look at the evidence a teacher submits, and if they don't agree a third person breaks the tie. Superintendent Deklotz says being a reviewer is great professional learning in and of itself.

"Everyone who is sitting on that review would tell you they are a better teacher because of their understanding of the system. They will rave about what they have learned simply by reviewing," Deklotz said. Other districts, like Seminole County, aren't so sure about having teachers evaluate their own peers. They are considering peer reviews by teachers from other districts.

Moving forward, the question of high-level rigorous review will be an important one. Leaders in this movement don't want micro-credentials to be confused with digital badges, essentially a gold star without a lot behind it, or a rubber stamp. Instead, they hope the ecosystem will evolve so that states and districts will be able to identify high-quality courses from the rest and the micro-credential itself will be a form of currency for teachers to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

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Can Micro-credentials Create More Meaningful Professional Development For Teachers? | KQED

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Districts around the country are experimenting with micro-credentials as a way to allow teachers to personalize their professional learning so they can focus on growing skills they really need.

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Essential elements of digital citizenship - ISTE

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Essential elements of digital citizenship - ISTE

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Nearly all of the ISTE Standards list digital citizenship as one of the aspects of education technology that all members of a school or district should support. Specifically, the standards tend to focus on the safe, legal and ethical use of technology in schools.

This is certainly at the heart of the ideas behind digital citizenship, but as technology integration grows, not only in schools but in society as a whole, I believe the concept of digital citizenship will continue to expand.

When I wrote my first book, Digital Citizenship in Schools, with Gerald Bailey, we considered where this might lead on a bigger scale. The idea was to create a framework of defining elements that provide a structure for digital citizenship education on which everything else could hang. As a result, we identified nine key elements that help define how to best use technology in every school, home and community. They're organized into three primary categories:
Respect

Digital access: Advocating for equal digital rights and access is where digital citizenship starts.

Digital etiquette: Rules and policies aren't enough - we need to teach everyone about appropriate conduct online.

Digital law: It's critical that users understand it's a crime to steal or damage another's digital work, identity or property.

Educate

Digital communication: With so many communication options available, users need to learn how to make appropriate decisions.

Digital literacy: We need to teach students how to learn in a digital society.

Digital commerce: As users make more purchases online, they must understand how to be effective consumers in a digital economy.

Protect

Digital rights and responsibilities: We must inform people of their basic digital rights to privacy, freedom of speech, etc.

Digital safety and security: Digital citizens need to know how to protect their information from outside forces that might cause harm.

Digital health and wellness: From physical issues, such as repetitive stress syndrome, to psychological issues, such as internet addiction, users should understand the health risks of technology.

These nine elements have been well-received over the years, and I am now looking to take them to the next level by creating a curriculum that can be embedded into the classroom at various levels. The curriculum will break down the elements into the categories above, then expand and incorporate them throughout a student's K-12 experience. This is where we originally hoped digital citizenship would ultimately lead, and the time is now ripe.

Advancing digital citizenship education

This is why Jason Ohler and I have been working to create an ISTE Professional Learning Network (PLN) for digital citizenship. Our hope is that this network of like-minded ISTE members will help move the development of digital citizenship curriculum along.

The PLN would also play a role in our new Digital Citizenship Academy, which will help staff at every level better understand digital citizenship and begin building their own programs within their schools and districts. These courses will allow administrators, technology staff and teachers to link the ISTE Standards on digital citizenship to where their schools and districts are headed with technology.

As more districts add mobile technology into their curricula, now is the time to get a handle on what they should be doing to ensure responsible use of this tool within their schools.

Digital citizenship is a complex topic with many facets. We need to make sure we help students understand the issues that might occur online while also stressing the positive impact of technology. As many educators know, most students want to do the right thing - and will, if they know what that is. Let's help them do great things with technology while avoiding the pitfalls.

Want to learn more about weaving digital citizenship into your curriculum? Join our Digital Citizenship Network.

Mike Ribble is a district technology director and author of Digital Citizenship in Schools. Visit his website on digital citizenship and connect with him on Twitter via @digcitizen.

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Essential elements of digital citizenship

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Nearly all of the ISTE Standards list digital citizenship as one of the aspects of education technology that all members of a school or district should support. Specifically, the standards tend to focus on the safe, legal and ethical use of technology in schools.