LEAP Innovations 2020 Framework

Download the LEAP Innovations 2020 Framework

For the last five years, LEAP Innovations has been a leader in the field of personalized learning. The organization has a prominent footprint in Chicago (where they are headquartered), at the state level and nationally. In fact, the entire state of Utah has adopted their work.

The LEAP team’s findings on personalized learning are increasingly informed by their studies in the field. As they continue to hone their thought leadership, they are able to witness more practitioners implementing their ideas, which they are then able to observe, calibrate and iterate throughout the continuous design process.

The LEAP team understands that in order to truly incorporate the learnings from the field from their Breakthrough Schools, Pilot Network and their work with other partners, they need to continuously evolve and strengthen their Framework. This understanding has led to a 2020 update to the LEAP Learning Framework.

LEAP Learning Framework 2020

LEAP defines personalized learning as “FOCUSED on, LED with and DEMONSTRATED by the learner, and is CONNECTED to career-relevant, real-world skills and opportunities (all lying within the construct of LEAP Learning Framework’s four core components)”. Components of their personalized learning framework include:

• Learning focused
• Learner led
• Learner demonstrated
• Learner connected

The Framework is grounded in the following principles, all of which thread through the ideas shared.

Design principles

The team wanted to be sure that in the design of the new framework they honored and used several key design principles:

1. Research Review. Chris Dede from Harvard and Edith Gummer at ASU worked with more than 50 educators in the field to ensure that all ideas were backed by research.
2. Real-World Audit. The team visited schools to pressure test the frame and work with educators on the design. Throughout this process, there was an emphasis on finding examples of where the ideas in the framework were already working and where there would be potential to grow best practices.
3. Diverse Critiques and Integrated Discourses. Educational thought leaders paired with educators to vet their ideas in the framework. They worked together to push on what truly applied to the classroom and were sure to include a diverse group of stakeholders to get to the core of the exploration at hand.
4. Open Peer Review. The framework was open for public comment in order to support the insights from the framework with the experiences from the field.  This feedback led to formalized presentations at notable conferences and informalized sharing as well.

It remains important to the LEAP innovation team that the Framework does not live solely among themselves, but that it becomes a useful tool informed by years of their collective networks’ key learnings and lessons. As LEAP looks to the future, their plans and strategies will stem from this iterative and important work.

For more, see:

• What I Learned When I Studied Six Chicago Schools Transforming to Personalized Learning Environments
• Is Personalized Learning the Latest Tool To Increase Student Engagement?
• How Teachers and Leaders Can Promote Personalized Learning

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