Personalized Learning
Personalized learning is a mindset and approach to teaching that focuses on meeting each learner where they are and tailoring a curriculum that considers their interests, prior knowledge and skill level, and pace. Such a demand on the teacher requires sophisticated usage of technology in a combination of personalized, blended and online learning.
Kevin Johnson: Read to Succeed
“All students should read at grade level by the end of third grade.” Former NBA All Star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson visited the Northwest this week on behalf of our friends at the League of Education Voters promoting this simple but important idea.
Are you ready for the era of ‘big data’?
“Radical customization, constant experimentation, and novel business models will be new hallmarks of competition as companies capture and analyze huge volumes of data. “ The McKinsey Quarterly ran a great article last month calling the question, Are you ready for the era of ‘big data’? Their five big questions are adapted here for education.
7 Things to Include in Your Innovation Conference
If I was hosting an innovation conference focused on secondary education, here's seven things I'd include: a design prize, interesting breakouts, virtual field trips, lessons from workforce development, cool components, and a design studio.
Union policy shop wants to stop learning online
Funded by a center fronting for Midwest teacher unions, the National Education Policy Center (let’s just call it the NEA Policy Center) in Boulder recently published a hit piece on online learning. The unstated goal of the brief is to block the rapid growth of online learning, particularly schools supported by Connections and K12.
Not My Parents High School
I spent the last two days in Chicago with principals and superintendents including Glenn Vos from Holland Christian Schools (HCS). While it includes the high school that my parents graduated from, this is not a Rip Van Winkle school system. Ted Sizer and the Coalition of…
Performance Contracting: Model for Governance, Provisioning & Accountability
I attend the National Association of Charter Sschool Authorizers Leadership Conference every year because I’m a disciple of Paul Hill. Almost 15 years ago, Paul got it about right in Reinventing Public Education: How Contracting Can Transform America’s Schools. Compared to the strange patchwork of local control, contracting…
Access Denied
I’m a proud graduate of a large Midwestern university’s English language program. All graduates of the program nationwide have one goal in common: protect public school children from the evils of the English language.
Personal Digital Learning is Changing the World
Personal digital learning is providing three primary benefits, as outlined in my new book, Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World. The first benefit is customized learning. Learning online created the ability to vary rate, time, and location.
Open, Shared, and Collaborative
“EduCause is the annual Woodstock of higher education,” wrote James Marshall Crotty for Forbes. “With a particular emphasis on “the intelligent use of information technology” in the robust arena of online education.” Crotty quoted Don Kilburn of Pearson that: “The next…
Filling the College Prep Gap
Getting to college is complicated. The ‘what to do after high school’ decision is the most consequential decision of a young person’s life but it usually made with little data and inadequate preparation. Three startups are attempting to bridge the college prep gap. Kashi Tahir from Envictus made…