Guest Teacher Post from @amankows about her Personalized Learning Conference "aha's"

I had the pleasure of attending the personalized learning conference. After listening to several speakers Alfie Kohn and Diana Laufenberg, I started to think about whether or not North was heading in the right direction according to these individuals.

The underlining theme Mr. Kohn stated was that “we are too data driven”.  He believes if a school says they are trying to “personalize learning” and they say it is to improve scores then it is not personalized. He argued too much time is devoted to teaching to the test and state/national scores rather than the individual and the actual learning experience. In addition, he said that there are too many “buzzwords” we to try to sound innovative but are we actually being innovative? I had a few ah-ha moments, where I reflected on how much I personally always cared about my grades. I cared more about how I did on a test rather than what I actually learned.

I truly enjoyed listening to Diana Laufenberg. I like that she has challenged us to think outside of the box. The whole idea of why we don't provide more freedom within the school day, really got me thinking. I know scheduling is a problem for us at North, however if we don't use that excuse and think about what we really want to accomplish we could move mountains.

So I ask you, what is our goal?

• Students are engaged
• Students learning is personalized
• School provides an environment that encourages learning
• Teachers and students have a positive relationship

Should we maybe be designed in a house system, so that it is easier to move around students within a house? Teachers could collaborate easier with one another cross-curricular because they share the same students. Interventions could be better tracked because communication is done within the house. Scheduling could be more flexible if we blocked out 4 hours a day of core classes (Math, Science, English, Social Studies) and teachers could co-teach and be flexible within the 4 hour block.

• Would this help make students learning more personalized?
• Would it help create a relationship between students and teachers?
• Would students be more engaged if they had more flexibility?
• Would teachers then collaborate with more co-curricular if they were in a house with one another?

Furthermore, she encouraged us to have an advisory and senior capstone. Could we combine the idea of AE, JIT, and AO and put them into one format called Advisory?

• In advisory, we could meet Tuesday-Friday instead of having the half hour in the beginning of the day we could have it in the middle attached to lunch.
• Students who do not need interventions, have C or higher, and no unexcused absences can be eligible Wed-Friday for extended lunch after announcements and attendance.
• As advisory teachers we could check grades and attendance every two weeks. That determines the following two weeks whether they have to be in advisory the whole time or not.
• Tuesday's would be a life lesson, preparing for college, careers, and technology lesson day and all students have to stay.
• Students are divided into groups based on the interventions needed and the advisory teacher then helps support those interventions. Students who are in JIT then, the teachers know where to send assignments to for those students to work on.
• This is a built in rewards system because students who meet requirements now receive a 1 hr lunch. We have enough interventions and upperclassmen that lunch wouldn't be too crowded with 1 lunch.

• Would advisory help build more of a positive relationship between students and teachers?
• Would it help build more of a community feel to North?
• Would it help us know the students better in order to do interventions?
• Should we maybe ask students what they want and how they want to learn?

A blended approach to personalized learning was an amazing seminar. We learned how to use doctopus, goobric, google classroom, and using video notes. Out of this seminar, I am going to explore goobric, google classroom, and video notes more and think more about how I can flip the classroom. This website is a new one that I learned about http://www.videonot.es. Students can watch flipped videos and take notes as they watch and it timestamps points in the video. If you visit this webpage it provides an example on a blended classroom: https://sites.google.com/a/pewaukeeschools.org/blended.

As an educator, I plan on creating a personalized learning unit for my criminal justice class exploring an area of criminal justice system in America. Furthermore, I am going to be working on making government more of a blended environment with a capstone project they will work on throughout the semester. The overarching theme I would like to address is “Evaluate what you need to know to be an informed and active member of the American political system.” I would like this to be a project that they work on throughout the semester and add artifacts. I would also like to pair this with hands on experiences where they can become more actively involved in the political process.  As a senior, I believe it is important students understand what they need to know about politics and government to be an informed citizen and an active member in our political system. I am going to explore google classroom, goobric, and video notes to help implement a blended environment.  For AP, I would like to add more flipped videos and using video notes.  I am debating about eventually trying to blend AP as well.