March Board of Ed: Personalized and Competency-Based Learning

The backup memo is here; I also found this helpful in outlining what turned out to be the thought here; the beginning and the rest didn't really align.

"significant achievement and opportunity gaps remain"
difficulty of employers finding employees
chances to enrich learning for students
"personalizing our approaches to teaching and learning...not our high expectations or standards for our students"

DESE founded MAPLE
Michael Horn: schools "were not built for optimizing" learning
classrooms that "just keep on moving"
both for the students who have not mastered concepts before the class moves on, or who capture learning earlier and have to sit
"schools were based on factories" (this is not true, BTW)
"We all learn at different paces"
"we have different working memory capacities"
"the Swiss cheese problem" and you don't know "with thirty students" which problems have which holes and you have to keep moving on
"this factory model system was unbelievably successful" at preparing students for an industrial economy
This isn't true either: it's why we have vocational schools, which are based on a different model than what I assume is being termed the "factory model" of other schools.
"disruptive innovation"
"efficiency, economically, at scale"
"to provide the benefit of a tutor to every single student in a large classroom"
"big growth of online learning is not in virtual schools but in blended learning" in traditional classrooms
portfolio process, learning menues
not just equip
"using the technology to change the pedagogical model at scale"
"thinking of personalized learning as a noun is a mistake; think of it as a verb"
"ton of different ways and dimensions of personalizing learning"
"to correct misconceptions" offer learning experiences, receive real-time interactive feedback
personal tutor model: "helping teachers reach every single child"
"move from a fixed time variable learning experience to a variable time fixed learning experience"
learning for mastery, as it is sometimes called
assessments both to tell you how the student is doing and if the student is ready to move on
"regardless of the work that they do, the next day students move on to the next lesson"
"to take these elements of high standards, competency, multiple pathways"

panel for Q&A:
to principal: what can you say about the shift to personalized learning?
Revere principal: discussing other pieces of the curriculum, freshman academy, applied for a grant for more innovative ideas
"factor model is what we had in Revere and...is still in many school districts across the United States"
moved from iPads to Chromebooks
"learning does take place anytime anywhere"
"the bulk of the work is done by teachers"
"not about rushing through the curriculum anymore"
aligning our formative assessments, our summative assessments to the standards
Melrose teacher: when I went into it, I was very open-minded on what we were going to accomplish
"think in a different way about learning standards"
"ways that we can use our learning standards and also looking at our content standards"
proficiency and working towards mastery
portfolio, learning menus, stations
created a website to manage
"we had challenges...we had gaps; it's the details"
explaining your learning
show their skills and their style of learning
Boston Day and Evening Academy student:
school is competency based; placement test determines how much you know
student can place out of classes
"there is no fail or pass...it's all based off the student"
"you literally get 'competent' or 'highly competent'"
found the holes, I was "able to get it out of the way"
Morton: do you feel like you're making progress at your school at a pace that's comfortable for you?
A: before I came to this school, I was going to drop out
"It made me feel like education was way more important than I thought."
made me think about things after high school
McKenna: is it online or in person?
A: right now it's in person; "a lot of the students don't have someone at home to ask about your homework...we need that person to person"
former Parker Charter student is asked how it has played out
A: I like learning, and I think that's really really important
"depth over breadth...that engagement allowed me to be confident" and allowed me to see what I wanted to do
"when you graduate, you have a portfolio" of work done
"being able to be engaged in my learning"
"I really enjoyed being able to learn and wanting to learn"
Wulfson: going back to paradym of learning is fixed and time is variable
"Still very much tied to instructional time that is set by school"
has anyone experimented with taking that to the next step: we know that some students need more time, how do we get it?
Horn: a lot of places that are moving in that direction set a "minimum pace"
"a teacher-led pace so they can't get too far behind"
"more availability of schools to be open"
"to allow teachers to be 'covering' school, if you will, for more hours"
so "you start to see a lot more flexible staffing"
"that's where virtual schools have something to teach us"
"an 'enriched virtual' to the blended model"
Morton (to principal): are students making progress at a pace that's acceptable? Are students graduating in four or five years of high school?
and why are those numbers magic?
principal: prior schedule was not a good schedule: four periods of the day, teachers teach three, have common planning two days, also advisory
"the schedule does work for us"
"a lot of professional development in place to really teach teachers to teach in that format"
"it takes a lot of communication" to get teachers to want to change
"right now we're looking at other models" for students to have additional time to seek help
Trimarchi: one of the biggest barriers to doing this is "we have to teach to a test"
how do we allow for this as well as teach to the timeframe?
Horn: no matter what your testing system, you start to see all boats rise
different model of testing is one answer
looking at progress of each student (in other words, all growth)
principal: about formative assessment
"dialogue and be there for the kid...it's all about the relationship with the student, and show that in fact you're there for them"
"what really matters is focus on mastery"
Day & Evening student: one thing that matters is learning styles

David O'Connor, executive director of MAPLE and David Ruff, executive director of NESSC
O'Connor: MAPLE; professional learning network
"do not get funding from the state and do not ask members for dues" supported by Barr Foundation and Nellie Mae
did a survey of superintendents on learning practices, along a continuum
"our definition of personalized learning is really quite broad"
given our numbers "we have a ways to go across the Commonwealth"
asked what is holding you back: teacher PD is top answer, then funding and time, then seeing in action
"those challenges guide MAPLE and our programming"
cities working on a local problem or practice this summer at BC
David Ruff "easy to get sidetracked from this time question rather than an ownership question"
"the real thing about personalized learning is the ownership of learning"
states that are requiring such ideas
some follow-along of global best practices
not sure who is speaking importance that educators can share their learning
sharing best practices, what are some protocols, believe that all educators can improve
teachers can host professional educators from all over the state
sharing best practices
"education is a relationship...we're talking about scaling up the opportunities"
Moriarty: where is parent agency in this?
"it seems ultimate parent agency in this is in the homeschooling world...when it's done well"
Ruff "its about parents, but it's about the community as well"
bringing the parents in, but bringing in the broader community "on how best to educate their students"
"what role does a school play in the community...so the school is an asset in the community"
"what is the evidence of learning, rather than assessments...that evidence can be formed through apprenticeships, through work their doing with their families...if you're looking for evidence of thinking and expressing yourself clearly, you couldn't get a better example than here"