Getting Started with Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning Topics and Resources

1.Personalized learning models

• Station Rotation: Problem of Practice
• Diverse Learners: Problem of Practice
• Unlocking Time’s Time Strategies

2.Writing: How to get kids to write more and better

• Literacy Design Collaborative
• Reading Apprenticeship
• Feedback systems: EasyBib from Chegg, Revision Assistant from Turnitin,  Write to Learn from Pearson, Writing Revisor from SAS

3. Math

• Carnegie Learning and One Stone High School: A Powerful Partnership
• From factoring polynomials to computational thinking
• Navigate MATH LPS

4. Adding projects and extended challenges

• 5 Ways to Personalize Learning with Project-Based Learning
• Place-based learning
• Odyssey STEM: First to Combine Big Picture Learning and altSchool

5. High school redesign

• Getting Started with High School Redesign
• Bronx Arena School Profile
• Lindsay HIgh School Profile
• Leadership Public Schools Profile
• A Personalized Journey: Three lessons learned from school redesign

6. Active learning spaces

• Top Education Trend of 2018: Active Learning Spaces
• Use of Space
• Learning Environments for the Future: 4 Tips from Randy Fielding (and podcast)
• Building Blocks of Blended: Space, Routines, & Culture (Relay GSE course BL-102)
• STEM Projects in Active Learning Spaces at Samueli Academy
• Active Learning Requires Innovative Learning Spaces (El Paso case study)
• Lovett Elementary School’s Flex Fridays
• Locust Grove Middle School’s Maker Space

7. Data Driven Instruction

• Stuck in the Cycle: What Teachers Really Face When We Ask Them to Use Data in Their Classrooms
• 6 Hallmarks of a Strong Data Culture
• Crafting a Data Vision
• Real Time Data Use
• Data Quality Campaign

8. Measurement

• Research Primer: Problem of Practice
• District Guide to Measurement
• Digital Promise’s Ed Tech Pilot Framework
• Mathematica’s Rapid Cycle Evaluation Coach

9. Personalized Professional Development:

• Four steps needed to Personalize PD with key strategies to implement:

• Define Competencies
• Reflect & Assess
• Offer Personalized Supports
• Align Systems

• The PL Toolbox From Dallas ISD
• Learning Commons

10. Guidance

• Advisory systems
• 1:1 Conferencing
• Advocate Counselor (Bronx Arena)
• Learner Profiles

11.Adaptive Learning: moving beyond math and reading

• How ASU is using adaptive learning to flip general education classrooms and accelerate student progress.
• Some CTE programs are using Fishtree and RealizeIt (adaptive platforms)

Leadership: where and how to start

1. How working in networks can help

• The SW Pennsylvania Personalized Learning Network (and SWPA Personalized Learning Network (PLPGH)
• How districts use networks to innovate (report)  
• Diploma Networks: A New Way to Help Schools Adopt Broader Outcomes and Next-Gen Learning Models
• Coast-to-Coast Connections: How a national network fosters better education for all students
• Failing Forward: What school innovation networks have taught me about learning from failures

2. Leadership for personalized learning

• How Teachers and Leaders can Promote Personalized Learning
• How the Micro-Credential Revolution is Transforming Professional Learning
• Look Both Ways: A framework to help education leaders navigate through competing approaches to system-wide change
• Unlocking Time’s Schedule Library
• Friday Institute Leadership in Personalized and Digital Learning

• Conditions for Success and Scale
• Communications Planning for Innovation in Education
  

3. How AI will help

• 32 Ways AI is Improving Education
• The Promise and Implications of Artificial Intelligence in Education (book review)
• Why Every High School Should Require an AI Course
• Teaching AI: Exploring New Frontiers for Learning

Districts with interesting/important approaches to personalized learning

• Albemarle Public County Schools in Charlottesville provides extensive project-based and maker opportunities in versatile multiage spaces.
• Salisbury Township School District in central Pennsylvania is implemented student-centered learning. Superintednt Randy Ziegenfuss said, “You can’t force a mindset change, you create conditions where people come to it in their time.”
• Cajon Valley Union School District east of San Diego, introduces career options to elementary and middle schools in 54 K-8 experiences called the World of Work Program.
• Lindsay Unified School District, in California’s central valley, is a leader in competency-based (they call it performance-based) education—“Students work at their performance level and advance through the curriculum when they have demonstrated proficiency of the required knowledge or skills.”
• Montour School District (Pittsburgh) is a great place to see a student-first, growth-mindset learning culture. They are a leader in active learning with an elementary Lego Makerspace, a Minecraft lab, and a middle school AI program.
• South Fayette School District, south of Pittsburgh (and next door to Montour), has four schools on one campus and a P-12 focus on computational thinking.
• Kettle Moraine School District, west of Milwaukee, is a small district working on personalized and competency-based learning.
• Wilder School District outside Boise helps every student develop a personal learning plan with their mentor. Students have voice and choice in learning; they can choose the best way for them to learn: in class, online, or through projects

Networks with interesting/important approaches to personalized learning

• High Tech High: 14 great project-based San Diego schools (see podcast,  feature on the HTH GSE, and summary of a film tour of HTH).
• Valor Collegiate Academies in Nashville serves students in grades 5-12 with a model includes a blended and personalized math class as well as an emphasis on student social and emotional growth (see feature).
• Personalization and Real-World Learning at Big Picture Schools
• New Tech Network Powers A Common Learning Model & Unique Missions
• Alpha Public Schools in San Jose, has a personalized blend

PL researchers of note

• Jal Mehta, Harvard, see recent NYTimes post: nyti.ms/2CL3yAB 
• Todd Rose, Harvard (see a preview of his new book Dark Horse)
• Justin Reich, MIT
• Allison Zmuda, Personalized learning thought-leader
• John Pane and Bob Murphy, RAND
• Barbara Means, Digital Promise

On social justice and race equity

• Dr. Margy Jones-Carey on Reading and writing for social justice
• Jamila Lyiscott (@jamila_lyiscott) author of Black Appetite. White Food

Nonprofit and foundation leaders

• Susan Patrick, iNACOL, on student-centered (see her report on PL)
• Nick Donohue, NMEF, on race inequity
• Karla Phillips, ExcelinEd on competency-based learning
• Beth Rabbitt, The Learning Accelerator on blended & personalized learning

For more, see:

• Getting Started with High School Redesign
• Getting Started with AI
• Preparing Today’s Learners for Tomorrow’s Challenges: 6 Key Factors of Personalized Learning

Thanks to The Learning Accelerator for their contributions

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