This post originally appeared at 2Revolutions on July 17, 2018.

“We can’t find teachers ready for our school district.” – District CAO
“Professional learning is not providing the knowledge or skills we need to drive the kind of transformation we want.” – District Superintendent
“Higher ed is perpetuating an outdated model of training that no longer meets our needs.” – Dean of School of Education

A Long Time Coming

The range of perspectives are representative of a felt need we hear over and over again across the country- demand for something fundamentally different. The world of pre- and in-service training is ripe for significant disruption. In an exciting new partnership between 2Revolutions, a national education design lab, and Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), we are working together to think differently about three inherent problems with the current system of pre- and in-service professional learning: (more…)

Denise Airola and a team of educators from Arkansas traveled to New Zealand to learn about their educational approach. Here are a few of their highlights. (Originally posted at Office of Innovation for Education on October 30, 2017.) 

Already our week of school visits in New Zealand has passed and I am finally sitting down to pen this blog. Traveling across the international date line can prove exhausting! Also, I’ve needed some time for reflection–time to process my learning and figure my next steps to apply my learning. (more…)

CompetencyWorks is heading to New Zealand in September to try to learn from how they think about learning, schools, and the system of education to push our thinking and spark our imagination of what is possible. Based on her experiences in 2016, Susan Patrick recommended that we turn to New Zealand to help us build a deeper understanding of what state systems and approaches might look like. (Given our all-things-education-are-local approach, it’s best to focus on states with the assumption that states can work together to create regional and national structures when needed.)

As I prepare for this trip, reading everything I can about education in New Zealand, I have been working to hone the questions that will guide the investigation knowing full well that I will encounter ideas that will take me to new lines of inquiry. The focus of the investigation includes questions such as: (more…)

This is the sixth post in a series on Mastery Education in Idaho. Links to the other articles in the series can be found below.

Columbia High School in the Nampa School District is the only comprehensive high school moving to personalized learning among the Idaho mastery-based learning pilots. Walking through the hallways at Columbia, you’d think you were in a totally traditional high school. And in fact, somewhere around 50 percent of the ninth grade is being taught in the traditional way…and 50 percent have chosen another option. Eighth graders at Columbia’s feeder middle schools had three choices: enroll in the Summit Learning program, which offers mastery-based personalized learning; enroll in the mastery-based STEM Academy; or continue to receive education in the traditional model. (more…)

This is the fifth article in the series on Mastery Education in Idaho. Links to the other articles can be found below.

Greenhurst Elementary School in Nampa School District a bit outside of Boise is well into their journey toward mastery-based learning. (FYI, they use the term personalized to refer to the use of instructional technology.) The core features of their model are multi-age, targeted instruction, and flexible grouping. The clearest indicator that they understand the core concept of mastery-based learning was a large chart on the wall that grouped third through fifth grade students according to the prerequisite skills they needed in order to complete the fifth grade learning objective. They were taking the time to understand where students are and repair the gaps (whether it was one or many) on the way toward reaching grade level proficiency. (more…)

Iowa was one of the states that charged out of the gates toward competency-based education in 2012 by establishing a state level Competency-Based Education Task Force and a five-year, ten-district pilot initiative. The resulting Iowa CBE Collaborative achievements were many: (more…)

Here are the highlights from June 2018 on CompetencyWorks. Happy reading. And let us know if you have questions you want us to delve into!

CASE STUDIES AND SITE VISITS

Mastery Education in Idaho

• Part 1 – Mastery-Based Learning in Idaho
• Part 2 – Finding Synergy at Kuna Middle School
• Part 3 – Moving Forward toward Mastery at Kuna School District
• Part 4 – Increasing Credits Earned at Initial Point High School

(more…)

Mile Wolking

Mike Wolking, currently completing an Axford Fellowship while on leave from Education Elements, sent me a summary of a short investigation he completed in how a student spends their day. He followed a student in a New Zealand secondary school for a day and tracked her activities. As I read through the summary, I thought it might be a helpful way to begin to think about the quality of personalized, competency-based education. This type of data could be useful for reflection and opening up conversations about where there might be opportunities for strengthening instruction, assessment, and learning experiences as well as identifying where operational policies or organizational habits are getting in the way. One would have to also consider the question: How do we think a student should spend their time in order to optimize learning and development? (more…)

Lora Seabaugh

This is the fourth post in a series on Mastery Education in Idaho. Links to the other articles in the series can be found below.

Kuna School District in Idaho established Initial Point High School eight years ago because it believes that every student has the “potential to be successful socially and academically if they choose the correct environment and apply themselves.” Initial Point, founded by Lora Seabaugh, is designed with attention to building strong relationships and supporting students in their social and emotional development. Seabaugh explained that the potential of a mastery orientation was sparked when Kuna’s superintendent, Wendy Johnson, asked, “What makes Initial Point alternative?” This launched a period of reflection and engaging parents and students. They realized that the traditional model of covering the curriculum was exposing students to knowledge and skills, but wasn’t designed to actually make sure they were learning. They started asking themselves how they could help students get “back on track” to graduation in terms of both credits and skills. (more…)