Building the Evidence Base for Personalized Learning

August 18, 2020 | 2:00 pm EST

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City Year is on a learning journey focused on taking an equity-based approach to research and evaluation while gleaning information on effectively personalizing learning for students. Participants will learn how City Year is managing its portfolio of research projects, designed to highlight effective approaches to personalizing learning environments, while ensuring practices are equity-based. Participants are invited to provide feedback, ask questions, and determine how we might move forward.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Explore six current evaluations focused on learning how to take a holistic approach to personalizing the learning environment for students.
2. Discuss best practices for ensuring research implementation remains equity-focused.
3. Collaborate on imagining a future that ensures an equity-based approach to learning about best practices in personalized learning.

Presenters:

• Jessica Proett, Director, External Evaluation, City Year
• Jade Eckels, Education Research Fellow, City Year
• Eliot Levine, Research Director, Aurora Institute

Recording:

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September 1, 2020 | 2:00 pm EST

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Research shows that certain academic experiences foster students’ motivation, engagement, and success, while other experiences hinder them. Ensuring that all students are afforded these powerful developmental experiences necessitates an evidence-based, student-centered approach. Participants will learn about free, evidence-based tools, measures, and recommendations educators can leverage to systematically build an equitable, student-centered culture that inspires and supports student success.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Learn about the experiences young people need to develop into engaged learners and citizens—and the role of those experiences in educational equity.
2. Learn about free resources that educators can use to systematically improve young people’s experiences in school.
3. Consider how they could leverage widely available, evidence-based tools and approaches to build equitable, student-centered learning environments.

Presenters:

• Dave Paunesku, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS), Stanford University
• Dr. Erica Bauer, Director of Community Relations, Chicago Bulls (formerly Walter Payton College Prep)
• Alex Fralin, CEO/Founder, Leading Partnerships

Registration:

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September 8, 2020  |  2:00 pm EST

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We believe that when you don’t know the solution to a challenge, you go through a process of trying things out to learn so that you discover a way forward. This is the spirit of research and development (R&D) and is a core component of innovation journeys. In this session, we will share immediately implementable R&D methods and practices successfully being used in schools across the country, while ensuring you leave with an R&D plan for a challenge or idea you bring to the session!

 

 

Learning Outcomes:

1. Learn immediately implementable R&D methods and practices successfully being used in schools across the country.
2. Share successes and lessons learned with others attending the session to build a network that could support continued growth afterward.
3. Bring a current challenge they are experiencing in their context and leave with an R&D plan to help guide their actions forward.

Presenters:

 

• Anirban Bhattacharyya, Partner, Transcend
• Nikolaus Namba, Partner, Transcend
• Natalie Slocum, Strategic Partnerships Director, Aurora Institute (Moderator)

Registration:

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September 15, 2020 |  2:00 pm EST

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Over the past three years, Lindsay Unified School District has collaborated with The Learning Accelerator to measure the effectiveness of their personalized professional learning program. Ultimately, the district sought to understand “the black box” of which combinations of professional learning would lead to the greatest student growth. This seminar will share lessons learned and help participants consider ways to design professional learning programs to support personalized learning.

 

 

Learning Outcomes:

1. Develop an understanding of the components of a personalized professional learning program.
2. Gain an understanding of strategies to measure the effectiveness of personalized professional learning.
3. Begin to conceptualize how they might implement personalized professional learning in their context.

Presenters:

• Amalia Lopez, Director of Special Projects, Lindsay Unified School District
• Dr. Beth Holland, Partner, The Learning Accelerator
• Dr. Eliot Levine, Research Director, Aurora Institute  (Moderator)

Registration:

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September 16, 2020 |  2:00 pm EST

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Research has long shown that families play a critical role in student academic outcomes, specifically when their involvement is linked to curriculum. The role of families in learning has grown more critical as we transition into an uncertain year of distance and hybrid learning, with an urgent need to create equitable learning experiences and lessen COVID-19 learning gaps. By strengthening the triangle of learning relationships between teachers, families, and students, schools can activate the full potential of all families as academic team members to better personalize learning.

In this session, participants will learn about the types of support we’ve provided to teachers and families both prior to and during COVID-19 school closures, and the results we’ve seen. We’ll explore a new framework for deepening teacher practice and a research-based innovation designed to support teacher practice—mobile-friendly, multilingual assignments where students “teach their parents.”  We’ll also share learnings from our Strategic Evidence Plan (SEP) and research partnerships.

Participants will engage in questions around the conditions needed to create equitable learning experiences and evaluate impact in an uncertain time.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Participants will gain an understanding of PowerMyLearning’s research-based interventions for strengthening the triangle of learning relationships between students, partners, and teachers.
2. Participants will explore the successes and challenges of our evaluation efforts, including our research partnerships, Strategic Evidence Plan, and impact studies.
3. Participants will explore best practices for engagement during hybrid and distance learning.

Presenters:

 

• Elisabeth Stock, CEO & Co-Founder, PowerMyLearning
• Maryell Hernández, Program Learning Specialist, Greater Los Angeles, PowerMyLearning
• Emily Amick, Director of Professional Learning, PowerMyLearning

Registration:

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September 17, 2020 | 2:00 pm EST

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How can we know if and how a field is growing? This webinar will explore the methods used in the evaluation of the Assessment for Learning Project (ALP), a field-building initiative to rethink the role of assessment in teaching and learning. We will share the evaluation’s approaches to measuring the growth of the assessment for learning field, such as Social Network Analysis, field-building frameworks, and field-facing stories of exemplars in assessment for learning.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Learn how to read and use Social Network Analysis maps to understand field-building.
2. Learn how to use field-building frameworks to understand the growth of a field.
3. Learn how practice-based evidence and stories can surface exemplars and problems of practice for the field.

Presenters:

 

• Heather Lewis-Charp, Principal and Director of the Philanthropy, Equity and Youth Division, Social Policy Research Associates
• Daniela Berman, Senior Associate,  Social Policy Research Associates
• Ann Jaquith, Associate Director,  Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE)

Registration:

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September 22, 2020 | 2:00 pm EST

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In this webinar with WestEd and KnowledgeWorks, engage with researchers, practitioners, and district leaders to explore how we’re using continuous improvement as a critical component in the formative evaluation of our ongoing work with the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. We are two years into a five-year implementation of personalized, competency-based learning in districts across the state, and we are excited to discuss and share tools, continuous improvement processes, and lessons learned.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Learn about the mechanisms for continuous improvement including data collection instruments, reporting tools, and progress monitoring efforts for transforming districts.
2. Review learning and results from year one.
3. Hear about our lessons learned and best practices for building adaptive tools and processes for measuring change while shifting to a new normal in the era of COVID-19.

Presenters:

• Robin Ahigian, District Services Senior Research Associate, WestEd
• Natalie Lacireno-Paquet, Learning Innovations Director of Research and Evaluation, WestEd
• Drake Bryan, Director, Continuous Improvement, KnowledgeWorks
• Geoff Zimmerman, Senior Director, Impact and Improvement, KnowledgeWorks
• Dr. Kraig Steinhoff, Superintendent, Oakes Public Schools (ND)

Registration:

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October 6, 2020 | 2:00 pm EST

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Interest-driven internships at Big Picture Learning Schools contribute to progress in personal, academic, and vocational development. Through a university-school network collaboration, we explored the impact of such internships on secondary students. Case studies of seniors discuss how internships help build hope, social capital, and other important assets to support positive outcomes. Attendees will discuss the potential of student internships and as well as the power of collaborative research.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Describe the educational and psychological mechanisms whereby interest-driven internships contribute to various outcomes.
2. Explore various student outcomes of engaging in interest-based internships.
3. Discuss the benefits of conducting university-school network collaborations, as well as gain some insight about how to go down this path.

Presenters:

• Pamela Gordon, Big Picture Learning
• Maureen Kenny, Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development

Registration:

Visit this page to view webinar recording.