{"id":7535,"date":"2017-10-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/building-field-readiness-capacity-to-personalize\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T14:44:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T19:44:50","slug":"building-field-readiness-capacity-to-personalize","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/building-field-readiness-capacity-to-personalize\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Field Readiness & Capacity to Personalize"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the recommendations that came forth from the National Summit on K-12 Competency-Based Education (the paper with all the recommendations is forthcoming) is that field organizations begin to collaborate at higher levels. There is so much knowledge being produced by schools and districts \u2014 we need to create mechanisms to make it easier for educators to access and make meaning of it for their own work. Bravo to 2 Revolutions and their partners in doing exactly what the field needs, exactly at the right time. You can read the original blog at\u00a02 Revs website<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014 Chris Sturgis<\/i><\/p>\n

We are excited to announce that 2Rev \u2014 with generous support from a national funder, and through deep collaboration with a range of leading organizations \u2014 is spearheading a large-scale effort to make available free, high-quality learning content to help educators gain the knowledge and skills they need to personalize learning for students.<\/p>\n

The move toward more personalized, learner-centered approaches is part of the solution we\u2019re all striving toward for kids and families. Unfortunately, most of the field currently lacks readiness and capacity to do the complex work of transformation needed to realize these personalized learning models and systems. The absence of consistent, high-quality content and engagement strategies makes it more difficult and inefficient for states, districts and providers to support efforts to increase field readiness and capacity. Working together with partners, we can help address this gap.<\/p>\n

Key Partners & the Content We Are Building Together<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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We\u2019ve just begun this two-year initiative, so we\u2019re not going to try to squeeze all the details into this first post. Today we\u2019re sharing an outline of what we\u2019re planning by posing a set of questions to unpack the logic.<\/p>\n

What do we mean by \u201ccontent\u201d?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0There are many useful individual learning objects out there when it comes to how to personalize learning \u2014 ranging from blog posts and how-to videos, to white papers, research reports and micro-credentials. There also are dozens of platforms and websites where you can find this content. Unfortunately, these platforms are disconnected and there\u2019s no guarantee the content you find will be helpful or high-quality (even after all that searching!).<\/p>\n

In our experience with\u00a0InspirED<\/a>, our social learning platform, we noticed users responded well to the content in our library of resources when we curated resources for them, rather than when they had to search for resources on their own. This observation sparked more intentional curation and design, which then grew into our team deliberately building scaffolded adult learning experiences anchored to topical learning progressions.<\/p>\n

We always want our users to ask and be able to answer through these progressions: Where am I as an adult learner, and where am I trying to go? Key resources like playlists and course modules hang off these progressions for each topic (see image below), making it more possible to meet the unique needs of each adult learner.<\/p>\n

2Rev Instructional Design Methodology<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Does this sound familiar, like personalized learning for students?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0It sure does. The power of content has limitations, especially if it\u2019s not meeting the needs of adult learners. Through deep work over the last few years in some of our more intensive partnerships \u2014 like our work in Dallas with the Personalized Learning Initiative; in Washington D.C. in partnership with\u00a0Citybridge Education<\/a>; in New Hampshire in partnership with the\u00a0New Hampshire Department of Education<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0New Hampshire Learning Initiative<\/a>\u00a0around Essential Skills and Dispositions; and in Virginia in\u00a0partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools<\/a>\u00a0to support performance-based assessment \u2014 we\u2019ve witnessed the power of modeling personalized learning for educators. The graphic above unpacks the instructional design logic. See this\u00a0previous blog post<\/a>\u00a0where we go a bit deeper into our approach.<\/p>\n

So why not bowl alone?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0One lesson that\u2019s painfully clear from the graveyard of previous efforts is that well-intentioned, solo efforts are challenging…and rarely as successful as we all need them to be. In this effort, we have elected to partner deeply with a set of world-class organizations who are already reshaping the field \u2014 including the\u00a0Center for Collaborative Education<\/a>,\u00a0EdSurge<\/a>,\u00a0Highlander Institute<\/a>,\u00a0High Tech High<\/a>,\u00a0Institute for Personalized Learning<\/a>,\u00a0Jobs for the Future<\/a>,\u00a0Next Generation Learning Challenges<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Southern New Hampshire University<\/a>. (We\u2019re also finalizing conversations with a few more phenomenal partners who we\u2019ll announce in the coming weeks!) Each of these organizations bring their different perspectives and strengths, as well as their collective reach. We will all work together to build, refine and create new content.<\/p>\n

If we build it, will they come? And more importantly, will they use it to grow their practice?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0We all know content alone is not enough. If you build it, educators will not necessarily come. Therefore, our strategy also includes more than a dozen additional partners who will help us \u201cactivate\u201d the content by distributing through their networks and committing to leverage directly in their work. Our goal is a big tent that includes partner states, districts, providers and other relevant organizations all committed to accelerating the transition to the future for kids by building educator capacity. Instead of developing the content themselves from scratch, they can adapt free, high-quality content to respond to the needs of their local context.<\/p>\n

Where and when can I get it?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0All of this content will be available for free on InspirED…but that is by no means the only place. This is not 1997, or even 2007. The platform is no longer the point and we\u2019re not trying to hold anyone captive within one specific online learning environment. \u00a0Instead, we\u2019re excited to be part of the solution. For this to work, we need collaboratively-created high-quality content to be as broadly available as possible. Therefore, all of the content can be accessed through InspirED and downloaded, if desired, for use elsewhere. For schools, districts, states and other organizations, this rich set of resources will be available beginning in January 2018. \u00a0If interested, we and our core partners can also support facilitated learning experiences or credentials (e.g., graduate credits or certification \u201cstacks\u201d).<\/p>\n

What are we hoping to learn?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0We can all learn so many things from this effort. We have assembled a rockstar advisory board of leaders from our core content partners \u2013 as well as from\u00a0Digital Promise<\/a>,\u00a0Learning Forward<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Learning Accelerator<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 who will help us learn from user activity, behavior, learning and performance. Some of the questions we\u2019re asking ourselves include:<\/p>\n