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Making Learning Personal
Summer 2017
I'm in!
Vanguard Launch
Vanguard Summer Academy
Vanguard Launch
I’m in! On January 5th, FCPS welcomed the first cohort of 50 teachers to the Vanguard Teacher Program. Check out the list of talented teacher leaders on “The Team” page on the Vanguard website. This page features a fusion table that you can sort by clicking the headers.
On March 9th, the Vanguard Teacher Program launched with a welcome event at Hood College. Guest speakers included Dr. Alban and Dr. Cuppett from FCPS and Dr. Ricker and Dr. Boulton from Hood College. It was a great night of networking and fun that was capped off by teams participating in a competitive GooseChase game that had 40 missions and ended at the Vanguard Summer Academy in June.
The Staff Development Center was filled with excitement and energy for two days during the Vanguard Summer Academy. Stephanee Stephens, Heather Cox, and Kali Alford, from the iTeach Center at Kennesaw State University, joined the team to lend their expertise. After celebrating the GooseChase winners, Vanguard Teachers got things going with a fun Pecha Kucha activity. These quick presentations using pictures were highly engaging and quickly showed off the talent on this team. The academy continued with professional learning on blended learning, micro-credentials, and student data privacy. Vanguard Teachers took a scenario-based pre-assessment for the four Vanguard competencies designed by FCPS, Kennesaw State University, and Microsoft. This helped them to create plans and control the time, place, path, and pace of their own professional learning for the year. Then Karine Myers joined the Vanguard Teachers to show the connection between blended learning and the Danielson Framework for Teaching. Eric Phillips and Toby Heusser wrapped up the academy by showing how we can envision equity through personalized learning. The academy set the stage for the three-year program as Vanguards teach, lead, and coach others in blended learning.
The Effective Blended Classroom
No Matter What the Model, Success is Built on Culture
Earlier this summer school administration and Vanguards were invited to attend a professional learning experience with Dr. Bill Daggett. Though many ideas were shared, one in particular stays with me: “Culture trumps strategy every time” (B.Daggett, personal communication, July 19, 2017).
It has been demonstrated time and again that no matter what strategy you employ, the culture of your environment will determine the success or failure of any initiative. At this time of year, we start to plan for and see the unlimited possibilities of a new school year. As Vanguards, curriculum teams and schools get ready to launch and expand blended projects across the school district, we share our commitment to creating a culture of student agency, personalization, connectivity and creativity (Tucker, Wycoff, and Green, 2017). With a vision and mission for success in place, it’s a great time to review some of the salient components of your student onboarding process and how they help to define and sustain a rigorous, risk-taking culture for learning.
Organization, Clarity and Transparency
Clear and transparent routines, procedures, learning objectives and expectations are essential and allow students to focus on the learning process. Preparedness demonstrates caring and sends a clear message that you are providing conditions for students to focus on nothing more than LEARNING. In a blended environment, there may be A LOT of moving parts, so consider and prepare for the following items as appropriate for the model you have selected:
physical layout of the classroom
auditory cues
visuals (hard copy and/or virtual) that share clear
student groupings
numbered stations
times (on the station and transitioning)
learning objectives
materials
descriptions of the activities and tasks
Remember, students must practice routines and procedures for a classroom to run like a well-oiled machine. Your preparedness helps students focus on the good stuff. Give yourself and students the gift of time in the first weeks of school to establish high functioning routines and procedures at the beginning of a course and/or new model.
In the Spotlight
Exciting Times in EdTech: Blended Learning
By Alia Dahl, Monocacy Middle School
Once an Early Adopter, Always an Early Adopter…
I am what you call an “early adopter.” I love trying new technologies in my classroom. I am very happy when I get new tech. No, that is an understatement. The day they hung my interactive whiteboard I cried…real tears. When the technology support person surprised me with a Chromebook cart the day we returned from Spring Break, two years ago, I greeted him with a screeched out, “ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!” The moment is now a blur, but I may have hugged him.
I see the value in giving my students opportunities that technology can provide. Anyone who reads this blog also knows that I LOVE anything that helps me to do my job with efficiency. Make it easier and I am on board! Now that I have made the jump from elementary to secondary education, it is even more evident that technology can help us to engage our learners in exciting ways.
Vanguard on Google
School leaders agree that change is hard and has many obstacles, but they do not have many ways to share what has worked with each other. That's why Google created the Google for Education Transformation Center.
Schools can’t meaningfully change with technology alone. The Transformation Center is a hub of resources to help education leaders improve all aspects of their schools and work toward a vision for change. Google has collected ideas, stories, templates, and guides from schools so that leaders can learn from each other.
We are proud to say that the FCPS Vanguard Teacher Program is featured in the Google Transformation Center. Use this link to check out the profile and resources - Vanguard Teacher Program: diffusing innovation by investing in teacher leadership.
Blended Learning Examples
The Proof Points page on the Vanguard website highlights blended learning curriculum projects and what has worked well in specific schools and content areas.
The Clayton Christensen Institute maintains a Blended Learning directory called the Blended Learning Universe. It is a rapidly growing, searchable catalog of K–12 blended-learning programs worldwide. Use this tool to search for K–12 blended-learning programs. FCPS is featured on Blended Learning Universe here.
Leveraging Technology
Learning Management Systems
By Eric Haines, Project Manager for Personalized Learning
One key piece to making interoperability work in schools is a Learning Management System (LMS). FCPS has been going through a Request for Information (RFI) process to learn more about LMS products. Several Vanguard Teachers have been part of the RFI process by reviewing proposals and meeting with company representatives for product demos. This overview will provide some background on what we have learned in general about Learning Management Systems.
What is a Learning Management System (LMS)?
A Learning Management System (LMS) is the framework that handles all aspects of the learning process. An LMS is the infrastructure that delivers and manages instructional content, identifies and assesses individual learning goals, tracks the progress towards meeting those goals, and collects and presents data for supervising the learning process. A learning management system delivers content, but also handles registering for courses, course administration, skills gap analysis, tracking, and reporting.
Why have an LMS?
An LMS is integrated so that all the functions and services are provided from a single access point rather than being separate components.
#FCPSVanguard
Upcoming Dates and Reminders
September 18th - Vanguard Applications Open
September 27th - Vanguard Professional LearningSeptember 28th - Vanguard Information Session
November 3rd - Vanguard Applications Close
December 20th - Vanguard Professional Learning
Professional Learning Opportunities
- "Blended Teaching and Learning" MSDE Course begins on September 12th
- Blended Learning 101 modules
- Vanguard Information Session at Middletown Middle School on October 20th
- Check out this episode of The Dr. Will Show with guest Catlin Tucker, author of Blended Learning in Action.
Vanguard Teacher Program
Email: eric.haines@fcps.org
Website: http://go.fcps.org/vanguard
Phone: 301-644-5182
Twitter: @EHaines24