15 Takeaways from #iNACOL15

Sometimes you just have to take one for the team and go to a conference in Disney World. And although my love for Disney and Imagineering knows no bounds, I'll save that for another post. This one is focused on iNACOL.

The 2015 iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium is (and I quote) "the industry’s leading event for K-12 online, blended and competency-based learning. Experts, practitioners, educators, policymakers, and researchers gather and work to transform education." (Edtech Buzzword Bingo, anyone?)

Standard conference hyperbole aside, there were over 3,000 folks in Disney's Dolphin conference center, all of whom were interested in, concerned over, monitoring closely, proselytizing the unitiated about, or just trying to get a handle on the realm of blended and online learning.

Here are my 3 big takeaways from the conference, and there are 12 more useful resources you may enjoy listed at the bottom of this post. (Thus, 15.)

1. The HACK Model of Innovative Instruction
   HACK is a systematic way for teachers to release control to students when using technology in the classroom. It comes from Northwest Nazarene University's Doceo Center and gives a framework for moving from highly structured teacher control to knowledge (and learner) centered use.
   
   During the session, our presenter used a great, simple visual that I've included below. But if you go to the HACK website, all of the images there include apps and programs for every step. I'm not a big fan of that approach because it implies that using a particular tool magically transports your students to a certain level of thought. This is a falsehood that should not be propagated. (update: see the clarifying comment below from the Doceo Institute)
   
   

   

   The way they should always present HACK

   
   But the visual above is what drew me to HACK, where the framework is clear and not crowded out by forcing apps into categories. First, the teacher begins with Highly Structured activities in which students get use to using one system in a guided way. Then the next move is to Allowed Choices, where instead of being guided explicitly in one tool, choices are opened up to solve more complex problems with choices of digital tools.
   
   Consistent Application is the next level, where strategic reasoning and planning by the student is involved, and the technology is a transparent part of the environment. Finally, Knowledge Centered activities involve the teacher creating explorations where students are fully in control of their learning. (For a "From the Field" example of HACK, check out this ASCD article).
   
   Since this was a blended learning conference, HACK also seems like a solid path for teachers to move from simply being "technology-rich" to enabling students to learn at their own pace. It's aligned with Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge, and is a good conversation starter (along with SAMR and TPACK) to discuss with teachers increasing the rigor of their lessons and making the shift from lecture to facilitation. I'll definitely be exploring how to include it in our professional learning in the future.


2. Sustaining a Culture of Innovation
   If you've never heard Bryan Setser, founder of 2Revolutions, add it to your bucket list. This man has done basically everything there is to do in education, and now runs an "education design lab" focused on innovative solutions for educational institutions.
   
   Along with The Learning Accelerator, 2Revolutions is responsible for So You Think You Want To Innovate?, an incredible tool for assessing your organization and determining if you're ready to take the leap into deeper waters of innovation. It helps you put everything on the table and start some very honest discussions about how you'll work to remove barriers to innovation in your district.
   
   Bryan's presentation riffed on the themes in the guide, but like any good jazz musician, he played well to the room, responding to questions with examples from the field and providing an understanding of organizational change that only comes from being in the trenches. He reminded me again that to have creative, sustainable change, a focus on innovation must be a priority of the system.


3. Eminence - School on FIRE
   When I heard someone say Eminence wants to be the "Disney World of Schools," I rolled my eyes. But when Superintendent Buddy Berry got up on the big stage and started sharing his (intense) passion for how every lesson should include "surprise and delight," I actually found myself leaning in to make sure I didn't miss anything.
   
   Eminence completely redesigned their district a few years back, focusing on personalized and authentic instruction, the central role of technology, and a focus on college-and-career readiness starting in Kindergarten. The district leverages everything in their power to get their students engaged and ready for college, from their "Exemplars of Eminence Excellence" to free college courses for students in high school two days a week. (And if you've seen the WiFi buses, that's them too...).
   
   Berry also highlighted the importance of "Best Practice + Next Practice." In other words, you don't leave behind best practice in instruction just because you're including new practices. It's a concept I've been trying to put into words this school year and he helped me to do it.
   
   Like with Bryan, it's impossible to summarize all the great things that came from Berry's speech, but the most important takeaway is that solving the problems of our children is going to take an innovative approach, not business as usual.

Those were my three big ideas, but there was plenty of other good stuff that I'll list here for you to peruse at your leisure. Enjoy.

1. The Blended Learning Research Clearinghouse
2. Data from the Speak Up survey
3. Baltimore County Public Schools Blueprint 2.0
4. Continued Progress: Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning (RAND/Gates Foundation)
5. Wendy Oliver's Blended Practice Framework
6. BetterLesson BlendedMTP (videos)
7. Afton Partners (school financing for blended learning initiatives)
8. CCSD Open Book (Clark County School District's transparency website - brilliant idea)
9. "WE Day" (founder Craig Kielburger keynoted on Monday)
10. "WE Day" - WE Schools Framework (service learning)
11. Relay/GSE Learn (free blended learning professional learning modules)
12. iNACOL Blended Learning Competencies framework

ReadReflect: Blended by Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker

As part of a team vying for a part of the $2.5 million dollar Raising Blended Learners grant initiative, I recently spent two very intense days in a San Antonio ballroom fleshing out what blended learning could look like in our district.

These grant workshops (this was one of four) were coordinated by Raise Your Hand Texas with the goal of taking a focused, immersive approach to planning our district strategy. We huddled, whole-grouped, blended, small-grouped, discussed, imagined, broke-out and strategized about the needs our students have that could be better served by blending our approach to instructional design.

And while the workshop organizers worked hard to address everything we need to know about blended learning, it was challenging to find time for reflection. This made it doubly hard for me, because I know this about myself: I need a quiet, uninterrupted space to make sense of information, and I couldn't find one anywhere.

With that in mind, the best part of the workshop actually happened over the last three days (a week after getting back from the Alamo City) when I sat down with Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker's book Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools. Staker led our workshop, and the material she presented has its origins in the book. But it took having time to just sit down and read with my precious yellow highlighter in hand for me to think deeply about what we want to do with blended learning, as well as what problems it could solve for our students.

Here are my abridged reflections on the book. I highly recommend it for anyone planning blended learning at any level, you'll definitely find something in the book that's useful to you.

1. Blended learning is not, by itself, "disruptive innovation." It depends on the model of blended learning you use as to whether or not you are sustaining an innovation or truly disrupting the incumbent educational system. (Good article from Horn and Staker on that here)


2. "Time-in-seat" is really a ridiculous way to measure student mastery, but that's what most of us are doing. On the other hand, though, how do we start to integrate a competency-based model in our psychotically test-driven educational universe? This is a problem I don't think we have an answer for (yet), but that doesn't mean we should shy away from trying to solve it.


3. Disruptive models are best suited to address areas of non-consumption: in other words, areas where "schools cannot provide a learning experience" and "they have no easy option other than to do without it" (p. 105). This could be credit recovery, advanced courses, or dropout prevention. Sustaining models are best suited for core problems, where the traditional classroom services students, but that service could be improved by being personalized.


4. The discussion about types of teams in chapter 4 was completely eye-opening to me. We all know from experience that institutions need different types of teams to affect different levels of change. What I didn't know was the continuum: functional, lightweight, heavyweight and autonomous.


5. The "jobs-to-be-done" theory and how it relates to students' view of school. Since students essentially have two "jobs" they want to accomplish, when we redesign the learning environment we should start with those jobs in mind. If students want to (1) feel successful and (2) have fun with friends, we should be leveraging this natural motivation to make school a place they want to come every day. Does our current educational system address these jobs well? I think you know the answer to that.


6. From my own experience teaching in a blended setting, it's clear that the role of the teacher changes dramatically. Going to from lecturer to facilitator is no easy task, but once you start to understand how well you can get to know students and start talking with them instead of at them, you start to understand the power of blending. In chapter 6, the authors offer a vision of what the teacher's role can become in a blended setting, and I think it has great potential for creating mentors and guides for the students we serve in my district.


7. An online content strategy is, of course, a massive decision to make about blended implementation. The spectrum ranges from building your own content to using a facilitated network where user-generated content can be developed, shared and curated in "modular bites." I lean towards the latter, but I'm still looking to find the ideal platform to do this. How can we guarantee high-quality content in an open-source, open-API type platform? Who is the gatekeeper? I like the theoretical appeal of a meritocratic, crowd-sourced, "may-the-best-content-win" platform, but is it actually possible in real-life? Not sure yet, but for blended to work, the content has to be excellent and rigorous, not mediocre.


8. Finally, the discussion of culture in chapter 8 makes me realize how intentional schools and districts must be about communicating the priorities of the organization as well as the processes used to execute them. I don't think institutions give as much attention to this as they should, and if we are working to transform the very essence of what the role of school is, we would do well to consider our culture carefully.

With these thoughts in mind, now we get down to the nitty-gritty of writing this grant. I'm excited for the opportunity and for the potential it has to positively impact our students for years to come. The deadline is November 20th, and we'll know if we're on to the round of 10 in early 2016. Here we go...