The iTeach Blog

Hey Coach, I’ve been reading a lot about the power of individual student conferencing. This is a strategy I want to use in my classroom, but I’m feeling a major time crunch! How can I find the time to conference with every student? Sincerely, Out of Time Teacher Dear Out of Time Teacher, Good for you! It sounds like you recognize the importance of individual student conferencing. When it comes to building relationships with students and collecting specific information about their progress, nothing beats a 1:1 conference. Not only that, but student conferencing is an integral part of the dynamic communication that takes place within a personalized learning environment. As Stephanee Stephens and Anisa Lokey-Vega explain in the white paper, A Vision for Personalized Learning , these conferences offer important opportunities for learners to voice their needs, preferences, and interests to plan and drive their education. Yet, teachers are often hesitant to implement classroom...

Hey Coach, I’ve heard a lot about personalized learning, but what is it? Is personalized learning just another educational initiative? Sincerely, Not Another One Dear Not Another One, If you have been in education for more than a minute you’ve seen half a dozen educational initiatives come and go, so your question isn’t without merit. I want to give you a straightforward answer, but it gets a little tricky. If you haven’t already, check out the Personalized Learning white paper by Dr. Anissa Lokey-Vega and Stephanee Stephens. It explains personalized learning and breaks down the essential conditions for a personalized learning environment. Also important to note, as the authors do, the white paper is subject to iteration as research and experiences inform pedagogy and the vision of personalized learning becomes refined. Personalized learning has some core tenets that set it apart from the traditional educational model. You can see an overview of these tenets on our Essen...

Hey Coach, I have noticed a trend in my classroom - my students shy away from challenging tasks that require them to step out of their comfort zone! I want to create an environment where students feel comfortable taking risks and are willing to persevere through difficulties. What can I do to foster these skills in my students right from the start of the school year? Sincerely, Ready for Risk-Taking Dear Ready for Risk-Taking, Way to go! I like that you are thinking about how you can support your students as they build these important executive functioning skills! As you know, covering content and standards is just part of the equation. Building executive functioning skills like perseverance and risk-taking are a critical piece of academic success. Research shows that grit, or the ability to persevere when faced with obstacles, is one of the key principles that influence student learning and predict student success ( Duckworth & Peterson, 2007 ). Design cha...

Personalized Learning. Two words that at the same time inspire hearts and minds, and leave our pragmatic minds wandering.   If you are anything like the educators and leaders in the schools and districts we at iTeach support, you are already a ‘believer’ in the promise of a learning experience that is personalized. You might even have your own working definition for what it looks like in your instance, and that definition may well be informed by the good work of organizations like Education Elements, iNACOL, Learning Accelerator, and other thought leaders. For us, here in Georgia, we were all so caught up in igniting the spark of this new paradigm, that we created some confusion, or at least some incongruence across the state. Some early-adopting districts spending money on redesign and consultation, create and communicate their own vision with their own language, leaving smaller or less-resourced districts unable to shoulder the financial burden of such work to pick at th...

The wrong analogy at the wrong time Education tends to lend itself to the term “race” a lot, maybe the most influential the 2009 “Race to the Top” campaign to reward innovation in education. Education espouses acceptance and even encouragement of otherness with which this metaphor doesn’t align. Races are for sprinters or marathoners to win or lose. The classroom and education are places to experiment and fail and learn, where failure and coming in second shouldn’t be demonized. We wouldn’t punish the second student to finish an exam with less than 100% if they deserve their 100. They learned the lesson. The individualized path champions self-advocacy, perseverance, and, ultimately, understanding of knowledge for students. 30 Lesson Plans?! Not what we have in mind A better analogy than a race, would be a bowling alley where students are the bowling balls, each with their own path to knock all of the pins down. While some students roll themselves right through all 10 pins, ...

Studying Space and Space flight incorporates the study of  several disciplines: math, science, geography. Within these disciplines there are multiple subjects that can be studied to gain insight into the space program: measurement planets maps weather speed and distance exercise needs human body environment nutrition...the list goes on. With the many choices within this unit of study, personalizing learning (PL) becomes an easy fit. In schools that have already chosen one or more  Personalized Learning (PL) Principles  to focus on, teachers can easily pick one or two to hone in on as they prepare the unit.  PL Principles  are rarely demonstrated in isolation. Instead the principles are interconnected and overlapping.  If  Choice and Voice  is a principle area of focus, the options for students to demonstrate their understanding include choice boards, choosing challenging projects based on the student’s interests and ability level...

A teacher’s job seems to be never ending, with multiple meetings to attend, lessons to teach, and new strategies to implement. It can be tough getting teachers on board with a new initiative or idea when they may feel it doesn’t fit into their classroom vision or they feel they don’t have the time to devote to learning a new skill or strategy. Personalized learning is an amazing method that can help students fall in love with learning and helps teachers find ways to reach all of their students on personalized and individual levels. Just like any other strategy, however, a teacher must totally buy in and feel that it is what is best for their classroom and students. Here are a few tips to help teachers “fall for personalized learning.” Give them a Voice It is so important to allow teachers the ability to use their voice to advocate for their classrooms. Teachers spend all of their time with the same students and know better than anyone what their classroom needs, along with...

Remember your K-12 years? Learning was fun and as simple as showing up to school – receive Direct Instruction – complete worksheets – get a grade – Repeat. Many in our generation survived the school systems in this manner and if your curiosity led you to read this post, your education is paying off. So, there’s nothing to worry about, right? Well, there is a lot to worry about and that is because the world today is no longer as simple as it was yesterday, and the gap is even wider when you compare it with the world that past generations lived in. Technology has changed our world in ways that we never imagined; this is the same world that we will leave in the hands of the students whom we strive to educate today. If we must prepare them to be competent in a current digital-age culture, we must effectively incorporate digital tools into their education. If I may digress briefly, do you watch TV at all? I’m almost certain that your response is “Yes”. We all know th...

There are nineteen middle schools in the Fulton County Schools District, but Ronald E. McNair Middle School has one of the most innovative learning spaces in the United States. The building literally has classes with no walls to foster collaboration between teachers and students, and multiple presentation spaces for students to share their ideas with a variety of audiences. Additionally, all of the students bring either an iPad or cellphone to use during the instruction each day. Considering that McNair is a school that typically uses traditional pedagogy,  how will the teachers fathom the idea of an open space where students are encouraged to use devices? Will the teachers receive support? Fulton declares personalize learning as one of the fibers of its instructional creed, and the school district has galvanized the best resources to support McNair make the transition from traditional pedagogy to a more personalized approach. Although McNair students and teachers moved into the...