In working to prove their worth in an ever-changing education landscape, virtual and hybrid schools across the country are looking to hone their craft and make improvements. Over the past year at The Learning Accelerator (TLA), we have supported 20 district-based virtual and hybrid programs to do just that, guiding them to identify actionable ways […]
Given our lack of unified language, conversations about virtual learning often feel confusing. Is my district’s “hybrid” learning your school’s “simultaneous” instruction? Has one state codified policy for “blended learning” in a way that looks a whole lot different from what its schools and districts have been implementing in classrooms for the last decade? Lack […]
This post was originally published on the ASCD Blog on August 15, 2021. As educators and students prepare to reenter school buildings, there will be inevitable challenges—not only around shifting back to yet another setting (even a previously familiar one!), but also around supporting teacher and student mindsets. Teachers may have one vision of what […]
2020 brought immense uncertainties to schools, so it is critical to center the design of any school model on student experiences. That’s why Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD), a small, rural district in central California, is doubling down on their Instructional Look Fors, a set of 26 observable, research-based indicators that depict how educators can […]
Education is more than content. It is a place for support and connection, so let’s do it right! As of March 2020, a lot of life as we knew it changed. As school buildings closed and moved to remote forms of engagement and instruction, the pain of this shift was acutely felt by teachers, students, […]
TLA periodically shares perspectives from educators and other voices from the field. The views and opinions expressed in these guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of TLA. If you are interested in writing a guest blog, please contact us! The future of blended learning is promising! […]
At The Learning Accelerator (TLA), we believe that effective principal leadership is absolutely critical for creating and sustaining schools that foster deeper and personalized learning. Given this, as part of TLA’s next human capital initiative, we’re running two experiments aimed at supporting and increasing the capacity of these leaders as they engage in school redesign […]
On Tuesday, I touched upon some of the ways blended learning can be used to deepen student learning. Today, I’d love to tackle another group we tend not to emphasize in conversations about deeper learning: teachers. To kick this off, a note about the inspiration for this post. A few weeks ago on this blog, […]
As schools across the United States near the end of the year, teachers, leaders, and students are grappling with the challenges associated with a variety of teaching and learning modalities, ranging from in-person instruction to hybrid and fully remote learning. Planning for any of these models has been difficult and complex for all stakeholders across […]
It’s easy to conjure a mental image of a science fiction-inspired dystopian future when we hear cautionary tales from the classroom about ChatGPT completing homework assignments, anecdotes of the chatbot fooling a human into bypassing bot controls in its stead by claiming to be a person with a visual impairment, or even an admission from […]
