The Learning Accelerator team will be busy at iNACOL this year, with many of our partners and grantees involved in compelling sessions and/or pre-conference workshops. Please join us!
Sunday, November 8
A Step-By-Step Guide to Communications Planning for Blended Learning: Key Messages, Tips, and Tactics for Knowing What to Say and When to Say It – 1:00 pm
Communicating effectively with key stakeholders is a cornerstone to successful blended learning implementation. TLA Partner Kira Keane and CityBridge Foundation’s Margaret Angell have designed a pre-conference workshop in which participants will have the opportunity to develop the foundation of their own communications plan, as well as test messages for important audiences.
Supporting Teachers in Blended and Personalized Schools: New Competencies and New Resources – 1:00 pm
This interactive workshop run by TLA Partners Beth Rabbitt and Daniel Owens, and Shawn Rubin and Roshni Lakhi from the Highlander Institute, will explore the iNACOL Blended Learning Educator Framework. The team will also share reflections on effective professional development approaches as well as a variety of open (and free!) resources and tools that can be used immediately to facilitate the development of these competencies.
Monday, November 9
Personalizing PD: Creating a competency-based learning system for teachers – 9:45 am
As a result of the ongoing efforts to create a shared framework for connecting content and assessments across platforms to truly personalize teacher learning, Margaret Roth (Yet Analytics) and TLA Partner Beth Rabbitt will share a new vision for teacher PD and explore lessons and early outputs others can incorporate into their work.
What Do We Know? Illuminating the Implications and Challenges in Research and Measurement of K-12 Blended Learning – 11:00 am
TLA Partner Saro Mohammed will moderate a panel including Todd Bloom (Jefferson Education Accelerator), Julia Freeland (Clayton Christensen Institute), Kathryn Kennedy (MI Virtual Learning Research Institute), and Carri Schneider (Getting Smart) in an interactive discussion during which attendees will actively participate and respond to the question, “Should you blend learning?”
Being Honest, Getting Serious: Increasing Racial Diversity in the Learning Revolution Movement – 3:50 pm
In this session, TLA Partner John Branam and Chris Sturgis (CompetencyWorks) will share statistics about the diversity of boards and staff of revolution-leading education organizations and, more importantly, identify how you can help address the racial imbalance.
Tuesday, Nov 10
OER in the blended and online classroom – 2:15 pm
TLA Partner Jennifer Wolfe and Karl Nelson, COO of the K-12 OER Collaborative, will host a session on open education resources for educators, providing an exciting new set of OER units aligned to state learning standards. Join them to enjoy a collaborative discussion around how to use OER in blended learning and online environments.
Some of The Learning Accelerator’s grantees will also be hosting sessions or pre-conference workshops:
Sunday, Nov 8
Role of the School Leader in New Learning Models – 11 am
This pre-conference workshop run by Barbara Treacy (Friday Institute), Allison Powell (iNACOL), and Rick Schreiber (Marzano Research/Reinventing Schools Division) will focus primarily on sharing the current work to date on Leadership Standards (a set of standards to support leaders in new learning models) and on gathering participants’ feedback on the key leadership standards identified so far.
Tuesday, Nov 10
Teacher Evaluation and Blended Learning Case Studies: Making Adjustments without Starting Anew – 10 am
The TNTP team will use a series of case studies to highlight how existing evaluation systems can be adapted to accurately assess teacher effectiveness in blended and/or personalized environments.
Lessons Learned from Blended Learning Programs – 10 am
Three K-12 blended learning initiatives, including MyBlend (Michigan), Fuse RI (Rhode Island), and Idaho Digital Learning Academy (Idaho), will share their progress, triumphs, challenges, similarities, and differences. They will also share their program evaluation practices as well as the various structures they have in place and the stakeholders involved in running the program.
Fast Cycle Learning to Solve Your Blended Learning Challenges: TeachCycle Professional Learning Model in Action – 10 am
Jeff Liberty and Abbey Goldstein Moss from BetterLesson will run a workshop, in which participants will engage in an introductory TeachCycle loop. After selecting a teaching challenge that resonates with you, you will collaborate with a team of fellow participants to identify strategies from BetterLesson’s vast strategy bank to address your teaching challenge.
Wednesday, Nov 11
Blended Learning Best Practices from the Relay Graduate School of Education – 10 am
Participants of this workshop, run by Relay GSE’s Brooke Buerkle, will explore a set of free, online blended modules focused on preparing teachers for the why and how of K-12 blended implementation.
See you in Orlando!
