Interested in seeing blended learning on the agenda for this year’s SXSWedu? As part of their session selection process, SXSWedu welcomes public voting: anyone can cast their vote for session proposals, and public input accounts for 30% of the decision-making process for conference programming.
With your vote, we can together ensure that SXSWedu 2017 offers some great blended learning panels. Here are a few sessions the team at TLA is voting for, and we hope you do too! (If you aren’t registered to vote for SXSWedu sessions yet, you can click here to create your account and cast your votes. There are still a few days left to do so, as voting ends September 2.)
Lessons Learned from Texas Blended Learning Pilots
Moderated by Raise Your Hand Texas, panelists will share their journey to blended learning through participation in the Raise Your Hand Texas Raising Blended Learners initiative. They will describe the problems they are attempting to solve, key features of their planned implementations, and highlights from the first year of their pilots. They will then further explore the process, future plans, and reflections on lessons learned. Speakers include Cat Alexander, Raise Your Hand Texas, Vickie Vallet-McWilliams, Pasadena Independent School District, D.J. Canales, Point Isabel Independent School District, and Amy Dodson, Cisco Independent School District.
Building Blended Learning Teacher Leaders
Organized by the Highlander Institute, this session will be a station model in which participants rotate between sessions with Fuse RI Fellows who are trained to support blended and personalized learning roll-outs at the district and building level, online playlists with asynchronous resources that leaders can use to train their own coaches, and collaborative design-build activities. Speakers include Shawn Rubin, Highlander Institute, Simona Simpson, Providence Public School District, and Edda Carmadello, Central Falls School District.
Blended & Personalized Strategies that Work
BetterLesson will run a hands-on interactive workshop, with expert coaches to model blended learning strategies from their groundbreaking Blended Master Teacher Project. The workshop aims at helping participants identify strategies they can use right away to increase personalization to solve real teaching challenges in their classrooms. Speakers include Jeff Liberty and Jessica Anderson, BetterLesson.
While You Are Voting….
The Learning Accelerator team would also like to attend SXSWedu, so we hope you will vote for one, or all of our sessions:
Blended: Practices & Conditions to Get It Right
Through a series of small groups, our team will share our expertise and open resources to help you put in place both terrific instructional practices and the essential conditions to support and scale them for every learner. Immersed in a competency-based learning environment, participants will be able to choose their own path based on interests, and leave with numerous resources to take back to their classrooms, school, district, or support organization. Speakers include members of The Learning Accelerator team, Beth Rabbitt, Juliana Finegan, Saro Mohammed, and Daniel Owens.
Beware of Titles: Real Support for Innovators
TLA will bring together a group of diverse leaders to help attendees identify concrete ways to support innovative leads in their own school or district, explore TLA resources and translate them to their own needs, and reflect on their current strategy around educational innovative leader roles. Speakers include, Ashley Owens, Firstline Schools, Jin-Soo Huh, Alpha Public Schools, Jill Carty Tew, Roots Elementary and Michael Fauteux, Leadership Public Schools.
Good, Bad & Ugly: Blended Learning Effectiveness
A panel including passionate speakers who believe we know a lot about personalizing the learning experience; speakers who believe blended/personalized learning are not even coherent concepts; speakers who believe we’re at the “end of average”; and those who believe only experimental studies can add to our body of evidence. Speakers include Saro Mohammed, The Learning Accelerator, Julia Freeland, Clayton Christensen Institute, and Lisa Hansel, Knowledge Matters.
Creating a Competency-Based Continuum in Education
Panelists will explore CBE’s challenges and the implications they have on students transferring, enrolling in college, and getting a job. The conversation will draw on panelists’ personal experiences as well as national trends to identify alignments, gaps, and practical strategies for creating a better competency-based continuum.
Speakers include Becky Takeda-Tinker, Colorado State University – Global Campus, Beth Rabbit, The Learning Accelerator, Lisa McIntyre-Hite, Center for Learning Innovation, Walden University, and Holly Morris, EDUCAUSE.
Thank you and hope to see you all in Austin!
