Adam Renfro's List: Blended Learning

• Reason #1: Can state led virtual schools be nimble?
• However, many state virtual schools are shackled with antiquated funding, policy, and approval protocols with other state agencies.
• identify policy and governance structures up front
• n addition, I am working on an unbridled learning proposal for Kentucky that would allow for virtual school operations to run through district protocols
• instead of being mired in the bureaucratic malaise of RFP approval that has plagued many of the Race to the Top states across the country. 
• Reason #2: Can choice coexist with competent and creative curators?
• This move would give a menu of options to North Carolina’s kids, not just the options the state proscribes in terms of virtual learning.
• Reason #3: Can state virtual schools get out of their own way?
• many state virtual schools are locked in prohibitive contracts and budget cycles
• The major finding is that policymakers have largely failed to create legislation that rewards systems, providers, and operators for successful student performance. Instead, policymakers too often focus on input measures, such as seat-time, student-to-teacher-ratios, and teacher-certification requirements. This inhibits innovation and diminishes the transformative promise of online learning.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

9 more annotations...

• The bar is set very high: not only does every student need to successfully complete a rigorous college prep curriculum, every student must be accepted into a four year university in order to graduate. 
• They all leave prepared for and accepted to a four year university.  They do it the old fashion way—relationships and hard work.
• Teachers are there because they believe in the mission and support the culture: ganas, comunidad, orgullo (desire, community, and pride). 
• Like Summit Prep, DCP has developed smart people systems.  A sophisticated hiring process screens a big pool of applicants and invites a qualified few to teach a lesson—not a favorite but the next lesson in a defined sequence for a specific group of students.  Once hired, a rigorous staff evaluation process is accompanied by quarterly staff surveys and 360 degree evaluations of school leaders. 
• It’s interesting to note that they are all introducing blended learning models in September spurred on by catastrophic California budget cuts. 
• DCP and charter schools like it are changing lives.  Maybe five or six out of a hundred poor kids from downtown San Jose finish college.  DCP grads finish college at 10 times that rate—that’s an order of magnitude improvement in expected life outcomes
• intentional cultur
• igor, relevance, and relationships are likely to be key to academic success with teenagers for a long time.  
• 
• 
• 

7 more annotations...

• Pilot projects demonstrate proof of concept—show that it works, post some early indicators.  Proof points are comprehensive interventions that move the needle on desired outcomes. 
• The challenge in education is quality at scale.
• There are thousands of good schools, but few communities that put it all together an sustain it over time.
• What we need are schools that prepare the vast majority of students for the idea economy—at the minimum that means being able to pass  a community college entrance exam and earn college credit without remediation.
• Problems
• Local control is ineffective at bes
• coherence can only be created by sustained effective and mission-focused leadership.
•  Organizations like Aspire Public Schools and Florida Virtual School have achieved impressive results but have not taken responsibilit
• Producing quality at scale across geography, particularly one with any poverty, as been more elusive.
• One challenge with efforts to create proof points is confounding variables
• —causality is tough to pinpoint

• Proof point design.  Important proof points would include all students in a diverse geography with high level of challenge (>50% students in/near poverty) with some level of scale (>20,000 students), and would be sustainable after the intervention and replicable in other locations.   

   

  Important proof point geographies would show significant improvement in achievement for nearly all students sustained over time.  In the first two years there would be significant improvement in leading indicators.  After five years, terminal outcomes would begin to emerge. 
• The summer school debut of School of One is a great example of a low stakes demonstration that illustrated customized learning and introduced the concept of a personal learning ‘playlist.

• 1) blended school models including:

   
   
  • customized learning with multiple modes of instruction driven by a smart recommendation engine and comprehensive learner profiles
   
  • school designs that double productive learning time
   
  • talented and well trained teams in a differentiated (different levels) and distributed (different locations) staffing models with supporting productivity tools
   
   

  2) student supports including:

   
   
  • demand development activities that increase student and family engagement and academic press
   
  • self management, guidance, career awareness, and decision support systems
   
   

  3) policy innovations including:

   
   
  • learning certification systems that allow students to show what they know and represent a breakthrough competency-based learning 
   
  • weighted student funding with choice to the course (or unit)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

13 more annotations...

• Somehow this "minimum" has become a high bar . . . but a worthy one to achieve. - Adam Renfro on 2011-06-07

• Moreover, Khan has a newly acquired a team of developers working around the clock making the product better all the time. Such open transparency in our profession is something we should learn from not ridicule.

  • Khan2.0.
• Khan’s acceptance will become more main stream as teachers learn more and more about the download. The trick for open education solution providers will be starting with the belief that coherence and choice can coexist to benefit learners, regardless of who is featured on the download.
• Simply put, if your methods are that good don’t keep them on the down low, keep them on the down load.
• 

2 more annotations...