Essays have run the gamut from “birth to three education” to “unified reform theory”.

Take a look at the finalists:

1) Community Schools

2) Focal Points for 21st Century Education Reform

3) Schools for the Future

Both #2 and #3 (author names are not public) touch upon what I and a growing number of others around the country feel is the most important change necessary for our schools to serve teachers and students in highly personalized environments based not on age or time in a chair, but rather understanding and demonstration: competency-based programs.

Competency (or mastery) allows students to learn at their own pace and “show what they know”. It also allows teachers and schools to educate children as individuals and know exactly where they are along the learning continuum at all times.

That’s the real game-changer.

To show my hand a bit here, while both #2 and #3 focus on mastery, #3, Schools for the Future, is unique among the finalists in its honest take on policy barriers. #1 and #2 outline nice system designs but don’t acknowledge the incredible uphill climb their recommendations would face on the way to implementation.

Entrenched policies are the greatest obstacle to education reform, and any plan to shake up the status quo must incorporate this fact into its transformative roadmap.

With John Danner, Michael Horn, Deborah Stipek, and Randi Weingarten counted among the  judges, you can be sure there were some interesting conversations leading up to the finalists.

Now it’s up to the public. The voting period ends today (3/28). Take a look and see if you are moved to support one:

Contest site

Public voting site
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To the Editor,

Today’s editorial on the growth of online offerings in higher education was right to acknowledge the benefits of blended learning models of instruction, but erred in its treatment of fully online courses and their potential ability to reach and teach students.

For years, quality online courses and schools have served students through the entire spectrum from elementary through college who look for or require flexibility. Online learning is a delivery model for faculty and teachers providing instruction online in a highly personalized and engaging learning environment. Online learning may not be the choice for every student, nor is it for every teacher. To those students for whom it is the right answer – for myriad reasons – online learning can mean the difference between educational access and no option at all.

The advent of the MOOC has stirred the pot by challenging a long-held belief of “what school looks like”, but to dismiss the form in its nascent stage is a dangerous trend that could deny access to an affordable world-class education until now unavailable to far too many. What MOOCs do call into question is whether we should consider competency-based credentialing for students who can demonstrate the knowledge and skills needed for certification or a degree.

Poor course design is damaging to students regardless of how, when, or where they learn, and not limited only to our most vulnerable learners. To insinuate that poorly constructed courses are somehow unique to the online learning experience is naive at best.

Instead, take a moment to reflect upon the possible positive ramifications of embracing the potential for our greatest teachers to reach tens of thousands of eager students, imparting knowledge around the financial, cultural, and geographic constraints of the education system as we’ve known it. New models are emerging and we should be cautiously optimistic to consider what changes to improve the system can be realized. Through our own Socratic method, we can bring to light solutions by critically examining why it is we continue to educate students in the same manner we have for hundreds of years while technology is transforming every other area of our lives.

Over the past four years, President Obama has used both his policy and his pulpit in Washington to support education reform at a level that rivals many of his predecessors. He has allowed Administration leaders such as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, and Karen Cator, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, the freedom to develop, fund, and promote programs that reward states for making dramatic alterations to their education landscapes. And tonight, he again impressed upon Congress that our students and our country must be better prepared to compete in the developing 21st century workplace if we are to rise above our current economic state and enter into a trajectory of growth.

Unfortunately, as with too many leaders in Washington and in the states, the prescription offered by the President this evening does not go far enough to address the challenges our schools face with respect to reaching all students where and how they learn throughout their academic career. The demands of a 21st century world cannot be addressed merely by tweaking a 19th century education delivery system. Teaching the ‘vast middle’ of American schoolchildren in a time-based system – counting hours in a seat with swiss cheese-like holes in their knowledge evident through skills gaps – is no longer acceptable.

Innovators working on the development of competency-based, online, and blended learning models must be put both in the spotlight and under a magnifying glass to determine emerging best practices if we are to make certain our schools reach and teach every student on their own learning edge so they might reach their full potential and the United States can move beyond our agrarian roots and truly enter the 21st century.

In an era where Yelp determines where we eat dinner and social networks deliver our news, it is unconscionable that we largely ignore the power, efficiency, and accessibility of technology in the hands of great teachers to personalize the education of each student – anytime, anyplace, and at any pace – making data on individual student needs easily accessible for supporting each student’s individual growth. Transcripts and diplomas can and should evidence what a student knows and can do. The global economy requires us to focus on measuring student learning outcomes through competencies and demonstrated skills.

Success is the only option. We can no longer allow kids to pass along with gaping holes in knowledge and skills. The moral imperative of our public school system must move beyond a mandate of teaching all students using a single lesson plan to one of expanding resources and personalizing education for the purpose of reaching and providing all students with world-class knowledge and skills if we are to realize the potential of this generation and those to come.

Every student, regardless of geography, economy, or demography, can and should have access to a world-class education. President Obama was right to say that we must re-imagine our schools if we are to retain our leadership in an increasingly global community. One-size-fits-all schooling utilizing an outdated factory model continues to be the greatest barrier to our – and our students’ – ultimate success as technology redefines our workforce. Personalizing learning and creating competency-based education systems will allow us to ensure real, measurable student achievement now and into the future.

Unfortunately, our country’s cultural learning centers, high-profile museums and other educational landmarks may not be easily accessible for teachers wishing to take their students on such a field trip, possibly because they are too expensive or too far away. Virtual field trips can help schools overcome tight budgets and geographic obstacles while still providing quality learning opportunities for eager young minds—exemplary of how online and blended learning is transformational to the modern educational experience. 

USA Today’s Karly Moll wrote an excellent piece earlier this month on the evolution of school field trips and how virtual tours and online activities are helping schools provide memorable learning experiences that students might not otherwise have access to. Some museums are taking innovative steps to put academic resources and lesson plans online and to modify in-person visits to align with specific school curricula and testing standards.

These trips are excellent concrete examples of how blended learning tools offer teachers and students expanded access to valuable learning resources that, for a number of reasons, are not available in the traditional classroom or are becoming more difficult to offer. Yet these virtual opportunities still require the strong teacher-student relationships and quality teacher preparation that are foundational for successful blended learning environments.

If virtual field trips encourage imaginative learning and contribute to the development of young students and provide access to new learning resources beyond the textbook, it’s the next best thing to actually going to the museum or the White House. It is important that today’s budding presidents and archeologists have the opportunity explore their world, and a virtual visit adds more to their educational experience than no visit at all.

As we think about what is possible to help all students access a world-class education today, there remain major issues and barriers to increasing access for each child to high-quality learning opportunities. A major focus must be on transforming education – and on creating models to expand access and drive a future of equitable systems with systems of supports. The key barriers I am focused on are 1) policy barriers such as seat-time, 2) quality assurance models, and 3) new learning models that can transform to more effective, student-centered, competency-based learning.

With a transformational model in mind, what needs to change in the practice of teaching and learning? How do we know change can lead to college and career readiness and deeper learning outcomes for students?

I believe the design of new models is key. Design of new instructional models that are student-centered and mastery-based are the drivers for rethinking what is possible for students.

Blended learning incorporates the best uses of online learning technologies into classrooms where students have some control over pacing. Equally important, blended learning environments should be designed to be student-centered and competency-based, so that students can advance upon demonstrated mastery.  Students should have an opportunity to set clear learning goals and meet those targets with some agency, that is, with the ability to find ways to learn that match their interests and passions. Given digital content, learning beyond a textbook and true personalization have come of age.

What is required in blended learning environments? The number one area is people!  Change management and support of continuous improvement design requires teachers and school leaders with the vision that new models can support educators and students alike in the goal toward student-centered, transformed, personalized learning. The most important aspect of the models remains the engagement of the learner with people who care – the teachers and the educators are the key to personalized instruction and high-quality education. Armed with technology and online content to provide support and access to new content, teachers and students have timely feedback on what is working, showing what they’ve learned along the way and moving through material in ways that best suit an individual’s needs. Working together, teachers and students find new models can provide additional learning time (anytime, any place), new and better student supports, all while reimagining the activities of learning around the student’s needs.

So, finally… I have had people asking the question lately about the role philanthropy can play in supporting new learning models using online and blended learning.  Here are a few thoughts…

New Blended Learning Models: Implications for Philanthropy

1. Pilots – fund planning grants; work is really hard, continuous improvement, scheduling supports, content development and selection, platform selection, data collection.
2. Human Capital/Professional development – need leadership training for new models for leaders, administrators, teachers for new instructional models and data management (how to get data, how to use data for personalization).
3. Policy – move from seat-time, accountability growth on individual student trajectories at the student level; performance-based/outcomes-based accountability; increasing access to good teachers.
4. Infrastructure/IT – need access devices and bandwidth, platforms and IT systems to support new models of learning.
5. Community-building and outreach – support awareness building for school leaders, communities, and host events on “blended learning: the future of education”
6. Evaluation and research – need to understand what works in high-quality and performance-driven systems.
7. Student supports and educator supports – developing systems inside and outside of school for anytime, everywhere learning.
8. Practice – support for building understanding of new models, grants for out of the box design thinking, student-centered, competency-based education models.

There should be no limit to how fast and how far a student can go. Let’s reward models that have solid results and close the achievement gap – and let’s reward models that are able to do the most with the most disadvantaged youth. We could rethink policy, accountability and funding from the student level up – rewarding success for individual student growth, funding per pupil, not seat-time.

Accountability systems must begin to be designed on student-level trajectories, with data rolled up for school accountability, district, state and federal data needs. We’re still reverse-engineering from an age-based, cohort-driven accountability model. Let’s think differently about holding all programs to higher, outcomes-based performance metrics that focus on how well we are helping all students reach their goals.

Let’s focus on opening policy to enable what is possible – for transformative student-centered learning to happen, we also need supportive student-centered policy and accountability.

Achieve’s Cory Curl has presented a nice summary of a ground-breaking report released by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF):

 Making Mastery Work: A Close Up View of Competency Education (link)

 The report captures lessons learned from 10 schools implementing competency-based programs through their involvement with the Proficiency-Based Pathways Project (supported by NMEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

Cory pointed to some key conclusions from the report, including:

• Competency-based approaches have two distinguishing characteristics:
  • Clear, measurable definition of mastery, along with procedures and tools for tracking that mastery
  • Flexible use of time
• The chance for students to progress at their own pace is motivating, particularly for struggling students.
• Time-based policies and systems at both district and state levels often pose challenges. Educators are finding ways to create flexibility within these existing structures, but this room for states to augment policies to foster this flexibility.
• There is no single blueprint or established menu of instructional tools geared for these initiatives, so teachers often create their own curriculum, assessments and management and feedback systems.
• The biggest logistical challenge is the lack of high-quality data and technology tools to assess and monitor student progress that are tailored to each school/initiative’s approach.
• CBP will likely benefit from a number of new conditions, including the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.

Federal rules and accountability structures are often time-based, as well, posing problems for true competency-based learning environments offering flexible pacing for students to advance. The ESEA Reauthorization discussions need to focus on this as a critical element – designing the future of learning to support transformative, student-centered learning models.

Across the country, pioneering schools and school districts are changing the way they design and organize their use of time and curriculum in an effort to ensure each student moves forward based on demonstrated mastery of content, not just the amount of time spent learning. Online and blended learning offer solutions to move toward student-centered, competency based learning – anytime and everywhere.

As schools move towards a 21st century model of preparing students for college and a career, it is becoming unnecessary to maintain a system based on time spent in the classroom, according to the report’s authors. Rather, learning happens at different times in a variety of settings, and progress should be demonstrated by mastery of content, not merely grade promotion. In the proficiency-based systems examined in Making Mastery Work, students advance at their own pace as part of a cycle of continuous learning and achievement. This mix of freedom and responsibility is positively impacting both the teaching and the learning at the eleven schools studied in the report.

To download the report and to read a special series of blog posts exploring its findings in-depth, visit http://competencyworks.org.

“Education is perhaps the most important civil rights concern in the United States today. The academic equity and excellence we seek, however, will come only when we offer students a broad selection of learning environments and allow them to identify the proper solution for their individual learning styles and interests. The digital world is here and technology literacy skills are going to be a valuable part of the 21st century skill set students need for success, along with critical thinking, problem solving and communication — both working in groups and as part of virtual teams. These tools are essential in order for our students to become globally-competitive, and college and career-ready.”

 

John Bailey, Karen Cator, Tim Magner,  Linda Roberts and I discuss the State of Education Today in this archived webinar of their Kickoff Panel for Connected Educators Month.  (Watch the video here.)

“Getting Schooled by a Third Grader,”  an event hosted by the New America Foundation.   (Watch the video here.)

And read:

Q&A with Heather O’Mara: Teacher-student relationship remains vital in online learning

Hechinger Report

In Colorado, a state where just this week there’s been controversy as three foreign-language teachers lost their jobs when their classes moved online, there are differing perspectives on the value of online education and technology’s ever-increasing role in education. Colorado has it all: fully online… (read)

Va to require all high school students take an online class starting with next year’s freshmen

Associated Press

Beginning next year, all high school students in Virginia will have to take some sort of online course in order to graduate. The General Assembly passed the law this year, fueled by the belief that today’s students need the experience of taking coursework online to do well in college and the workforce… (read)

WAY offers online learning alternative to public school

MLive

Jessica Cooper was so turned off by all the drugs and the social drama at her Livingston County high school that she finally dropped out during her junior year. “You had to be popular, or in a specific group,” she explained. “It just made me want to be alone.” Soon after she enrolled in the area’s alternative… (read)

Educators embracing technology for e-learning

Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC

The classroom has changed a lot in the last decade or so as technology continues to advance. Educational institutions around the country are embracing technology including Aiken County Schools. From iPads to online learning, Aiken County schools are riding the technology wave. Terry Hallman… (read)

Tom Vander Ark makes several strong points in his post, so I hope that I might just add a few additional thoughts.

Online learning is not simply a videotaped lecture, an online chat, a Skype-like conversation, an e-book, or a series of multiple choice quizzes popping up on a computer screen.

Online learning starts with students having access to excellent teachers – most online teachers have at least eight years of classroom experience. These seasoned educators are professionals empowered with the digital tools and engaging content we are able to access on-demand in our daily lives. They harness their power and efficiency to individualize instruction and engage students in a learning process that can transform the way they learn in the modern world.

Online learning is not about technology for its own sake, but instead revered by online teachers and students for the very personal interaction it enables between them. Though continuously opined (incorrectly) as otherwise on the pages of many papers, online teachers will be the first to tell anyone who will listen that their ability to get to know their students in an online setting far surpasses the relationships they were able to build in a traditional classroom.

And consider for a moment that if education is the civil rights battle of this generation, than online learning can push the realization. How else could every student, regardless of zip code, receive equitable access to the very best instruction available for every subject needed to prepare them for college, careers and lifelong learning. Every student could access every AP course taught by the best educators anywhere. Forty percent of high schools in California alone do not offer the full “A-G” high school, college-prep course requirements for admission to the state university system. We could fix this with online learning immediately – giving every student access to the instructors and courses they need to graduate college ready.

To cloister our students away from an educational opportunity that could mean the difference between struggle and success would be an irresponsible declaration that while innovation and technology have radically benefited almost every aspect of our lives, our classrooms and schools as currently designed and utilized are just fine, thank you very much. I continue to receive notes, emails, and encouragement from young people who took online classes that would not have had the same academic and life opportunities without them. They encourage me to keep helping people understand that online learning can change a child’s life and expand their academic experiences.

I’d ask you to review the latest round of PISA results or even a list of schools in need of improvement in your state to decide whether or not we are reaching as many students as possible and cementing their (and our) future success. And, then think about how online learning could provide every student with access to a world-class education, regardless of where they live.

To read more of the dialogue, visit the National Journal’s Education Experts Blog.