Persistence & Resilience

"It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein

As a parent, I want to step in and just do things myself to save time, but by not letting my children learn how to fail and retry, I am not helping them become persistent.  Also, if I solve all their problems for them, they won't be resilient when they have to solve problems for themselves.

On November 11th, the last day of the iNACOL Online & Blended Learning Symposium of 2015, I tweeted:  "Students are going to face a world we can't even imagine.  They need to be resilient." What does it mean to be resilient?  I went to my favorite search engine, and the first thing that popped up was a definition of resilient.

For a person or animal, it means one who is able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

So how are we preparing students to be resilient and persistent?  This troubles me, because I don't have an answer to it.  I see my children, 3 & 5, who are very persistent when it comes to something like wanting to have a piece of candy, but who walk away from something that might be a little tough for them.

For a Christmas present, my daughter was given a knitting set.  She was persistent that we open it; however, I had no idea what I was doing, so I had to learn.  During the time that I was trying to figure it out, she was persistent that she could do it (without any instructions).  Once I figured it out and showed her how to do it, her persistence with it lasted about 3 stitches.  She's five, so I don't expect her to have all the fine motor skills to do it, but this is typical of her.  She doesn't have the persistence to stick with a project.

Right now, the Kirkwood HSDL program has a 95% success rate for the 15-16 academic year; however, I expect that number to go down.  I don't see all of the students that have due dates of January 8th, 2016 finishing by that date.  Some haven't started their classes that they signed up for in August and others may have worked for two weeks, taken two weeks off, and then never got back to their course.  So, that brings me back to the question...how can we teach persistence and resilience to our children/students?

Me to We

I was on a bus.  It was an air conditioned bus, which meant that I was luckier than a lot of the native people to that country.  The year was 2002.  The place was the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.  I believe the bus was near the Caribbean sea, but what I remember about that bus ride was a person. The person was from Canada.  He spoke about how important it was going to be to become a global citizen and gave us the name of his website.  I have no idea what the website is now, but I remember the experience.

I not only remember the experience that I had on that bus, but I also remember the experience that I had during the spring of 2002 when I could live better than most of the native people in Merida, Mexico.  As a 20 year old, the magnitude of what I was doing didn't sink in.  I didn't realize that I was living a privileged life, because in some ways it was worse than any lifestyle I'd known; however, I now know that that experience changed my life and molded me into who I am today.

The greatest experience wasn't living in the Casa Blanca, as it was affectionately known to the native people.  It wasn't experiencing a new culture with my college friends and driving our friendships deeper, although it did that too.  The greatest experience was going to a village, staying overnight at a former convent, and experiencing the really rural life that I had only ever read about, and the tamales cooked in banana leaves in an open fire pit were the best that I'd ever had.

However, that village didn't have many of the things we take for granted each day.  One woman that we visited had a small hut.  There may have been one electrical outlet, but I couldn't swear to it.  The water wasn't readily available and there definitely wasn't indoor plumbing.

I'm reflective on this time today, because as we look to jobs of tomorrow, the culture in the USA is shifting from that of a "me" to that of a "we" culture.  At a meeting I was recently at, someone stated it this way, "Youth want both a vocation and to be an advocate."  Service is at the forefront of a lot of youth's mind and they are being careful about where they are investing their time, how resources are allocated and being part of the global world.

It's easy for us to get wrapped up in the terrorism in the world, but there's another group out there that is gaining and it is causing a movement from me to we by providing people with interconnectedness that is unprecedented and combining it with universal love.  In his discussion, co-founder of Asana, Justin Rosenstein, shares about these items.  You can view the 30 minute video here.  He describes how we're all microorganisms of a global ecosystem that works a lot better when there's harmony and any war is a civil war, because we're all one collective people of the world.

As one people of the world, we need to put our efforts on living with loving kindness towards each other and our planet.  In addition, we need to zoom out and see the whole picture and by doing so we can see that technology has helped people do just that.  By seeing the humans across the division between the Arabs and Israelis, Facebook has done more to promote peace in the Middle East than 30 years of conflict resolution has done.

I hope that all of us, young or old or in-between, can fight for love and peace and keep moving ourselves toward more harmony with the universe and moving into a culture of we not me.

LiFi - Not WiFi

I grew up in a house that was "green" before "green" was a way of life.  It was an earth-berm home, southern facing, and designed to be energy efficient before energy efficiency was a global concern. My dad said that he plotted the land for two years before even breaking ground to get it at just the right angle and he did a lot of the design work himself.  In the early 1980's, solar cells weren't great, but today it would be possible for a 1000 square foot house to be almost self-sustaining on solar energy, depending on location.

As we move into the internet of things and the growing digital divide, Harald Haas has a prototype of a solar cell using existing energy to stream videos at a speed of 50 mbps.  His Ted Talk from September of 2015 shows the possibility of using LEDs and solar cells to move from Wi-Fi to Li-Fi.j

What could that mean for learning?  What could that mean for people who are in isolated areas of the world?  What could that mean for closing the digital divide?  I am anxious to see what the answers to these questions are!

Jobs of the Future

Last month, I had the privilege of attending the iNACOL Online and Blended Learning Symposium and spent a lot of time tweeting.  Today, I want to dive into one of my tweets from the last day of the conference:

Students are going to face a world we can't even imagine.  They need to be resilient. #inacol15

I worry about my own children and their resilience to the ever-changing technology.  They're three and five.  They don't know a time without a SmartPhone, a time without instant access to whatever TV show floats their boat on a particular day (currently Jake and the Neverland Pirates).  Nor do they realize that once upon a time car windows didn't roll down with a button, but with a crank (and thank goodness for the ability to lock the windows).

Technology has taken a 90 degree shift from where it was in the early 1900's.  Economist, Andrew McAfee, graphs the most significant changes in human history and shows it turning at almost 90 degrees with the invention of the steam engine and other inventions from the industrial revolution in his TED Talk from June 2012.

Those of us in our thirties today have seen computers go from green-screen number munchers to the colorful games like Candy Crush and Cookie Jam today.  We've seen computers move from being solitary objects that aided word processing to being able to interact with people who are literally a world apart and on the fly.  We have seen textbooks become digitized and to some extent replaced.  We've also seen music personalized and watched both the invention and extinction of Napster and MySpace.  So, why does this matter?

It matters, because as McAfee also points out, the philosopher Voltaire stated that work saves us from three great evils:  boredom, vice, and need.  The robots are coming; in fact, they're here and they're replacing some of the jobs that human beings used to do.  This includes such things as driving, stocking shelves, and order fulfillment.  So McAfee also suggests that we double-down on infrastructure, and encourage entrepreneurship.  Robots aren't that good at repairing bridges yet and the jobs of the future really don't look like those of the past.

What will the jobs of the future look like?  Hopefully, they'll look like a cure for the world's diseases, an elimination of poverty, and more intuitiveness about the human species.

The First 2016 Democratic Debate and Why It Was Important

If you're like me, you don't have cable at home, because I can pay less for a subscription to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime (all together), than I can for cable and on two of the three I don't have to watch any commercials.  This becomes challenging for those of us that want to be well educated about our 2016 presidential candidates and see them debate.  This post isn't going to be about whether you should vote republican, democrat, independent, or another party; however, I encourage you to VOTE.  This post is going to focus on the technology behind the debate itself.

It is very significant that the CNN/Facebook 2016 presidential debate on October 13th, 2015 was live-streamed.  This meant that for the younger audience that typically uses their phone, tablet, computer, or blue-ray player for the content can see in real-time the interaction between the candidates.

Although normally one would need to have a subscription to view news from CNNgo (CNN's app) or login to cnn.com, the network is providing free streaming for all the 2016 presidential candidate debates.  Simultaneous devices numbered 980,000, which is about 60,000 higher than the GOP debate on 9/16/15 (http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/13/media/cnn-democratic-debate-live-stream-record/).

In the first televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, the total viewership of the debate was 70 million.  Interest in the political campaign has decreased significantly since the rise of the television era and during the 2012 presidential cycle, the debates brought in 7.7 and 8.3 million viewers.  Contrarily, the GOP debates for the 2016 presidential election have had 23 - 24 million viewers so far (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/cnn-democratic-debate-ratings-expectations-214664)

I'm anxious to see what the total viewership for the first democratic debate with the television viewers calculated in is and am wondering how the live-streaming of debates will impact voter turn-out.

The Future of Technology - And Why We Should Be Worried

Last week, I shared my experience about the use of my telephone versus my dad's use of his telephone and reflected on how the various uses of technology have changed over the last thirty years.  Today, I want to share more about what I've learned about the future of technology and why we should be worried.

Technological optimists said that one day we'd have driver-less cars.  Today, that is slowly becoming a reality.  Robots are taking over the jobs that blue collar workers did fifty years ago and the jobs that our students are being trained for with the factory-model style of education.

When I look at my own children, I want to know how to best train them for a future of jobs that aren't known to us yet.  They are three and five.  The experts are saying that beyond basic literacy and basic numeracy, the next most important concept to foster in our children is creativity.

Why?

Creativity spawns entrepreneurship, which is where the growth of the economy will come from. Currently, entrepreneurship is on the decline and so is the middle class.  This is what the experts are actually most worried about.  The income disparity will be the destruction of the US Economy more than any jobs that are being replaced by robots.


With this, it's important to note that robots are becoming much better at doing things that only humans could do a few years ago.  Andrew McAfee, a leading economist from MIT and Harvard, states in his TED talks that translation is a good example of that.  It used to take a human to translate a document, now machines can do the job okay (not perfect, but okay).  His projection is that in a few short years, they won't be one or two times better, they will be 16 times better.  Therefore, we need to change how we are preparing our children for the future. You can view his speech here.

In the short term, we can promote entrepreneurship, encourage education beyond the compulsory age, and double-down on infrastructure; however, unless we address the economic challenges that we are facing, machines will take our jobs.

The Electronic Future

When I think about how much technology has changed our world over the last thirty years (my lifetime, essentially), I wonder how much more the world will change during the next thirty.  Thirteen years ago, I spent a semester in Mexico.  At that time, the internet was available in internet cafes and SmartPhones weren't around.  In fact, even cell phones weren't dominating the world at that point and the house where we stayed in Mexico had a landline,  on which I would occasionally receive phone calls from my parents.  The trick was that you actually had to know when they'd be calling and be around to take the phone call.  Electronic communication was blossoming and for a brief period of time my dad embraced it by using the call letters of his radio persona to create a hotmail account. This account died the minute I stepped foot back into the US and we still can't get him to text, but he will at least read them.

There are a few divisions like that between my parents and myself.  I'll compare and contrast my dad today though.  Let's take a look at telephones first.  The first difference between my household and my dad's is that I have zero desire for a landline.  In fact, we didn't even have the electricians run a phone line in the house we built in 2012.  (And we've had no desire for that connection).  However, my dad and stepmom still employ a house phone, which I may call after I have called both cell phones, texted both of them, and called or texted my sister to see if she had heard from either of them in a couple of days; however, it's not even programmed into my cell phone.  The reason I don't want a landline stems from the brief period time where I did have one.  I received two types of phone calls: one from telemarketers, and one from my mom and my mother-in-law (by this time, I'd trained my dad to just use my cell phone).  In addition to the physical ownership of a landline, the way that we utilize our cell phones is quite different.  My cell phone is my lifeline to the world.  I receive email on it, use it for Facebook, play virtual games on it, and about 1% of the time use it for the intent of actually calling someone.  Contrarily, my dad uses his phone 99% of the time for calling, and 1% of the time for checking the time. (Oh, and it better sound like a telephone ring, because it is after all, a phone).  With an age difference of less than 30 years, the way that we use a telephone is quite different, which makes me wonder how will my children's use of the telephone (or whatever it morphs into) look like 30 years from now.

Next, let's look at television.  My husband and I own two television sets, my dad and stepmom own three.  They have cable television.  We have a trilogy of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and refuse to pay for cable (because it has 15 minutes of commercials in an hour long TV show).  The majority of our multimedia viewing takes place via one of the three online subscription services and could be on our iPad, SmartPhones, iPods, or blue-ray player. And our blue-ray player isn't even hooked up to a television set.  It's hooked up to a projector, which projects on the entire living room wall.  Again, I wonder how will my children view entertainment in the future.

What will the electronic future look like for our children?

Greatest Needs Facing Iowa Students & Educators Using Online & Blended Learning

Last week, I discussed the global digital landscape and how the digital divide is impacting the global economy and posed the question about why is it important to us.  Today, I want to focus on the greatest needs facing Iowa students and educators using online and blended learning.

In Iowa, the ICN (Iowa Communications Network) was ran throughout the state beginning in 1989 with a promise that students could unilaterally learn whether they were at Indian Hills Community College, Kirkwood Community College, Iowa Lakes Community College, or any of the other 12 community colleges in the state.  Today, the fiber optic backbone reaches all 99 counties in Iowa and extends to 500 sites throughout the state including K-12 buildings, libraries, hospitals, and both private and public colleges and universities and totals 3100 miles of its own backbone and leases another 3500 miles of backbone. The ultimate goal was that no one would be more than 15 miles away from an accessible ICN point.

Having the state's network in every county helps ease some of the digital divide, but there's still a divide happening in areas where carriers aren't fronting broadband costs because it would be cost prohibitive.  In addition, there is a difference between what is available in a more urban area and what is available in rural areas.  Students who can access the internet via broadband connections at home exist where there are local internet service providers or rural cooperatives; however, the further away from an urban area someone is, the less options they have when it comes to internet service and/or providers.

Three years ago, I lived in a town that had two options for internet.  One ISP offered DSL; the other offered cable internet.  Being that the town only had a population of approximately 2500, there was very little competition, which meant that if we wanted cable TV and high-speed internet, our monthly bill totaled more than $127/month.  In addition, the service never had to be good, because we didn't have any other provider we could go with unless we wanted to reduce our bandwidth.

I also lived in an area in the early 2000's where the only option for internet was dial-up.  This was a mere seven miles outside of a town with a population of more than 25,000 people and DSL was the most popular high-speed internet at that time.  However, being outside the city limits the possibility of DSL wasn't even an option.  The only option that I had at that time was to pay for a landline and add dial-up internet to it.

Another example where the digital divide among the Iowa landscape was apparent was two years ago when a family member lived outside of a small southern Iowa town next near the Mississippi River. The only two options for internet in that area were satellite or dial-up.  This meant that although the family could access the internet, it wasn't an ideal setting for someone that might be looking for a job, streaming videos, or even online banking.

In the early 2000's the normal procedure for finding and securing a job wasn't necessarily by going online and filling out a job application; however, today it is extremely important to be able to access the internet to search and apply for jobs.  In addition, the classrooms from the early 2000's looked like the classrooms from the 1960's, 70's, 80's, or 90's.  However, as devices became more interactive, classrooms shifted.  Today, you can find classrooms with interactive white boards, 1:1 devices, and interaction among students and teachers via blogs, wikis, and sometimes social media.

Even distance learning has shifted from making the teacher the center of the classroom to putting the student in the center and providing access to anytime, anywhere classes.  This model of asynchronous learning helps students truly learn the material and be more focused on the meta-cognition of learning than on what the teacher is saying.

With these shifts in the educational setting and the move to having more flipped classrooms it is possible to get in the trap of the "have" and "have-not" students.  One of the variables that plays into this is the availability of high-speed internet (which as of today is greater than 4 mbps) in all areas, regardless of whether someone lives in a rural area or an urban area.

The Digital Divide

Introduction

Our program expands throughout the state of Iowa; therefore, about four times per year, I find myself visiting a variety of school districts and driving varying distances.  Last Thursday, was one such time.  I tend to catch up on NPR on the drive and listen to the debates about whatever policies are central at the time.  Last Thursday, On Point with Tom Ashbrook aired, "Global Internet Access for the Next Four Billion."  Since it finished airing right when I got to the first school of the day, I asked the TAG teacher what the experience had been for her students.  The response was that at school, the technology person was great and the interruptions in their internet service were slim to none, but she admitted that it was quite possible that not all students had internet access at home.  I posed the question to the next counselor I met with and he said that because their town had a cooperative, the internet access was fantastic.  So as I was returning from two very rural schools to the eastern side of the state, I pondered the question, "Is it a basic human right to have access to high-speed internet and how do we address the digital divide?"

The Broadband Report Summary

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development published its report The State of Broadband 2015: Broadband as a Foundation for Sustainable Development this month.  In this report, it addresses how the digital divide is being stubbornly persistent, especially with extending broadband access in spite of the last-mile requirements in remote and rural areas.  It also states that 57% of the world's population does not have regular internet access, but the amount of devices that wealthier parts of the world are connecting are at a ratio of six devices for every one person.  Also, the fastest growing market is in mobile technology.  

The State of Broadband 2015: Broadband as a Foundations for Sustainable Development writes about how the goal of the UN Commission was that every person on the planet would be within easy access of a telephone (meaning a within a day's walk) thirty years ago.  Now, with mobile technology at the tips of more than 50% of the world's population, and 90% of the planet having access to a mobile network, it's not as easy to know what should be done about the digital divide.

Why Does It Matter?

So, we're privileged to live in the United States of America (although income inequality is high and men and women still have wage equity disputes) and have been born into more wealth than people from some countries will see in their lifetimes, sometimes it's hard to care about what people in Africa need when it comes to technology.  However, we should.  We should care because having national broadband will help countries grow economically.

What are some ways it matters to you?

Accountability for At-Risk Students

Learner Persistence

Adult learners aren't forced to come to classes by compulsory attendance laws; however, programs with the greatest success rates find that their students show persistence.  How can a program help students achieve this?  By holding adult learners accountable for their learning.

The state of Iowa has switched to managed enrollment for adult education and English Language Learners, so students cannot just "drop-in" at their convenience and be catered to.  Students must register and be enrolled in a course before they can attend their classes.

In order to do this, Kirkwood High School Completion programs on the main campus offers different informational sessions, which are followed by a Pathways to Success course.  Once students have completed the Pathways to Success Course, students are then allowed to choose the diploma option that is right for them.

By asking students to invest time in their education up front, the program is seeing increased learner persistence.  The Pathways to Success course is designed to help students identify the barriers in their own lives and create connections to deal with the crises that life throws their way.

Accountability

Students must attend the 4 days of the Pathways to Success course before they are allowed to enroll in High School Equivalency Diploma or Kirkwood Adult High School Diploma classes.  If the student fails to attend any of the first four days, he/she must start over with the Pathways to Success course the next time it is offered.

The retention rate of students has hovered around 50-55% and this year the state of Iowa has a retention rate of 60%.  Retention of students is defined for the Kirkwood Secondary Programs as the number of students who complete a pre and post growth assessment, which means that they've been in the program for at least 40 hours of instruction.

In the past, we've tried to give students a disincentive of paying a re-registration fee of $25 and allowed them to continue in their same course; however, that doesn't discourage students from taking an incomplete in a course and playing "course-hop." The latest idea that we've had is to allow students four months (plus a one-month grace period) to complete their course.  If the student fails to complete the course in that time period, then he/she will be issued a failing grade and a zero and they will have to restart the whole course from the beginning.  

What have other programs done to hold adult learners accountable?

School-Related Factors for At-Risk Students

Factors Related to School Causing At-Risk Students

In the publication, Situations that Put Youth At-Risk, it identifies these factors as causing students to be at-risk:

• Conflict between home/school culture
• Clash of home/school values
• Ineffective discipline system
• Lack of adequate counseling
• Lack of relevant curriculum
• Passive instructional strategies
• Inappropriate use of technology
• Retentions/suspensions
• Disregard of student learning styles
• Lack of tactile/kinistetic learning
• Low expectations
• Inadequate teacher-preparation

All of these factors seem to be timeless and students who are at-risk benefit from having individualized instruction and active learning opportunities.  This is where online and blended learning can help.

In iNACOL's latest white paper, Using Online Learning for Credit Recovery:  Getting Back on Track to Graduation, the schools that are seeing the best success with their credit recovery program are utilizing learning centers where all of the students' needs are being met and are using programs that have both an on-site facilitator and an online facilitator.  This helps students receive the immediate feedback they need in regards to process and it also helps keep students on track.  The online facilitator can then be a resource when it comes to content-specific questions.

Kirkwood's High School Distance Learning program uses online facilitators to meet the highly-qualified teaching mandates.  In addition, schools that are using its resources are also encouraged to have an on-site mentor or coach for students to go to with questions.  This person can act as a liaison between the Kirkwood staff and the student, if necessary.

Schools that utilize holistic approaches to help students recover credits, see greater results than those who just throw them into computer-based software programs that have very little teacher involvement and do not prepare the student for college or careers.  By giving students the support of counseling, tutoring, and face-to-face instruction with teachers, the at-risk students are more likely to become more productive members of society and earn their high school diplomas.

Kirkwood HSDL Meeting Needs of Rural Schools

Background of Kirkwood HSDL

Kirkwood High School Distance Learning began more than 30 years ago and was known as the Kirkwood Correspondence Program.  In 2007, the name was changed to Kirkwood High School Distance Learning, as it began offering online programming at that time.  Students across the state of Iowa use the same curriculum that the Kirkwood Adult High School students use to fulfill their learning needs.  Some students take courses to recover credits that they failed, some take courses to advance their learning, and some students take courses due to their own interest in a subject.

How it Works

Students enrolling in Kirkwood HSDL begin by talking to their high school counselor.  If a Kirkwood HSDL course is the correct fit for the student, then the school counselor will fill out the registration form and submit it to Kirkwood HSDL.  Currently, schools determine whether or not they will pay for the course; however, beginning July 1, 2016, schools will be billed for all courses that are scheduled during the academic year.   Students may not start courses without a signature from themselves, their parents (if under 18), and a school official.  Once all those signatures are on file, Kirkwood HSDL enrolls the students in the course for which they've registered.

Some classes are offered exclusively online and Kirkwood HSDL offers a few courses exclusively by book (also known as correspondence).  In total, there are more than fifty courses that students and schools are able to choose from.  

Help for Rural Schools

The state of Iowa is home to more than 300 school districts, over 75% of them very small.  More than 250 districts across the state of Iowa had less than 100 students enrolled in twelfth grade as of March 9, 2015 (Iowa Department of Education Statistics).  Only 1% of school districts, for a total of 3, had enrollments larger than 1000 students in grade twelve (Iowa Department of Education Statistics).

So what happens when you live outside the populous centers of Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities?  You go to a small school, which may or may not have all the classes that you need to be college and/or career ready.  In fact, sometimes a required class may overlap an elective course, which could put a student behind when he/she applies to college.  That's where Kirkwood HSDL can help.  If a student attending a small school can't fit a world language into his/her schedule, we offer Spanish and French as flexible enrollment online courses.  The student can then take his/her required courses for graduation at the time that they are offered at school and then can take the electives at a time that doesn't overlap, giving them the freedom of place, time, and/or pace.

Similarly, students who have failed courses, can retake part or all of the course that they've missed through Kirkwood HSDL.  This helps students who know one concept or skill, but not another, and prevents them from drowning in the drudgery of the seat-time for a concept they already know and helps them get back on track to graduation.

Could schools come up with programs to help their students recover credits or advance their learning without a program like Kirkwood HSDL?  Yes, but because Kirkwood already has the materials and the facilitators, it makes just as much sense to contract with Kirkwood HSDL to provide classes for one or two students at a time, rather than hire a full-time teacher or para-educator to provide services. 

Full-time teachers and para-educators that aren't busy worrying about developing the curriculum, aligning it to standards or benchmarks, or grading papers now have time to focus on the student.  By giving the student a support system at his/her local school, he/she is more likely to become a high school graduate and become a contributing member to our society.

Supplemental Online Learning for Rural Schools

In @nacol's latest publication, "Using Online Learning for Credit Recovery:  Getting Back on Track to Graduation," Kirkwood HSDL is mentioned for its use of supplemental online courses.  During the 2012-13 academic year, we had a 38% increase in the usage of our online tools for students across the state of Iowa from the 2011-2012 academic year.

Last fall, two members of our high school completion program, along with the staff from Clinton High School's offsite program, had the privilege of sharing "Supplemental Online Learning for Rural Schools."  This addressed some of the reasons that students don't finish high school and what Clinton, IA schools are doing to alleviate some of the problems.

You can view our Prezi here.

Asynchronous or Synchronous Online Learning

Here's a simple graphic to help understand the difference between asynchronous and synchronous online learning.

CCRS

In the adult education world, you hear the term CCRS, but what does that mean?  It stands for College and Career Readiness Standards, but what does that really mean?  The College and Career Readiness Standards are designed to give adult learners a way to measure their learning as compared to other adult learners.

If our goal is simply to get students diplomas, that isn't enough.  Adult learners are already at a disadvantage because they didn't receive their high school credential on a traditional timeline and by lowering the expectations, these adults will not be prepared for jobs that pay a living wage.

The goal of the CCR standards is to prepare adult learners for college without needing remediation. Since the adult education programs in the state of Iowa are free, it makes sense for the learners to attend our programs and brush up on all their academic skills before entering the college atmosphere. This makes the most fiscal sense to adult learners.

To summarize, CCRS literally means College and Career Readiness Standards.  College and Career Readiness means that students can enter a freshman level course and be ready for the rigor that is demanded of them without needing remediation.

How To Personalize Learning in an Online and Blended Environment

In the previous post, I discussed the overarching concept of personalized learning.  Now, I'd like to delve deeper into the "how" of providing personalized learning.

First and foremost, online and blended learning isn't for every student in every situation.  Therefore, if you throw students into online and blended learning without giving them the tools and support they need, they will not succeed.  However, for those students who are ready for online and blended learning there can be so many ways to help them that didn't exist twenty years ago without a lot of human-intensive labor.

Let's take students who need to review the basic number system.  Twenty years ago in a third grade classroom, the teacher would take one unit to review the basic number system and label the ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on.  He or she would assign a worksheet or problems from a textbook and the student would continue on with his/her peers at a steady pace, allowing for not a lot of flexibility from the really bright students to the struggling students.

Today, those same students can enter into a virtual classroom and take a pretest to see what concepts they're missing.  Teachers can then personalize their learning to reinforce that concept, while giving the more advanced students more advanced learning opportunities, such as applying the place values of numbers to money.  The students who are struggling can then work in a smaller group and work on one-to-one correspondence and grouping objects into groups of ten to give them a more concrete example of place value.  Students from all areas of the spectrum are then able to do activities that meet their needs best.

Competency Based Learning
The goal of each grade level in the US is that students become competent at the skills they need before moving onto the next grade-level.  A school using competency-based learning is one where students aren't bound to their seats for a certain amount of time (Carnegie-unit), but rather learn the skill they need and move on to the next skill.  It's kind of like a 4, 6, and 10 year old who have never taken swimming lessons before.  The four year old has been exposed to the water, but has never formally taken lessons.  The six year old is terrified of the water and the 10 year old is comfortable, but he/she needs some basic skills before he/she can move to the next level.  In this case, the four-year-old is likely to be more competent in the skill of submerging his/her face than the six or ten-year-old.  The four-year-old will likely put his/her face in the water and push off from the wall demonstrating competency in the prone glide, while the level of competency of the six year old may be standing on the bottom step of the pool without crying.  In the case of swimming, they're all getting the same type of instruction, but it's being tailored to individual needs.

Standards Based Learning
To better understand standards-based grading, think about how you are evaluated in a workplace. You have a clear set of expectations that are given to you and you are expected to meet or exceed those expectations.  Standards based grading is giving students clear expectations of what they should be able to do by the time they finish a unit or lesson.  From there, you can assess whether a student is proficient, partially proficient, not proficient, or advanced and adjust your instruction accordingly.

Mastery-Based Learning
Mastery-based learning is a blend of competency-based and standard-based learning.  Mastery-based means that students have to master a skill or concept at a critical level before being allowed to move forward.  With online learning, you can easily adjust the mastery-level of assessments before allowing students to proceed.  So when a student takes a test or quiz and receives less than a 60%, for example, he/she would be required to retake that before the next unit will even open.



Follow Brandi's board Kirkwood High School Distance Learning on Pinterest.

CCRS

Personalized Learning

What is personalized learning?

Personalized learning is the new buzz-word in education and in some ways goes back to the one-room school house.  It is meeting the needs of each and every learner and allowing them to fully master a concept or idea before being taught a new one.  It basically means that a student who comes to school knowing his/her letter sounds can be taught to read while other students who do not know their letter sounds can work on phonemic awareness.  It also means that students who do well with simple instructions and prefer learning independently can do so while students who are social learners can learn from each other.

Who participates in personalized learning?

Anyone can participate in personalized learning, but those who attended classes through the 80's and 90's probably spent time sitting in desks, listening to teachers describe the process of multiplying by lining up the numbers and carrying the one have to wrap their heads around the teacher not being the center of learning.  Personalized learning would mean teaching the multiplication concepts in varying ways and allowing the students to choose which method works best for them.

When does personalized learning occur?

Anytime!  Anytime that a student is engaged in learning a concept personalized learning is occurring.  Does that have to occur between the hours of 8 AM & 3:30 PM?  No!  Personalized learning may be while students are playing with a jump rope and counting the number of jumps to learn one-to-one correspondence, or it may be while a student is learning to blow bubbles while swimming and the instructor is telling the story of the Three Little Pigs and using the "Then I'll huff, and puff, and blow your house down," to reinforce not only the action of blowing bubbles in the swimming pool, but to reinforce literary concepts.

Where does personalized learning occur?

Anywhere!  Personalized learning doesn't need to be confined to a brick-and-mortar school building.  It can happen anywhere, and it should happen everywhere.  It could be in the traditional classroom, the library, on a field trip, in a museum, online, in the park, or in a swimming pool.  The possibilities of where learning can occur are endless and students who receive personalized learning, learn concepts how and where they learn best.

Why should learning be personalized?

Learning should be personalized because we no longer live in a one-size-fits-all society.  The majority of us are able to personalize our entertainment beyond the big three broadcasters and many of us have ditched the concept of television as we grew up with it altogether.  So why should learning be any different?  Students are no longer going into jobs that have existed for many years, instead, they are going into fields that we may not even have the concepts for yet.

How do we personalize learning?

Students receive personalized learning by being surrounded by people that can provide them with learning opportunities at every intersection in their life.  In addition, the world of online and blended learning has opened up a huge window to the data that can help transform a student's learning. Read more about the "How" in the next blog post.





Follow Brandi's board Kirkwood High School Distance Learning on Pinterest.

An Intersection Between Traditional High School and Adult High School

The concrete floors glisten, the red, blue, or green lockers clank together while the halls smell of a variety of pleasant and unpleasant body odors and a mixture of both breakfast and lunch permeating from the cafeteria.  The noise is the buzz of what happened over the weekend and what the plans are to attend the football game on Friday night.  The 8:20 bell rings and students slam their lockers shut and hurry to their first period classes, where they sit and listen, well mostly listen, to their teachers describe the Civil War, infinitive verbs, verb phrases, tone, pitch, and the Pythagorean Theorem.  In this brick and mortar building, education is still running as a factory-style model for education.

Contrarily, at an adult high school, one is not likely to find lockers, cafeterias, or the buzz of what is happening over the weekend; however, the expectation is being set that when the clock says 9 AM, the door shuts and you're expected to be ready to begin class.  Students enter the adult education world for a variety of reasons with a varying amount of baggage, so it's our job as adult educators to get them to think beyond the baggage and start forward thinking.  Here, students are expected to identify their barriers and work collaboratively with others to hold themselves accountable.  The instructor guides them, but the work is theirs and connections are made to the students' daily lives.

But what about the students who are still high school age, but don't fit the mold for a factory-style educational system?  Are there resources for them?  Yes!  Kirkwood HSDL is the intersection between the traditional high school world and the adult education world.  Students still work through their brick-and-mortar high school, but they also are able to take some flexible classes through our program.  These classes could be by book or online and students are able to work at their own pace to complete them, as long as they complete them in 4 months.

In order for students, who are currently enrolled in a brick-and-mortar high school to take courses with Kirkwood HSDL, they must first receive permission from the school.  These students are then allowed to take the same courses that the adult high school diploma students take and transfer the credit back to their high school.  By being the bridge between what a traditional school has to offer and the adult high school diploma program, we are hopeful that more students will graduate from their own high school.

Think Twice Before Leaving High School

Almost everyday, my colleagues and I hear a million reasons why the traditional school setting doesn't work for a particular student.  Sometimes there are legitimate reasons, such as being bullied, or illness; however, for the student that thinks entering the adult high school world will solve all his/her problems, they may be surprised to find that it is not a swim in the wading pool to get to the finish line of a high school credential.  Instead, it may well be a dive into the unknown depth of the sea.

For students who have an IEP, it is likely that once you exit the high school doors, the support network that once engulfed you will not look the same.  Those teachers that help you succeed, monitor your progress, and assist your classroom teachers with modifications to your assignments may not exist in the high school equivalency diploma world.  That doesn't mean that the teachers you do get won't care; it simply means that the same level of support you have right now doesn't exist when you decide to leave your high school.

Our expectations for students getting their high school equivalency diploma are as follows:
1.) Come in for an informational session.
2.) Sign-up to attend a Pathways to Success course
3.) Attend your scheduled Pathways to Success course
4.) Take an enrollment test
5.) Meet with an advisor
6.) Take classes
7.) Take the HiSET® Tests/or high school diploma tests

To reinforce what it takes to complete your high school diploma through a Kirkwood's High School Equivalency program, take a look at this video.  Kirkwood High School Completion Programs hope that you will think twice before leaving your high school in hopes of earning an equivalency diploma, but will be here if you need us.

Highly Qualified Online Facilitators

At Kirkwood HSDL, we fill a very unique need for schools and students that need flexible courses to meet their needs.  In order to meet the requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), school districts must provide their learners with highly-qualified instructors in content areas. For many reasons, it may be difficult for a school strict to find a highly-qualified teacher and that's where Kirkwood HSDL can help.

We employee about 18 part-time online facilitators that hold their Iowa teaching license in the subject area that they are assigned.  They help answer students' content questions and do virtual face-to-face meetings with students on an as-needed basis.  When it comes to technical questions or Kirkwood FT HSDL staff take care of that.

The online facilitators are responsible for welcoming students to their course, giving them any additional course expectations that they have, and keeping the students on target to finish in their four-month window.

By taking the burden of finding highly qualified content-area experts away from the local school district, the district can focus on helping the student(s) achieve success.  They can do this by assigning coaches to monitor students' progress and having regular check-ins with the students.

Flexible Enrollment

Flexible Enrollment

Who can enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses?

Students in Iowa high schools may enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses.  Students should be working with their school counselors to see if the courses Kirkwood HSDL offers are the right fit for them. Once students have permission from their local Iowa high school, then they may complete our registration form and begin working on classes.

What are Kirkwood HSDL courses?

Kirkwood High School Distance Learning offers more than 50 online and book-based courses. Courses range from middle-school level courses for students needing to review the basics all the way to pre-AP courses.  Kirkwood uses content providers for their online courses and uses mostly AGS textbooks for the book-based courses.

When can one enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses?

Kirkwood offers flexible enrollment to students taking their courses.  This means that a student may sign up for a course any day that the HSDL office is open.  From the time the registration is processed, a student is allowed to take up to four calendar months to complete the course.  However, because we offer flexible enrollment, a student may start the course on the first of October and be finished with it by November 15th.  Once the student finishes that course, he/she may enroll in another course immediately.

Where can one enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses?

Students may call the HSDL office at 319-784-1517 to schedule a same-day appointment if they want to start immediately.  Additionally, there are three other easy ways to submit a registration.  School administrators or parents may mail the registration form and payment to Kirkwood HSDL.  For faster service, parents or administrators may email it, or fax it the HSDL office and then call with a Visa, Master Card, or Discover Card payment.

Why would one enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses?

Students around the state of Iowa enroll in Kirkwood HSDL courses for a variety of reasons.  One reason may be that a student failed a course and he/she needs to make up the credit for graduation. Another reason may be that a student would like to graduate early and he/she needs the credit to advance.  A final reason may be that a student goes to a very small school and Spanish and government are offered at the same time, so he/she can only take one course at school.

For more information visit our website.

Successful World Language Acquisition in Online and Blended Learning?

World Language Acquisition

In the US, world language has been mostly reserved for high school and college students.  For those students who follow the traditional route in the US, is it possible to be successful at learning a world language through online and blended learning?

Student Enrollments in Kirkwood HSDL Online French and Spanish Courses

During the 2014-15 school year, Kirkwood HSDL enrolled 32 students in French I and French II.  Of these 33 students, 3 were dropped from the course for various reasons.  Kirkwood HSDL also enrolled a total of 7 Spanish students in levels I, II, and III; 3 of which were dropped from their courses for various reasons.

From a total of 40 enrollments between French and Spanish across all levels, 85% of the students finished their semester-length courses.  Of those students that finished (34), 47% (16 students) finished with scores between 90 and 100%, 50% (17 students) finished with scores between 80 and 89%, and 3% (1 student) finished with scores between 70 and 79%. 

What This Data Says about Successful Language Acquisition in Online and Blended Learning

Kirkwood HSDL enrolled approximately 960 students for the 2014-2015 school year.  Of those 960 students, only 40 students enrolled in world language courses.  This is only about 4% of the total enrollments in online courses, so the sample size is quite small; however, the outcome shows that the majority of students enrolled in the Kirkwood HSDL world language courses complete the course with a mastery level of 80% or higher.

Successful World Language Acquisition?

The minute amount of data given here, suggests that students are able to be successful in an online and blended learning environment; however, further research is needed to determine what factors contribute to student success in world language acquisition in an online and blended learning environment.

Personalized Learning in the Adult Education & Literacy World

As consumers of technology, we know how quickly change happens.  When was the last time that you dialed in a telephone number from memory?  When was the last time you read the newspaper on newsprint?  When was the last time that you developed film?  For me, it's been years since I dialed a phone number from memory, a couple days since I read a newspaper on newsprint, and almost nine years ago that I took film in to have it developed (and still have cameras at home from my wedding 9 years ago that need to get developed).

In the world of adult education and literacy, the technology available as a means of personalizing learning haven't surfaced in the same way that they've surfaced in the K-12 world.

About a month ago, I experienced global learning by virtually attending the Education On Air conference powered by Google for Education.  It provided insights to the way students are learning how to learn and gave educators permission to give students permission to fail and to fail along with the students.

Fail?!

Yes, fail.  You learn more from failing than by succeeding and those who never learned how to pick themselves up after failing get stuck in middle-management level jobs forever.  In the USA, it's a four-letter word, but in Finland, students are rewarded for failing.

I see how empowering project-based, hands-on learning is for the students who attend schools that embrace it and wonder why we can't move forward with it in adult education & literacy.