An Overview of Kirkwood High School Completion Programs

"Real" Online Learning

Is online learning as "real" as face-to-face learning? I'd say yes, and more so, but it's my preferred learning method. Other people may say that face-to-face learning trumps online learning any day and still others may say that blended learning is the merging of two ingredients like peanut butter and jelly that makes the perfect combination.

As I am writing this, I recall a conversation I had not too long ago with another mom. She's planning to go back to school when her youngest starts kindergarten this fall. She was telling me that there's a program only about an hour away, but she didn't know if she'd want to commit to that. Of course, I said that she didn't have to that she could probably do some classes online. I was surprised that she thought employers would look at online learning as a "fake" degree.

Although online learning is different, it's not fake. It is very real and just as you can zone out in face-to-face classes, you can also lurk in online classes. Basically, you get into what you put into it - which could be a lot or it could be very little. It depends on your investment.

That brings me to another point though - not all online programs are created equally and you definitely should research the programs! Some programs are cost-efficient, where others will try and make a profit. Don't be caught in a dangerous trap, do your research!

So now that we've covered that online learning is real, but different and to research your investment, what other items are key in online learning? First, is motivation. Remember you get out what you put in. Try and stay motivated! Have a plan - and stick to it.

Having a plan and sticking to it can be easier said than done. How many times do you commit to moving more and eating less on January 1 to have it all crumble into a pile of cake crumbs by January 15th? The same is true for online learning - sticking to the plan will be hard, but try - and the best way to do that is to find someone who will hold you accountable. 

Now that you're motivated, have a plan, and have an accountability partner, you're ready to start online learning. Students who start strong in a course, finish the course! Here at Kirkwood HSDL we say try to spend two hours per day in your class most days per week (as in treat it just like a regular face-to-face course). Let us know what you do to stay motivated in your online courses.

WIOA - No Wrong Door

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act often referred to as WIOA is a way to bring together puzzle pieces to form a complete picture and allow job seekers to enter as the top left corner piece, the bottom right corner piece, or the center of the puzzle and be connected to the resources they need to find a job. There are seven elements to this:

• Element 1 – Work up-front with employers to determine local or regional hiring needs and design training programs that are responsive to those needs. 
• Element 2 – Offer work-based learning opportunities with employers—including on-the-job training, internships, and pre-apprenticeships and Registered Apprenticeship as training paths to employment. 
• Element 3 – Make better use of data to drive accountability, inform what programs are offered and what is taught, and offer user-friendly information for job seekers to choose what programs and pathways work for them and are likely to result in jobs. 
• Element 4 – Measure and evaluate employment and earnings outcomes. 
• Element 5 – Promote a seamless progression from one educational stepping stone to another, and across work-based training and education, so individuals’ efforts result in progress. 
• Element 6 – Break down barriers to accessing job-driven training and hiring for any American who is willing to work, including access to supportive services and relevant guidance. 
• Element 7 – Create regional collaborations among American Job Centers, education institutions, labor, and non-profits. 

Each piece of the puzzle is unique and offers services that not all the other programs offer, but can connect with those around to help bridge the needs of job seekers to those of the different services provided. 

So let's take a look at Element 5. How do we offer our job seekers/students seamless transitions from one stepping stone to another? Is it co-location? Is it co-programming? It may be - but, the real intention is to put less burden on the clients.

In our adult ed program, we already build bridges with other programs fairly well; however, we still don't understand every name, acronym or service that all entities under the WIOA law have. So under our adult high school completion program umbrella sits adult basic education and ESL. Under a different umbrella: Skills to Employment sits adult and youth dislocated worker, training pathways, and some tuition assistance. These two programs have some co-location with the Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services and the Iowa Workforce Development offices. However, job seekers and students don't always enter the best door to meet their needs on the first try. How can we make the bridge smoother in the areas that have a lot of bumps so that there really is no wrong door?

Treat Others as THEY Would Like to Be Treated

We've all heard the teacher, parent, or other adult say to a child, "Treat others how you'd like to be treated" - but what if the way you want to be treated isn't the same as the way someone else wants to be treated? Sure, there are some things that are fairly universal - hitting isn't nice; but what about the cultural differences that clash with our "norms?"

In the U.S., we want to see eye contact from our students. In other cultures, it is disrespectful. So how do we bridge the two? Can we honor culture and understand that not everywhere expects the same of their children, while still teaching to the customs of our society - or should we?

What happens when you're so worried about treating everyone else how he/she wants to be treated and you don't feel anyone reciprocating? Personally, I struggle with this - especially with phone calls versus email. My preferred method of communication is email. I can see the problem, figure out how to solve it and generally resolve it within a few seconds. With phone calls, I am being interrupted from my thought process and it's at least 10 minutes before the issue is entirely resolved. Unfortunately, phone calls are a necessary part of my job and there's a handful of people who always call - even when what needs to be said would be more efficient in an email or a text.

So, how can we embrace the new golden rule of treating others how they want to be treated, while encouraging others to treat us how we want to be treated?

Don't Hate Math

image from iClipart for Schools

Who remembers the timed tests that showed who the fastest person at math facts were? Twenty-five years ago, I remember sitting in a classroom surrounded by students who were rushing through trying to compute math facts at a rapid pace and get the whole sheet completed in under a minute. I wasn’t a student who struggled, but I was a friend to many of the underdogs.

Our education system was set up for ranking of students and not to appreciate the growth. Even students who may go from completing one problem to solving two problems in a minute have made 100% growth – and by simply assigning correct versus incorrect we’re not showing students that with effort, they can be good at math.

As Valerie Strauss explains in Stop Telling Kids You’re Bad At Math. You are spreading math anxiety ‘like a virus’:

Mathematics surrounds us, yet we have become accustomed to avoiding numerical thinking at all costs. There is no doubt that bad high school teaching and confusing textbooks are partly to blame. But a more pernicious habit does the most damage. We are perpetuating damaging myths by telling ourselves a few untruths: math is inherently hard, only geniuses understand it, we never liked math in the first place and nobody needs math anyway.

Too often, especially in adult education, we see the students come in to our classes with the conviction that “I’m not good at math.” As adult educators, it’s our job to help students see that they can be good, even great, at math. Gone are the days when the teacher’s way of solving a problem is the only way to solve a problem. I hear it every day from one of our high school completion instructors – “If you have a question, or a different way to solve a problem, please share. It’s likely that someone else has the same question or will benefit from seeing a different way to solve the problem.” Let’s embrace the uniqueness that we each have and show students that they really can be great at math.

As for those timed-tests in math, I’m not sure I’ve used them very much – especially since I can carry a calculator with me nearly everywhere I go. 

5 Ways to Be a Successful High School Equivalency Student

5 Ways to Be Successful

image from iClipart for Schools

It happens. You drop out of high school. Down the road, you need to pick up the pieces, but you aren't sure where to start. Each state has their own program designed to help students who have dropped out of a traditional high school get their high school credential. Here are five steps that you can do, no matter where you live, to help be successful in high school.

1. Be ready
2. Know your support system
3. Recognize barriers
4. Attend class regularly
5. Look ahead

Be ready

The only person who knows if you're truly ready to embark on the journey to finishing high school is you. You need to decide if you want to accept the help that adult high school programs can provide. The programs can guide you, but you're the one doing the work - so you need to be ready.

Know you support system

Connect. Connect with family, friends, mentors, teachers, counselors, pastors, and classmates. If you don't already have a great one, find or make a support system. Use the support system that will help propel you forward. It might be hard to ask for help, but those people who are truly supporting you will gladly offer their support. 

Recognize barriers

Recognize that there will be barriers to success, but have a plan for encountering those barriers. If there are things you are doing, people you associate with, or crisis that you might face, what can you do to confront them - and then move past them?

Attend class regularly

One of the surest ways to have a support system is to attend your classes regularly. Regularly means that you are in class at least 95% of the time. That means that out of 10 days of class, you're present at least 9 1/2 days!

Look ahead

Set a goal for yourself beyond getting the diploma. Where do you want to go next? What's your next adventure? Sure, you want to get the diploma, but you'll get it much faster if you know what your next step is.

Microsoft Access - Work Smarter, Not Harder

There are some things in life that one must work hard at - such as maintaining a healthy lifestyle. However, there are somethings that can be accomplished by working smarter - and Microsoft Access can help bring that efficiency to the forefront.

Five years ago - almost- when I started in my role as the High School Distance Learning Instructor, there was paper everywhere! It was a generational difference, as the person running the program was getting close to retirement and I respected her need for paper-based items. Slowly, I moved toward a more paper-reduced program (due to the nature of High School Distance Learning we can't go entirely paperless). I began by moving our log book into MS Excel (it just counted the number of students). Next, I made the registration process easier on me by putting labels on the top of columns in excel. Once we'd transitioned for a year and my colleague said her final good-bye, I planned for the next move toward less paper - a database.

Between self-teaching and help from a resident expert, I never attended a Microsoft Access class until last night - and my life at the end of each quarter just got easier! I had figured out the basics of tables, forms, and queries; but, I did not know that I could easily generate a report with a few mouse clicks. Now, I can run a report that summarizes all the information that I would spend between 8 & 10 hours on manually and I have saved myself time and am working smarter.

Image from iClipart for Schools

Goals - Keys to Success

I've had the pleasure to have three interns from the Jane Boyd Community House/Four Oaks PATHS program spend their internship time with the HSDL Program at Kirkwood Community College. The growth of these individuals from the time they start their four or five weeks with me to the day they graduate from the program is phenomenal. I am lucky enough to get invited to their graduations on a regular basis and it's always wonderful to hear the success stories and be a part of them.

Today, at the graduation ceremony, the leaders discussed how participants in the program write a SMART goal on the first day of being a graduate on the last day. The very first goal they write is "I will graduate from the PATHS program on insert date here>>." That's not the only goal they write, but perhaps the most powerful one. This cohort, I had a lady that never finished her high school diploma placed with me for her internship. One day, she asked me if it would be possible for her to finish her high school diploma - and today, she took the final test to get her official Kirkwood Adult High School diploma. She had A LOT of support from me, the other high school completion staff, and her PATHS coordinators to hold her accountable. But she also had a goal - to finish her high school diploma by the time she graduated from the PATHS program - and she met it.

Goals are important to success - and I am so glad that our intern can move on to bigger and better things.

Innovation - Diving Deep into the Definition

Having volunteered for the Theory of Action Task Force  for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, I participated in our third meeting last night. I was surrounded by quite like-minded educators and found myself diving into a deep discussion about innovation. Our task was to create a belief statement that would lead to "Excellence for All" around the big idea of innovation. We had some research discussing innovation to read and we had community input to sort through. 

Much of our discussion centered around how schools are designed to produce little robots that have a uniform way of thinking. We referenced this RSA Animated talk by Sir Ken Robinson as we were discussing this, as the art teacher in my group and I had both seen this short video. We also referenced this article What You Need to Be An Innovative Educator provided to us by the leaders of the Theory of Action Task Force. Two big questions facing us were, "What specifically is innovation?" and "How can we draft a belief statement that isn't full of 'buzzwords'?"

So today, I am thinking about innovation. I am remembering this quote from Bill Gates: "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." I also think about the fact that the jobs that exist today - as we know them - aren't going to exist when my 5 year old graduates from high school. When we think about education and the need for innovation, we need to 1.) accept that learning is social, 2.) move to competency-based education and personalized learning models where students have a voice and choice in time, pace, place, and/or path of learning, 3.)use real-time data to make data-driven decisions, 4.) understand that the factory-model style of education disrupts deep-thinking, and 5.) prepare students for careers/jobs that don't exist - yet!

How can we define our belief in innovation? It's really embracing the change and empowering educators to teach students that it's okay to take risks and if you fail - gulp - you pick yourself up and you try again.

mLearning vs. eLearning

I saw a graphic on Pinterest that sparked my interest. It highlighted the differences between mLearning and eLearning and I just want to share some thoughts on this.

I cannot believe how much teaching and learning has changed in my lifetime! I straddle the line between introverted and extroverted, so computers have been a welcome change in my life. It allows me the freedom to be more introverted through writing and have more of a "crutch" when giving presentations by allowing for visual aids to keep the momentum flowing. My first experience with a computer was a Comodore 128, which was a pretty slick learning tool for me and gave my parents a break from constantly entertaining an only child. My dad taught me how to use the "mouse" (a little toggle switch) and how to carefully move 5.25" floppy disks in and out of the computer. There was no way that this beast would be moved easily, but it did survive for many, many years - especially compared to the Smartphones of today that need upgraded about every 18 months.

At five years old, I'm playing Pac-Man and chasing the little blue ghosts around to try and get more points. (I don't think I ever made it to the final level though). At six, I'm playing on a green screen MAC a number crunchers game in my first grade classroom. At nine I have a Mario Bros. game watch. By the time I am in high school we've passed the Zack Morris cell phone era and they're starting to get smaller. Today we now have wearable technologies that alert us when we've been sitting too long and watches that show us our text messages. These devices are all computers - look how small they've gotten.

Not only have they gotten smaller, but we've gone from the dinosaur computers that take up an entire building to a wearable device that can connect to the internet from almost anywhere. There aren't many places that I go where Wi-Fi isn't readily available!

College & Career Ready?

Each person has a unique story. The push right now is to get our adult learners college and career ready. Colleges and employers often say it's the soft-skills (punctuality, attendance, working with others, telephone and email etiquette) that are needed when a student graduates from a program and enters the college or career field. What is the best use of resources to get someone college and career ready? Where do we find them? How do we motivate students? Who can come away being a more productive member of society upon exiting a program than when they entered?

To the government, it's a (often times arbitrary) gain on a standardized test, showing growth in the early 2000's world. To the teacher, it's the student that moves on to college. To the student, it might mean moving into a new phase of his/her life and finally completing the high school diploma that he/she has been working on since 2005 or before. 

What is college and career readiness, besides a buzzword of the 2010's? Sure, in adult education and literacy we have College & Career Readiness Standards. In showing competency in these standards, one can deduct that a person is then ready to go to college or ready to go seek a career; however, these standards address the academic needs, not the soft-skills.  Therefore, are we really helping adult learners create a bridge to employment?

With the implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act where several entities are working together to help working age people find the best path to employment perhaps we'll actually be making our customers college and career ready.

High Aspirations vs. Survival

Have you met a ten year old who says that his/her aspirations are to drop out of high school and get a high school equivalency diploma? No? Me neither. Most ten-year-olds want to be a doctor, teacher, police officer, or fireman when they grow up. 

When I was ten, I wanted to be an astronomer. The planets fascinated me and so did black holes; however, the more that I learned about astronomy and the math, tables, and science behind it, the less interested I became in it. Do I still love to star-gaze and hypothesize about outer-space and beyond? Sure, but I'm not going to ever become an astronomer.

Somewhere in the throes of late elementary, middle school, and early high school the aspirations of young kids change. There are a few who are stubborn enough to only want to be one thing when they grow up. However, many move into a survival stage and somewhere in late high school/early adulthood they start to have a new dream.

For students who spend all of late elementary through high school surviving sometimes they don't finish their high school graduation requirements. These students will usually end up walking into our high school completion program. Many times these students have been in survival mode for so long that they aren't sure how to set a goal, let alone achieve the goal.

Our class Pathways to Success has helped students identify the coping skills that help them survive, but also challenges them to look beyond the high school diploma/equivalency diploma and ask themselves about what happens after that. 

In a recent meeting, one of the facilitators for Pathways to Success said that the students tend to be more motivated if they have a "carrot" dangling in front of them. If their completion of their high school credential is a ticket to a promotion at a job or the acquisition of the job itself, then they tend to have higher aspirations. If this is their eighteenth time beginning the program with no other goal than to get the high school diploma, then the students tend to be less likely to finish.

Those students who walk in and are in survival mode may finish the coursework they need to move on to college and career, but many are in the midst of life circumstances that prevent them from having the supports they need to continue on to becoming successful citizens.

Do high aspirations help your students be more successful?

The Adult Learner with Anxiety, Depression or Both

We've seen the memes on Facebook that show us how hard "adulting" is. For those who struggle with anxiety, depression, or both it can be even harder. Therefore, how do we in adult basic education make it easier for these individuals to receive our services that are fighting these chronic problems?

At Kirkwood High School Completion programs we're teaching our students how to define those barriers and move forward with their lives. At our largest population center of students without a high school diploma, our information sessions occur about four times per month. This introduces students to the Mt. Everest view of our programs and if they choose, they can sign up for the next step immediately following that session.

We've implemented a Pathways to Success course for students to really focus on some goal setting and building a cohort that can hold their peers accountable for "soft-skills" such as attendance and punctuality. This course meets about two hours two days per week for two weeks. Once a student has attended all four sessions of Pathways to Success he/she is finally able to work toward their high school credential.

We offer two paths to getting a high school diploma. One path is our Kirkwood Adult High School Diploma, while the other is the state of Iowa's equivalency diploma known has the HSED. Students don't choose which program is right for them until after their four sessions of Pathways to Success.

By implementing Pathways to Success our persistence rate is up from last year to this year. Our current enrollment for students that meet the federal (12+ hours) enrollment requirement is up from last year and the number that have stuck around to take a post test is also up significantly from last year.

Students that we typically see in our program are those who have spent the majority of their lives living in crisis mode and need someone to help them see that there are supports in place to help them. By taking the Pathways to Success course to lead off their journey into our program, it helps to keep them moving forward.

If you have anxiety, depression, or both the medical community attributes it to a mixture of biological factors and environmental factors. One of those environmental factors could be that the traditional school environment didn't work for a student. He/she then decided that working would be a better solution and life spirals and spirals and then all of a sudden the person is in their mid-twenties without a high school diploma and he/she gets laid off from his/her job. Or worse, a person walked away from school at 17 and he/she is now 55 and gets laid off from his/her job and needs a high school diploma to find a new one. These are environmental factors that contribute to having depression. Couple the depression with having no idea how one will be able to provide for his/her family and then you have anxiety with the depression.

As educators of adult learners it is our job to put the tools in students' hands to help them cope with the barriers life throws at us. It's to show our students that when "adulting" is becoming too hard that there are resources that are available.

How do you help your students who are fighting anxiety, depression, or both?

A Forgotten 21st Century Skill

Intrigued by a colleague's tweet about "Everyone you meet knows something you don't," linked to a TED Talk by Celeste Headlee. It starts with telling you to forget everything you've been taught about having a conversation and gives ten pointers for having an authentic conversation.

Is this a 21st century skill that we need to deliberately teach? Now that teenagers get an average of 100 texts per day, is it important that we show our kids how to have a conversation? Is it okay to be sitting next to someone and send them a text when you could just talk to them? I'm sure that there's varying opinions on this.

Please comment.

Buzz Words

Last night, I participated in my second Theory of Action Task Force meeting for the Cedar Rapids Community School District. It was an experience that got me to think about what the beliefs around the big ideas were to focus on "Excellence for All." We discussed what was meant by all and what was meant by excellence. In small groups, we identified the key components of excellence and all as was reflected in our hopes for the district. Then we looked at survey data and identified 6 key components of what our actions should focus on.

Our big ideas as a large group were leadership, equity, innovation, culture/climate, student ownership, and student learning. My small group had grouped leadership, innovation, culture/climate, student ownership, and student learning together. We called it empowerment. However, it didn't make the cut when we came back together as the large group and needed to prioritize our big ideas. Once those were decided, we discussed in our small table group how we would draft a belief statement around two of those. Finally, we broke out into each of the 6 sections and created if-then statements concluding with "...and student learning will increase."

I moved my two feet to the innovation area, but as we concluded the evening, I wondered what does innovation mean. To me, innovation is trying new things with the expectation of failure before seeing success. It means that we are thinking outside of the box and not trying to re-create the same product over and over again. It also means embracing creativity. Innovation may not mean the same to you, your children, your neighbor, or your community. It is a buzz word that we use to mean that we're moving forward, but what is the specificity behind the word.

I am a proponent of personalized learning and collaboration, but those words are vague as well. Personalized learning to one person might mean that students choose one project to complete with no regard for seeing exactly where the student's needs are and tailoring the curriculum to meet those needs. Collaboration could mean the meeting of two minds or the meeting of many minds to be in the same room, but not solving any problems.

In Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating, Personalized, Blended and Competency Education, iNACOL identifies descriptors of common buzz words and checks for evolving understanding frequently. It also has a graphic that shows how student centered learning looks. The student is at the center and wrap-around services regarding students' overall learning picture are around the outside to make it personalized.

As educators, we need to be careful about using "buzz words" for the sake of using them. We need to be cognizant of the meaning of these words and find ways to make them meaningful to the larger community.

Graphic from: http://www.inacol.org/news/what-is-personalized-learning/ 

Why Meaning Matters

When I attended the Cedar Rapids Schools equity meeting in January 2016, the buzz words from the district were personalization and innovation. I was quoted on the news as saying personalized learning is a key component of equity. However, I struggle with words being thrown around without fully understanding the definition of them.

Natalie Abel shares in her blog post for iNACOL that we need to have common definitions so that we have a shared understanding of what words like personalized learning and innovation mean.

If the same words mean different things to different people, confusion and frustration can arise, and this creates a serious problem for schools and leaders. If we don’t use common definitions, communication breaks down and it becomes harder to learn from one another.

Personalized learning is so much more than handing a device to a student and saying here complete this activity online and then we'll prescribe your learning. Personalized learning means that schools teach to each student's needs and offer direct instruction, along with technology that enhances student learning and can identify where there are achievement gaps.

In Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education, iNACOL zeroes in on these terms and describes them in great detail. The definitions according to iNACOL's current description are:

Personalized Learning:

Tailoring learning for each student’s strengths, needs and interests–including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when and where they learn–to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.

Blended Learning:

Any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace. The modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience” (Horn & Staker, 2013).

Competency Education:

In 2011, iNACOL and CompetencyWorks led a summit bringing together 100 innovators in competency education for the first time. At that meeting, participants fine-tuned a working definition of high-quality competency education:

• Students advance upon demonstrated mastery;
• Competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students;
• Assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students;
• Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs; and
• Learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge, along with the development of important skills and dispositions.

As I have described personalized learning to my parents and older friends, they laugh and say, "I see this more like a one-room schoolhouse." I usually laugh along with them, because that's what I thought would make the most sense when tailoring to the needs of each student. Perhaps, though, we don't look at it like a one-room school house, but more like a school without walls defining where a student should be according to his/her chronological age.

As a parent, I made a choice, despite my child being chronologically able to start kindergarten this year, that she would attend the alternative kindergarten program and take another year to mature before starting full-day kindergarten. This has cost me more than an extra $6000 in childcare (about 14% of my salary), but for her to be successful in a traditional school setting, she needed one more year to grow. Alternative Kindergarten in our district focuses a lot on social emotional behaviors, but they also assess math and literacy skills. My daughter is doing amazing and her teacher tells me to keep doing what I am doing at home.

So when we look at traditional schools and classrooms, we group students based on their age and have them progress through each grade level without a lot of concern for how much of the content they know and they automatically advance with their peers. However, personalized learning allows for students to master content before advancing and for teachers to identify where the gaps in their learning may be. It also allows for continuous flexible grouping of students so that they can be taught in their zone of proximal development.

Promising Practices in Blended and Online Learning

I stumbled upon a white paper from iNACOL today titled Blended Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015. Reflecting on my own journey with online and blended learning from 2008 to now, I can see how transformative online learning has been during the past 7 years.

I finished my asynchronous master's degree in Educational Technology from MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, KS in July of 2008. Immediately after, I had to take some courses through a different institution to get my ESL endorsement. I was not a happy camper to move from asynchronous instruction to synchronous video-style conferencing at a facility that was over 40 minutes away from my house! Fast forward to the summer of 2009 and the institution that I received my ESL credits from had found a new virtual classroom product; however, they took the classroom and moved it online. It was still synchronous and you were still expected to attend at the time of the class. I survived, but I hated it. Since then, I have moved into a very niche position at a community college in Iowa and help students all over the state take courses online to meet requirements to graduate from their high school.

What I experienced from moving from an asynchronous course to a synchronous course is not best practice for online and blended learning. Online and blended learning is not taking the traditional classroom and moving it online. This is still a top down approach, where teachers are the keepers of information and they are flicking it out to their students. A true blended learning approach allows the students to inquire, investigate, present, collaborate, and reflect (iNACOL 2015).

In addition, online and blended learning is more than adding a few computers or devices to the classroom. Online and blended learning teachers are guides, coaches, mentors, and concierges. They invite students to use technology to find answers and collaborate with others. Sean Cornally, in his blog, Think, Thank, Thunk, writes These Misconceptions Are Keeping School in the 1960's. In this post he talks about how students are creating authentic communication with the greater community of Cedar Rapids and understand that their instructors at Iowa BIG don't have the answers.

I hope that we see continued growth of Iowa BIG for the foreseeable future, because as we are an economy built on information and services, we need future leaders capable of acquiring information, analyzing data, and applying new information in novel ways (iNACOL 2015)

In her February 7, 2016 The Truth About Wasting Time at Work article for www.forbes.com Liz Ryan writes:

We need to lose our “Production First” mindset in order to thrive in the 21st century. We are sixteen years in. It is time to wake up and see what really differentiates so-so organizations from outstanding ones. In the great organizations, we assume that the people we’ve hired are capable of doing their jobs on their own, and much better than we could ever do them.

 Yes! We need to realize that we are 16 years into the twenty-first century and those people, who have jobs that are not scrutinized by a time-stamp on everything they do are typically more happy and more productive than those who don't. The same argument can be made when moving away from a Carnegie unit for students.

For the last century, schools have been given the responsibility of filling in for parents while they work and it has been expected that school is the "job" of young people between the ages of 5 and 18. However, as employers become more flexible and allow more work-from-home opportunities and begin to pay by the task, not the hour, are schools able to adapt?

With the re-authorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act, perhaps we can move away from outdated accountability of making sure students have 60 hours of "seat time," and move to measuring growth. I see this as not only as differentiating the so-so employers from the outstanding ones, but also showing the difference between the so-so schools and the outstanding ones.

11 Big Trends of 2016: Post 11 of 11

Cloud Computing

For the computer geeks of the world, like my husband, they disagree with Susan Patrick, as her 11th point for Predictions and Trends of 2016 focuses on cloud computing. Their big beef with it is the name "cloud." A cloud is a series of servers that back each other up so that there is virtually no down time. However, platforms like Google for Educators (GEG) and Amazon Web Services are changing how, when, and where learning takes place.

A word of thanks to Susan Patrick for her insights and predictions for 2016. It's been fun researching, commenting, and thinking about the future for online and blended learning.

11 Big Trends for 2016: Part 10 of 11

Mobile Learning

The number of mobile devices in my house might surprise you. We have an iPAD, 2 iPod touches, 3 smartphones, and depending on if you consider them a mobile device or not, we have 3 laptops. Our blue-ray player and our Wii also connect to the internet and those are the devices on which we watch our television shows. 

The community college where I work has had anytime, anywhere classes for at least the last decade and was a leader in teleconference classes before that. Distance learning no longer requires the use of a building where sophisticated technology exists, because it's now in the palm of your hand. 

As we look toward the future, we need to plan for modular learning, flexibility and connections on the go. Patrick, in her tenth point, describes devices as ubiquitous and says that this invites multiple pathways for learning. I concur. 

Part 9 of 11: Neuroscience, Youth Development Research and How Kids Learn Best

Until last evening, I was a novice when it came to a "Theory of Action." However, last night I participated in the first of several meetings with the Cedar Rapids Community School District about a "Theory of Action." My summary of a "Theory of Action" is that is a series of if then statements that lead a district or program forward and uses a growth mindset to do so.

To begin our night we focused on what a "Theory of Action" is and what our jobs as stakeholders on the task force are. We had quick times for discussions at our tables, a carousel activity with breaking us up into different groups and then a recap of the district's progress on the five current goals.

The leaders of the group modeled good teaching strategies and kept us engaged in the learning. Our final task for the night was to evaluate where we were in regards to our knowledge on a "Theory of Action" and what our hopes for the task force were. My hope is:

I hope the theory of action provides all learners (leadership, faculty, staff, and students) with the ability to solve problems for jobs that don't exist yet with technology that we haven't even imagined.

One of our tasks last night was to describe a convergent use of a paperclip and divergent uses of paperclips.  A convergent use is to use an object as it was intended, in this case, to clip papers together. A divergent use might be a door lock popper, a bobby pin, a chip clip, or a zipper toggle.

My notes from last night referenced points that I heard at #inacol15 and points that I have heard economist Andrew McAfee and Sir Ken Robinson state on TEDTalks. Not only did the leaders of the discussion engage us, but I was able to make connections to my prior knowledge. Research has shown that any time a connection can be made to a student's prior knowledge the better retention he/she has for the subject.

In Susan Patrick's blog post from December 31, 2015, her ninth point is titled, "Neuroscience, Youth Development Research and How Kids Learn Best." She says that many times new initiatives in education don't start with how students learn best, but predicts that new learning models will put the knowledge of youth development and neuroscience at the forefront of planning and shaping new learning models.

Lukasz M. Konopka, department of psychiatry at Loyola Medical Center agrees. In his 2014 article Neuroscience prospective on education, he says:

We must embrace th individual and individuality. We must not assume that all children learn the same way and fit into convenient algorithims. 

This ties in very well to one of the TEDTalks that Sir Ken Robinson has given where he says that his identical twins are nothing alike and that the Victorian model of education did a really good job of outputting a student that fits in the box.

In "Skills Promoted to Aid Learning Amid Adversity" by Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, Jan 30, 2013, the state of Washington is using research about the whole learner to assist those students with the most need in developing their executive function more. Philip A. Fisher, the director of the Stress Neurobiology labratory at the University of Oregon in Eugene has this to say:

"There's growning recognition in the research and education communities that beyond the 'three Rs' is the executive function."

For me, I make the connection that this is like Headquarters in the movie Inside Out (2015 Disney). In this movie, a young girl (11 years old) moves from the Midwest to California. Slowly, her islands of personality all come crashing down and she disengages from school. Researchers are confirming what educators already know, if a student's basic needs aren't met, then he or she will not be successful. To bring world-class education that use critical thinking and data-driven arguments, we need to pay attention to what neuroscience and neurobiology are telling us.

As I participate on the "Theory of Action" task force, you can bet that I will be questioning what is best for the students and how can we measure the growth with the wealth of knowledge that we now have in regards to neuroscience.

11 Big Trends of 2016: Part 8 of 11

Programming, Robotics and the Maker Movement

On her eighth point in her blog post from 12/31/15, Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL, says that "programming and innovative designs can and will change the world." She also mentions that it is as important in the rural parts of the United States as it is in the tech capital of the U.S., Silicon Valley.

Up until my participation in the iNACOL Online and Blended Learning Symposium, I knew that binary numbers were made up of zeroes and ones. I didn't know anything more about them than that, but by participating in a hands-on workshop where my peers, video, and some drill and practice taught me about them, I am in a mid-level of understanding about them.

From the We Are Teachers blog, they have this to say about the maker movement:

"The Maker philosophy prepares kids to solve problems their teachers never anticipated, with technology we can’t yet imagine."

In 1987 when my dad brought home our first computer, a Commodore 128, I am pretty sure that he didn't think that 29 years later we would be wearing technology syncing to our smartphones and tablets. As I look ahead to 2045, there will be many problems that I never anticipated and technology that I can't imagine right now. 

It is time for schools to embrace the Maker Movement, Programming and Robotics so that our children (in 29 years) will be able to solve the problems that we haven't imagined and use technology to solve the world's problems.

11 Big Trends of 2016: Part 7 of 11

To me, Patrick's seventh point in her blog post for iNACOL from December 31, 2015 is a point that educators, communities, legislators, and other leaders need to look at in-depth. One of our favorite sayings in my office is that we need to prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet. With young children of my own, I find this to be the most important prediction/trend for 2016.

Ten years ago, the job of a social media marketer didn't exist. Today, a company reaching those of us 35 and younger without cable, satellite, or even over-the-air stations use social media to promote their products. Ten years from now, that job may not exist or it may have evolved into something else. I recently asked a friend, who works for a cable company what will happen when cable goes the way of the dinosaurs. She said that she thought they'd be okay because they offer internet too.

Patrick's seventh point is "Balanced Approaches: Asking to What End." She predicts that schools will move to measuring multiple measures of student outcomes. One such school is Iowa BIG. Luckily, this is a school that is in our area and I hope to see many more than 100 students enrolled in the future.

Iowa BIG is a school that really does help students prepare for the future. It is a school that has no seat time requirement, but students have to meet authentic deadlines to meet their initiatives. To read more about iNACOL's thoughts on Iowa BIG click here.

11 Big Trends of 2016: Part 6 of 11

Continuing to follow along Susan Patrick's blog article form December 31st, 2015, we now go into Data Informed Decision + World Class Standards.  Patrick describes the data poverty from the 1990s and early 2000s as a reason for the educational reform movement.  However, now in the data-rich environment of the 2010s, we can make more informed decisions through "data based on student work, college and career readiness and navigating life toward leadership and active citizenship."

As I stood at the school board meeting on Monday night, I said that there needs to be a shift to using real-time data to make educational decisions.  Among the parents, I was popular.  From the district's standpoint, not so much.  They want to shift to a late-start every Monday to have Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Those are important, but I can't see how waiting a whole week to discuss a student's educational needs benefits students. I asked the school board to consider a more creative approach and would have liked to say that the most progressive districts have PLCs on a daily basis, not weekly.

As discussed in the fifth point, schools are designed for slow reaction to change not for real-time change and in today's world if we wait until the policy catches up, our students aren't going to be held at the same world-class standards as students are around the globe. Patrick reiterates that in order to be equitable all students should have world-class standards to meet.

It is time for education programs to focus on educating the whole student, not just having the mentality that "D's get diplomas." As one of the panelist at the iNACOL Online and Blended Learning Symposium stated, "traditional grading doesn't allow for students to achieve exceeds mastery."

11 Big Trends of 2016: Part 5 of 11.

Managing Change

In Susan Patrick's post from December 31, 2015 titled 11 Big Trends for 2016: Predictions and Changes Ahead in K-12 Education, the president and CEO of iNACOL's fifth point discusses the change that is occurring.  She states:

"Education leaders are managing change at a frenzied pace (along with the rest of society's leaders). K-12 education environments are designed for slow reaction to change, but as the world changes and becomes a place that requires constant innovation - so must our leaders take on roles for managing change for continuous improvement."

Patrick's assertion that K-12 environments are designed for slow reaction to change rings true.  We are bound by roadblocks tied to federal funding, the custodial role of the school for students, the tie to school-sponsored sports, and various other rules and regulations that do not move quickly!  

11 Big Trends for 2016: Part 4 of 11

Personalized Professional Development

In her fourth prediction from the iNACOL post on 12/31/15, Susan Patrick believes that teachers will start micro-credentialing and having much more say in how they utilize their professional development time. She believes that teachers will have highly personalized PD, similar to the next-gen learning model for students.

I am hopeful that this will become the wave of the future; however, there will need to be some fundamental shifts that happen so that teachers are allowed to do this. First, and foremost, teachers will need to be trusted to manage their own learning. Currently, professional development looks like a typical 1900's school room with one or two people presenting the information that every single teacher in the school must implement. This is regardless of whether you teach music, PE, world-language or industrial arts.

In my time in the classroom, I was never a core subject area teacher and the professional development that was pushed down couldn't always be applied to the subjects I taught, such as high school Spanish. I resigned my K-12 position right before my daughter turned one and stumbled into my current position. I started part-time and worked my way to full-time, but the freedom I have for professional development is amazing. I also retain a lot more by looking into information for myself and then doing things like blogging about it or tweeting about it.  Also, just like with students, it's more meaningful because it's personalized.

In the K-12 world, PD is still connected to seat time and teachers in the state of Iowa have to have 16 hours of seat time of Professional Development annually. For next-gen PD to happen there will need to be more voice and choice for teachers too. In addition, it might change how teachers receive licensure and renew their teaching licenses in the next decade. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bureaucratic red tape that stands in the way of being able to do this on a large scale, but I am hopeful that we will see the change Patrick predicts.

11 Big Trends for 2016: Part 3 of 11

For today's post, I am going to continue to follow Susan Patrick's predictions from her 12/31/15 iNACOL post about how education will continue to evolve and change in 2016.  Her third prediction is student-centered environments.

Student-centered learning environments already exist, but they don't usually exist in the confines of a brick and mortar building, surrounded by teachers, administrators and paraprofessionals.  In my mind, I picture student-centered environments that look similar to a children's museum, where exploration is the best way to learn.  At the nearest children's museum, children are greeted by a turtle living in an aquarium, then there are different rooms for them to explore and the adults, or as they call them, playologists are there to guide and foster their creativity.  On one side, one finds a grocery store, a pizzeria, a music room, an art room, and a dramatic play area.  On the other side, one finds a hospital, a post office, a bank, an aerospace room, and a motion room.  Continuing upstairs, one will find a toddler play area with a house, slides, and pretend garden, a large tinker-toy room connected to a model train area and completed with a Lego room.

When we visit the children's museum, you can be sure that we will be visiting each and every one of the areas, but where we hang out the most is very personal to each child.  For my usually timid three year old, he loves the gigantic slide and will go down it multiple times. (By the fourth time, I'm done counting).  He's in love with the experience of riding the slide, but he's also interested in driving the ambulance at the hospital and playing with the trains. However, what he loves the most right now is going down the huge slide.  For my daughter, who is five, there's not a specific spot where she will gravitate.  She likes to flutter around like a butterfly and try everything.  Typically, she's been through three or four rooms before my son is ready to move on from the grocery store or the ambulance.  This type of infrastructure makes it a unique learning environment for each of my children.

Granted my children are three and five and their jobs are to experience the world and try out things, but I imagine a K-12 system where they're given a similar experience to help them learn about the world.  What if schools no longer looked like an early 1900's schoolhouse? What if they looked more like a children's museum and as they grew their experiences grew with them? What if the teacher was no longer the "sage on the stage" most of the time and students really did have voice and choice in how, what, and when they learn?

The naysayers will say it's too expensive, "You can't build a school to model a museum!" They will say "that's not the way it was when I was in school." They will say "they need to learn the three r's." With community partnerships and systemic changes as Patrick suggests will happen in her second prediction, yes we can!  We can change schools to meet the personalized learning needs of each and every student and we can give them time to let their brains re-charge by using some exploration time to assist in their learning the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic at the same time.

11 Big Trends for 2016: 2 of 11

Rethinking Measurement

When I graduated from high school, we had 12 valedictorians. Twelve students stood on the stage and got honored for achieving success and, to my knowledge, most are upstanding members of their communities today. I wasn't a valedictorian. I, however, graduated high school with a GPA of a 3.85, was ranked 29th out of 300 students, entered my freshman year of college with 20 college credits, studied abroad my sophomore year of college, and still graduated from college with a degree in elementary education in 3 and a half years. Was I less successful than my peers?  Perhaps, but it could be that we were all successful in different ways.

Continuing with Susan Patrick's predictions about the top trends in 2016, her iNACOL post from 12/31/15, she predicts schools will transform to taking data upon entry and exit about where a student stands and that student mastery will not only take the shape of numbers and letters on a report card, but will also highlight students' evidence of success.  This will take a new shape of what success means for graduation.

For some students this success might mean being able to achieve a 36 on their ACT test or a 2400 SAT test, but for other students it might be that they're able to pull apart a car engine and put it back together again, and for others still, it might be showing how they were able to make a change in their community by designing a new recreation center and seeing a project through to completion. We need the Sheldon Cooper of the world who can breeze through a standardized test and skyrocket into any college or university that they want to, but we need the Dan Conner of the world to fix our vehicles, and the Penny Hofstadter to remind us that rural farm girls can aspire to be actresses. Therefore, success at graduation might be documented differently for each of the three fictional characters listed above.

Measurement of success at graduation could shift from being twelve valedictorians standing on a stage to honoring not only them, but also those who are successful in the technical field, the performance field, and the service field.  How would you rethink measurements of success in your district or for your child(ren)?

11 Big Trends for 2016 - Part 1 of 11

iNACOL's tweet on Wednesday, January 6th caught my attention. What will the big trends be in 2016 and will it move all the way to Iowa? Will my future kindergartener and future pre-schooler be given the opportunity to learn where their needs lie, or will they be expected to mold themselves into the factory-style model of education?  I'm not sure, but I want to dive into each of the 11 predictions that iNACOL mentioned on Wednesday and so that will be where the next 11 posts take us.

This started by Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL, citing her prediction in Getting Smart's blog  about the 2016 direction of education.  She then listed 11 trends looking forward that will shape the future of K-12 education.  Her first prediction is that there will be "New Definitions of Success."

If you've followed my blog, you can go back and re-read My Jobs of the Future, and the fact that the jobs of tomorrow don't look like those of one minute ago, a decade ago, or a century ago.  So what does it truly mean to be college and career ready, and are the students that graduate from our K-12 institutions, or our high school equivalency programs, really going to be ready for this future world without some major changes to how we define success as a society?

Patrick speculates that a high school diploma's definition of success in 2016 will be expanded not only to show knowledge, but also to include skills, social-emotional intelligence, and important dispositions for future success.  In or Adult High School program, we have shifted our focus from the knowledge to begin our program and are focusing more on the social-emotional intelligence and dispositions of our students so that we can help them be successful in earning their high school credential.

There's a shift that is occurring with the re-authorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act, where states and districts now have more flexibility to meet the needs of their students without, as Ryan Wise, Iowa Director of Education stated in September, being "fundamentally flawed."  It allows students to show growth and achievement in multiple modalities without punishing teachers and students with more testing and opens a door to allow communities to connect with students.

How does one define success in the global economy?  Is it being a proficient reader by 3rd grade, or is it moving a student to whole language when he or she still doesn't know his or her phonetics?  Is it being able to name all fifty states, or being able to experience how a state government works?  Is it knowing how to count to 100 or knowing that 10 groups of 10 items equal one hundred and that you can re-organize that to 4 groups of 25 or 5 groups of 20 and still have a total of 100 items?  Is it having a disposition that allows you to care for the geriatric population or the disposition that can be a mother's helper?  Guess what?  Each of these may define success, but probably not for the same student.

I have a five-year old, emerging reader.  When she and her dad visited her grandparents during the winter break, there was some concern that she wasn't reading yet.  I, however, do not think that is the worst thing in the world.  Her vocabulary is strong.  She knows her phonetic sounds and she makes meaningful connections with print.  However, she is never going to be the type of child who plops herself down on her bed and reads a novel in a day.  In her mind, the world is too full of things for her to explore, jump on, climb on, paint, stir, color, or tumble about for her to sit silently in her room and read a book.  Will she learn to read?  Definitely.  I am not going to waste my time making her meet some magically benchmark that defines her success.  It will just cause tears and anxiety for us both.

I also have a three year old, non-reader.  He didn't get to go to his grandparents, because he was sick, but he loves books!  His favorite is called I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! and although he can't read the words, he knows when we get to the second to the last page that the mother in the story comes in to the room and yells "WHAT?!" He will listen to stories for quite awhile and he will probably learn a few words before he starts kindergarten. (Hey, isn't that what the littler ones do? Keep up with the older child?)

Do I think my children will be successful?  Of course (doesn't every parent?).  How they are successful though could vary greatly between the two of them.  I see my daughter as a performer, one who will take center stage in gymnastics, tumbling, or storytelling.  I see my son as more mechanically minded and willing to stick to difficult problems longer.  Both are very unique; however, neither of them will be successful if they have to fit the mold of the factory-model education system.