CIL’s Services (Convenings and Technical Assistance)
The Center on Innovations in Learning provides:
· Webinars for regional centers and states based on its priority topics and publications
· Presentations for regional centers and states on priority topics
· League of Innovators with members from regional centers and states
· Conversations with Innovators annual event for regional centers and states
· Technical assistance to states using Indistar for improvement, innovation, transformation
· Technical assistance and expert consultation to regional centers and states on CIL’s priority topics
CIL’s Products (Information and Tools)
CIL produces the following types of products:
· Website (www.centeril.org) with search engine of vetted resources on CIL topics, currently more than 900 entries, updated regularly
· Handbooks on CIL’s priority topics (Years 1 and 4)
· Research syntheses and practice guides on priority topics (5 per year)
· Connect: Making Learning Personal (6-8 issues each year of an e-newsletter with a lead essay from CIL’s League of Innovators)
· Monthly e-newsletter from Director
· Solution-Finding Reports – quick response reports for regional centers and states
· Tools and rubrics
· Online training modules on processes for school improvement, innovation, and transformation
· Archived webinars and presentations
CIL’s Priority Topics
The Center on Innovations in Learning focuses on two broad topics, each with component areas of interest. The two primary topics are Personalized Learning and Change Leadership.
A. Personalized Learning
According to the Center on Innovations in Learning at Temple University, “Personalization refers to a teacher’s relationships with students and their families and the use of multiple instructional modes to scaffold each student’s learning and enhance the student’s personal competencies. Personalized learning varies the time, place, and pace of learning for each student, enlists the student in the creation of learning pathways, and utilizes technology to manage and document the learning process and access rich sources of information” (Twyman & Redding, 2015, p. 3).
Personalized learning is one of CIL’s two major areas of emphasis, and it is a broad topic with several significant components. Varying time, place, and pace is best accomplished with technology and Internet access that make blended learning methodology significant in personalization. Crediting students with demonstrated knowledge and skill, regardless of where or when they acquired it, makes competency-based education (CBE) a necessity in personalized learning. Giving students greater control over the design and direction of their learning paths requires that students ramp up their personal competencies for learning. Thus, CIL addresses several components of personalized learning, especially:
· Blended Learning
· Competency-Based Education
· Personal Competencies
1. Blended Learning
Blended learning, a method of personalization, mixes traditional classroom instruction with online delivery of instruction and content, including learning activities outside the school, granting the student a degree of control over time, place, pace, and/or path (Bonk & Graham, 2006). In a blended learning approach, technology is not seen as a replacement for the traditional classroom, but rather as a powerful tool to enhance what is already proven to be effective pedagogy. “In this hybrid conception of personalization, educators can carry out a series of practices to make sure that technology and data enhance relationships, but do not pretend to substitute for them” (Sandler, 2012, p. 1).
2. Competency-Based Education
Competency-based education (CBE) supports students’ progression through their academic work toward proficiency and mastery—regardless of time, method, place, or pace of learning (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], n.d.). A competency may be defined as “a combination of skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to perform a specific task,” which is tied to a specific goal or standard; thus competency-based education stresses acquisition and demonstration of targeted knowledge and skills. [From Twyman, 2014)
CIL focuses on three types of competency—personal, academic, and career/occupational. In years 2 and 3, CIL developed a body of work on personal competencies. Moving forward, CIL will develop strands of work on academic and career/occupational competencies.
3. Personal Competency
Personal competencies underlie all learning and are “an ever-evolving accumulation of related capabilities that facilitate learning and other forms of goal attainment” (Redding, 2014). The four personal competencies are:
· Cognitive Competency—prior knowledge which facilitates new learning
· Metacognitive Competency—self-regulation of learning and use of learning strategies
· Motivational Competency—engagement and persistence in pursuit of learning goals
· Social/Emotional Competency—sense of self-worth, regard for others, and emotional understanding and management to set positive goals and make responsible decisions
B. Change Leadership
Getting better at getting better
(improvement, innovation, transformation)
“Analytically, improvement research entails getting down into the micro details as to how any proposed set of changes is actually supposed to improve outcomes. Unfortunately, such careful on-the-ground systems thinking rarely characterizes most educational reforms. Typically, a reform’s logic of action is vague and almost always underspecified” (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015, p. 8).
In providing technical assistance to the 22 states that use Indistar in more than 8,000 schools, CIL has learned a great deal about change (through improvement, innovation, and transformation) at each level of the education system—state, region, district, school. CIL’s technical assistance focuses on the science of change, not the technology of the Indistar system.
CIL’s approach to systemic change addresses the problem posed by Bryk, et al. in the quote above. CIL advocates change that is: (1) directed by the people closest to the accountable results (e.g., students in schools), (2) who work in teams, (3) guided by effective practices and specific indicators that give them a basis for assessing and improving their practice, (4) focused on changing practice to achieve outcomes, and (5) supported by coaching with aligned resources and tools.
In its first Handbook, CIL described the basics of improvement, innovation, and transformation in a chapter called The Logic of School Improvement, Innovation, and Turnaround. A new series of training modules (narrated PowerPoints with video) began production in Year 3 to demonstrate the processes by which individuals and organizations change through improvement, innovation, and transformation.
What’s New for Year 4?
1. Handbook on Personalized Learning
2. New practice guides on aspects of personalized learning
o Literacy-based Personalized Learning: Integration of iPads
o Personalized Learning in Social Studies Teacher Education
o Integrating Personalized Learning into the ELL Classroom
3. Webinars and convenings based on Handbook chapters
4. Personal Competency Academy - a vehicle for SEAs to introduce personal competencies to districts and states
5. Advance CIL’s model of three types of competency—personal, academic, and career/occupational.
6. Change Leadership – more training modules on systemic change (improvement, innovation, transformation)
7. Expand our research base and library related to effective practices and indicators of effective practice
8. Descriptive studies of personalized learning.
CIL Publications (from Years 1-3)
Books
Handbook on Innovations in Learning (see chapters relevant to personalized learning)
Research Syntheses and Practice Guides
Through the Student’s Eyes
The Something Other: Personal Competencies for Learning and Life
Personal Competency Framework
Personal Competencies in Personalized Learning
Mobile Devices in the Classroom
Teacher Personal Competencies
Essays and Briefs (Connect: Making Learning Personal)
Competency-based Education: Supporting Personalized Learning
Personalized Learning in Wisconsin: FLIGHT Academy
Innovative Schools in Michigan (video)
Why Personal Competencies Matter
Including the Learner in Personalized Learning
Rubrics and Tools
Personal Competencies / Personalized Learning: Lesson Plan Reflection Guide (template and guide published through Council of Chief State School Officers)
Personal Competencies / Personalized Learning: Reflection on Instruction (peer-to-peer learning and observation tool published through Council of Chief State School Officers)
Virtual and Blended Learning Rubric and training webinar
Personalized Learning Self-Assessment Survey
Solution-Finding Reports
Generating Lesson Plans
Online Credit Recovery School Program
High School Competency-based Education and Post-secondary Success
The Cost of Competency-based Education
Gender Differences
Personalized Learning
Teacher, Principal, and Leader Evaluation in Online and Blended Learning
Virtual Education: Key Factors Related to Success
Play-based technology platforms
Broadband networks to connect every school building in a state
Incorporating physical fitness into the school environment
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Practice Guides
Archived Webinars and Presentations (from Years 1-3)
Webinars
"E-learning 101: Putting the Big Picture into Focus"
"Mobile Devices in the Classroom"
"Mobile Devices in the Classroom - Part II"
"10 Tips for Engaging Presentations"
"English Learners in the Blended Classroom"
“New Early Childhood Indicators”
Presentations
"A Day of Professional Learning: Learning Technologies"
"Supporting Deeper Learning Through Technology"
"Leveraging Digital Technologies for Autism Spectrum Disorder Learners"
“A National Perspective on K-12 Online Education”
“Elements of High Quality Credit Recover Programs”
"The Roots of Learning" (Personal Competencies in School Improvement and Turnaround)
"Literacy Research"
"Leveraging Innovation and Technology in Turnaround Efforts"
"Innovation with Indistar"
Online Training Modules (Narrated PowerPoints with Video) – Years 1-3
“Getting Better at What We Do”
“The Process: Getting Better Together”
“Getting Better in Teams”
References
Bonk, C. J., & Graham, C. R. (2006). The handbook of blended learning environments: Global perspectives, local designs. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Redding, S. (2014b). Personal competencies in personalized learning. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University, Center on Innovations in Learning.
Sandler, S. (2012). People v. ‘personalization’: Retaining the human element in the high-tech era of education. Education Week, 31(22), 20–22.
Twyman, J. S. (2014). Competency-based education: Supporting personalized learning. Connect: Making Learning Personal. Retrieved from http://www.centeril.org/connect/resources/Connect_CB_Education_Twyman-2014_11.12.pdf
Twyman, J., & Redding, S. (2015). Personal competencies / personalized learning: Reflection on instruction. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.
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