With two historic shifts under way simultaneously—the adoption of common college- and career-ready standards, and the shift to personalized digital
learning—we asked 32 education leaders what they were excited about.
Blended Learning & Personalization
Michael Horn, Christensen Institute, “The shift to using technology to personalize learning for each
student so that they can master deeper skills and knowledge.”
Scott Ellis, The Learning Accelerator, “I am excited to see so many districts across the country starting
to implement blended learning at scale. There has been tremendous momentum building up over the last 12 months, and it will carry forward into next
year and beyond.”
Jessie Woolley-Wilson, Dreambox, “The emergence of truly personalized learning experiences where every
aspect of how a student interacts with and learns from an instructional technology product is dynamically adjusted in real time for that
specific student’s needs. Further, recognizing that merely recommending the “best fit” digitized version of a traditional textbook or worksheet based upon dozens - or even millions - of observations and calculations does not produce a personalized experience.”
Anthony Kim, Education Elements, ""Technology which supports teachers with more on-demand analytics and
insights in order to help students reach the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy as classrooms across the country shift towards personalized/blended
learning.”
Matt Kelemen, New Leaders, “Blended learning can change the debate from investing into struggling kids or
advanced kids--personalized learning can happen for everyone.”
Colleen Oliver, Partnership for LA Schools, “Supporting innovative principals and teacher leaders with
resources to fully integrate teacher effectiveness, common core, and blended learning will provide us with increased ways to truly transform and
turnaround some of our most historically underserved schools.”
Student Motivation/Agency & Personalization
Karen Cator, Digital Promise, “The improving understanding of engagement, persistence and grit as success
factors and the support role technology plays in learning environments designed to develop these traits.”
Elaine Berndes, Accelerate Institute, “The gift of time and self management-- teaching kids how to do
life.”
Greg Klein, Rogers Family Foundation, “Students empowered to make
better, more personalized choices in their learning and teachers joyfully facilitating ‘on the side.’”
Heather Staker, Clayton Christensen Institute, “Student dashboards and learning maps that help
students see, control, and take satisfaction in the progress that they make each day.”
Joshua Klaris, US ED, “Personalized learning and student ownership of learning; when students understand standards it
unlocks a show what you know renaissance.”
Tammy Battaglino, Parthenon Group, " Personalized learning that builds upon the strengths of all students and
teachers and thinking differently about how to combine “talent, time and technology” into effective models.”
Innovation, New Models & Competency-Based Learning
Scott Benson, Gates Foundation, “Clarifying our goal: maximize each student’s learning growth toward
college readiness. Design schools and programs from there.” (See 4 Essential Attributes of Personalized Learning.)
Susan Patrick, iNACOL, “The shift from time to competency in redesigned learning spaces--digital, flexible, focused
on mastery with more student supports, like the Apple genius bar.” (See iNACOL sponsored CompetencyWorks
for more.)
Luis de la Fuente, Broad Foundation, “I’m excited about empowering both teachers and students with the
tools and the freedom they need to build engaging, collaborative, and rigorous learning experiences. By agreeing on high expectations for student
achievement but leaving the “how” to those who know best (educators), I think we’re going to see a lot more innovation in the fabric of school as we
know it than we’ve seen in a very long time. And with that will come better outcomes.
Brian Greenberg, Silicon Schools Fund, “Moving away from the pacing guide. As we think about
personalization and mastery based learning, the biggest obstacle holding us back is the old fashioned concept of a pacing guide that sets the speed of
learning for students based on the class average. A minimum pace may still be needed, but certainly not a maximum pace, and certainly not a uniform
pace for all students.”
Matt Brunel, Building Excellent Schools, “The potential for technology to unlock the literacy gap.”
Thackston Lundy, Relay Graduate School, “The potential of badges and other competency models.”
Professional Development
Jason Lange, Bloomboard, “Personalized and contextualized learning for teachers too.”
Lee Peters, Pearson, “If 2013 was the year of “accountability” for improved educator performance in the face of
higher student achievement standards and pressing technology integration expectations, then 2014 should be a year of “coherence” for education leaders
as they begin to test powerful combinations of new digital learning concepts and systems to create refreshing learning opportunities and new meaningful
connections between their own professional development and their teacher and student populations.”
Elizabeth Neale, School Leaders Network, “The shift from passive to interactive learning, not just for
kids for teachers and leaders.”
Kate Sobel, TNTP, “Coaching principals is valuable but expensive; there is great potential for virtual coaching.”
Margot Rogers, Parthenon Group, “Making practitioners, parents and students more a part of the reform process;
and defining and creating systems to support great school leadership.
Great Teaching at Scale
Michael Barber, Pearson, “2014 will see an increasing focus around the world on delivering improved performance
across education systems. The shift from inputs to outcomes will continue. Pearson’s efficacy agenda, set out in
The Incomplete Guide to Learning Outcomes
is designed to learn from and contribute to this global trend.”
Michele Cahill, Carnegie Corporation, “The renewed promise for urgently needed high school redesign I see inSpringpoint‘s work and the serious educator response I see to it.” (see Springpoint: Designing Schools for Success.)
Alex Hernandez, Charter School Growth Fund, “Getting students the instruction and support they need, when
they need it.”
Alicia Herald, MyEdMatch, “The potential to scale good teaching.”
Marina Cofield, NYC DOE, “The shift from teaching content to thinking and analyzing.”
Kerry Ann Moll, AREL, “Emerging technologies to support
teaching and learning that are well-designed and well-integrated - it’s a revolution that can’t be ignored, it’s unavoidable.”
- Angus McBeath, retired Edmonton superintendent, “Liberating children from the tyranny of one or more years with a bad teacher.”
More Quality Options
JIm Blew, Walton Family Foundation, “Providing access to quality education to low income students
and families.”
Greg Richmond, National Association of Charter School Authorizers, “I’m excited by the continuing growth
and diversification of learning opportunities in public education, away from standardized, centralized, one-size-fits-all school buildings and toward
diverse, personalized, individualized instruction.
Nina Rees, National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, is “Excited to see a greater focus on boosting the
quality of charter schools - and the laws that support them - and seeing how the new charters that are being authorized benefit from 20 years of
experience in the space, especially in WA which recently enacted one of the strongest laws in the nation!”
It’s exciting to hear these leaders describing high engagement and multi-modal learning environments with cultures that embrace high expectations and
provide strong supports--and personalized learning for educators as well as students!