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Modern Classrooms Project: How to Launch a Modern Classroom

by Jim Flanagan, The Modern Classrooms Project
written by Jim Flanagan, The Modern Classrooms Project

Have you heard about the teacher-led, grassroots, ed tech model growing locally and nationally known as the Modern Classrooms Project (MCP)? This nonprofit organization leads a movement of educators in implementing a blended, self-paced, mastery-based instructional model that is adaptable to all classrooms. MCP’s model is designed to support students with a high diversity of learning levels and social-emotional needs by leveraging technology to create greater personalization and connection in classrooms. Created by educators who saw the shortcomings of our system’s one-size-fits-all approach to education, the MCP model is structured in an easy-to-understand format that any teacher can implement in their classroom. 

What Is the MCP Instructional Model?

The best way to learn about the model is to watch this short explainer video and this five-minute video produced by Edutopia.

Any educator can discover MCP’s core practices by enrolling in the comprehensive Free Online Course that has already empowered over 45,000 educators worldwide. Those wanting to dive deeper and receive support from an expert mentor can enroll in the Virtual Mentorship Program (VMP). Individual enrollment is available, or schools, districts, or states can partner with MCP to offer the VMP to teachers who opt in. MCP also has Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter communities where questions are answered, and tips, techniques, and resources are shared among educators.   

A teacher working with a student at Game Development Design School (GDDS).

An Example of the Impact

In Texas, over 2,000 teachers have enrolled in the free course or VMP. During the spring of 2021, leaders at the Game Development Design School (GDDS) at Burleson ISD led a school-wide implementation of the model. You can read about their experience and results (teaser alert: STAAR scores improved!). According to Crystal Deaver, GDDS Principal,

“With this model, we’ve been allowed to take good teachers and make them great. And those great teachers move even higher. It also allows the administration and leadership team to grow and become better instructional coaches and instructional leaders on our campus. Ultimately, it allows our students to grow, and our scores show it.”  

MCP at TCEA 2023

I will attend the 2023 TCEA Convention & Exposition, along with Crystal Deaver, and we will be available to share more about the MCP model. If you would like to schedule a time to connect, contact me at jim.flanagan@modernclassrooms.org. For now, I’ll leave you with a few additional perspectives from educators and administrators, across all grade levels and demographics, on what makes the MCP model unique, accessible, and impactful.

Quote: “The Modern Classrooms Project has transformed my teaching practice and re-energized and inspired me to continue in the profession. If you've gotten ‘good enough’ at the I Do, We Do, You Do traditional model, but feel like it's not helping you meet the needs of all your learners .... check out the Modern Classrooms Virtual Mentorship Program.”
Quote: “This training is highly valuable and usable in the classroom. It combines elements of Culturally Responsive Teaching as well as standards-based grading to create a cohesive system to help students achieve.”
Quote: “The Modern Classrooms Project has changed my outlook on how innovative education can truly be. Implementing this model has allowed me to get to know my students personally and connect to them at a level that helps them thrive inside of the classroom and out. I am able to give students real-time feedback and they are mastering math content in ways that promote their own reflection, growth, and goal-setting.”
Quote: “The Virtual Mentorship Program was the most efficient way to educate a large number of teachers. This is the best professional learning that our teachers have received! The course has completely transformed instruction for many of our teachers.”
Quote: “This training is NECESSARY to meet the needs of all of our students. We as teachers always feel like we don't have enough time in the day, enough space at our small group table, enough patience, just ENOUGH to really make a difference to all of our students, especially during this pandemic when the variety of academic levels has increased so significantly. This program really allows us to do that in a way that is engaging and fun for kids.”

 

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professional development
Good TeachingProfessional Learning

Professional Development: Make It Personal

by Matthew Crutcher
written by Matthew Crutcher

Think back to your last staff development event. Were you engaged the whole time, or was some of the material not quite relevant to you? Or maybe your admin team brought in a trainer to discuss the basics of OneNote, but you are already a OneNote genius. As teachers, we differentiate our instruction for our students to meet their needs — so why are we not practicing what we preach when it comes to professional development? As lifelong learners, we should be exposed to the same opportunities that we are providing our students. It’s time that we start personalizing our staff development! 

When I was a classroom teacher, many of the staff meetings I attended were lecture style, sit-and-get sessions. The material was not always aimed at what I was teaching and there was an overall sense of inefficiency during the hour-long meeting. That is, until I had this one specific training. On this one occasion, I felt that the staff meeting met the needs of not only me and my team, but the whole school. We were given the choice as to what we wanted to learn, and this idea has stuck with me all these years. It has shaped and influenced my current teaching technique as a digital learning coach and personalized professional development.

Creating Choice

Let me walk you through that particular occasion. We all met in one room to review our norms, then we were given the menu. The menu was divided into two 20-minute blocks and a 10-minute wrap-up at the end. During those 20-minute blocks, we had our choice of four different sessions we could attend. Very similar to a conference you might attend, each session had a short description, so teachers knew what to expect going into that lesson. For each time slot, the sessions were different so that those presenting in the first block could attend something in the second and vice versa. 

The choices we had were sessions on: ELAR, math/science, technology, and special education. At 3:40, we were released to our first session. Then, 20 minutes later, an announcement was made to move to the next session and then the next one began. For our 10-minute wrap-up, we discussed the main themes of each session and as a ticket out, we posted our favorite things about the new method on a “parking lot.”

So, what did it look like behind the scenes? A few years later, after I had left the classroom, I asked my then principal how she organized that meeting. She told me that the administrative team met with several people weeks before the staff meeting and asked them to present something related to, well, whatever. Those staff members then prepared their  presentation. The people that she chose were those looking to move up into a leadership role or those currently in a leadership role. She said that it took some time and effort to plan the whole thing, but in the end, it was a very valuable learning experience for the entire staff. 

Blended Delivery

With the advancements in technology over the past several years, one idea for staff meetings is to make them blended or even flipped. With a blended delivery, students (or in this case, the staff) would conduct a short activity or watch a short video prior to the staff meeting. This front-loading of material allows the meeting host to begin right away, not having to use valuable time to introduce the material. For example, the professional development is on student motivation. Admin could send out a TED Talk or another video for staff members to watch, and once the meeting begins, staff immediately break into groups to discuss the video. This eliminates having to use the first 10 minutes of the meeting to watch the video.

With a flipped method, the entire staff development is conducted online. One great way to conduct flipped professional development is through a learning management system. When designing the professional development, you could set up a module that staff members move through with a quiz or discussion at the end for accountability.

With a flipped delivery, staff members are free to work on the program or activity when they want, where they want. If the entire third-grade team wants to get together after school to complete the activities, they can. Or, if someone is unable to attend a meeting, they can complete the assignment at home. The ability to work on the training when it’s convenient to them will help ensure they are engaged and the training is effective.

Conclusion

Traditional staff development still has its place. When it is time for STAAR training, or when new campus discipline programs are being implemented, the entire staff should be together. For many other concepts though, giving the teachers options when it comes to what they learn and how they learn is the way to go. You’ll have staff that appreciates the opportunity to pick something of interest, and you’ll be modeling what we expect our teachers to be doing with their students. 

Matthew Crutcher is vice president of TCEA’s Campus Technology Special Interest Group (CAMP-SIG) and a digital learning coach at Lamar CISD.

Photo: Headway

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legislative priorities
AdvocacyCTO/CIOLeadership

TCEA Board Sets Legislative Priorities

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

Every two years, the TCEA Board of Directors adopts their legislative priorities. In order to arrive at these priorities, they survey the members, look at relevant research, and review what other states are doing. These priorities are designed to help school districts provide a more personalized education for their students by enabling teachers to customize the content, timing, location, and delivery of instruction that best meets each student’s instructional needs. This goal has been a laudable goal of educators for years, but the ability to differentiate instruction for each student has been difficult to achieve. Technology has advanced to the point where this is now possible.

Every industry and economic enterprise in the world has used technology to completely transform the way they conduct business. The TCEA board’s priorities address six core areas we feel can assist school districts to leverage technology in the same way.

An overview of the recommended strategies are listed below. You can find a detailed list of the board’s priorities on the TCEA website.

Leadership and Planning

Leadership is critical to enacting a change of this magnitude. This will require a well-thought-out plan that includes student outcomes, professional learning, curriculum and instructional materials, digital devices, broadband, and policies that enable a district to allow students to move at their own pace.

Recommendations:

  • Create a Digital Learning Task Force that will help implement the Long-Range Plan for Technology.
  • Establish a grant program to enable districts to reach the goals in the state’s LRPT.

Professional Learning

priorities In order to accomplish the goals established in our priorities, it  is imperative that teachers have a supportive environment in which to adapt their teaching strategies to take advantage of empowering technologies. Teachers recognize the benefits of the use of technology, but don’t always know how and when to use the different technologies that are available. This is why TCEA believes strongly that teachers need ongoing, job-embedded professional learning opportunities that empower them to use appropriate

technology tools to meet various educational needs.

Recommendations:

  • Support educators with ongoing, job-embedded professional development on the use of technology to enhance instruction.
  • Ensure that teachers who receive micro-credentials for skills that meet the demands of the digital classroom are recognized as continuing professional education requirements by SBEC.

Technology and Instructional Materials Allotment

In 2011, the state legislature created an allotment that provides funding for both instructional materials and technology. This dual purpose fund was designed to help districts transition to an increased use of digital instructional materials. Since the inception of the TIMA, only 13 percent of the allotment has been used to purchase technology (TIMA Expenditure Report). This has made It difficult for districts to initiate and sustain broad-based technology implementations. TCEA is firmly supportive of local-control, which is why our approach has been to provide districts with more information about available instructional materials, support the use of Open Education Resources, and work with the SBOE in limiting the size of the instructional materials proclamations.

Recommendations:

  • Provide districts with more guidance on the merits of Open Education Resources and continue to allocate funding for OER aligned to state curriculum standards.
  • Track a district’s expenditures on technology/digital content and tools to identify trends.
  • The SBOE should evaluate a school district’s needs for instructional content and technology and ensure that any proclamation not exceed 75 percent of the TIMA.

priorities

Technology Proficiency

TCEA was founded in 1980 by teachers who were interested in teaching students how to use a computer. Equipping students with the necessary skills to function in the e-economy is central to our mission. This is why we are alarmed that Texas eighth grader’s technology proficiency has declined by ten percent between 2013-2018 (source: Learning.com Texas – TCEA 8th Grade TA-TEKS Assessment).

There is a false belief that today’s students know how to use technology because they are able to connect with their peers via Snap Chat and Instagram. Students may know how to take a pic and send it to their friends, but may not be able to leverage technology to help them analyze and evaluate information in order to create and produce something new. TCEA believes that all Texas students should have computational thinking skills that will enable them to be both users and creators of computing technology.

Recommendations

  • Move the high school Technology Application courses into the CTE curriculum, aligning and removing similar courses.
  • Update the K-8 Technology TEKS to include computational thinking and coding skills.
  • Increase the number of students taking a course that exposes them to computer science or computer programming.
  • Provide additional funding for professional development to increase the number of teachers who can teach computer science courses.

Broadband

Texas has come a long way in meeting the FCC’s minimum goal of 100 kbs per student and access to fiber. The average cost of broadband has also dropped in recent years. However, we have not fully reached the goal of having scalable and affordable broadband for all students both at school and home. Students in districts without adequate broadband capacity or who have limited access to digital devices and tools are at a distinct disadvantage today. Not only do they have fewer options in terms of access to content, they are unable to develop the technical skills associated with navigating the internet and creating knowledge online.

Recommendations

  • Designate a state entity that will identify existing barriers to providing scalable broadband access both at school and in students’ homes and administer a plan to address these barriers.
  • Provide funding for the state E-rate match and for WiFi access within school classrooms.
  • Maximize the Technology Lending Grants in order to assist with home access.

Personalized Learning 

priorities Every student has distinct learning needs, interests, and aspirations. Up until recently, it was extremely difficult to tailor the instructional strategies to meet each student’s needs. Technology can be an enabler of this type of educational model. It allows students to guide their inquiry as they decide how they will interact with the content, including the time and location. This type of learning requires a major shift in the delivery of instruction and involves teacher professional learning, a robust technical infrastructure, the selection of appropriate content, and strong leaders who know how to manage this type of change. Many of the strategies listed above support the goal of personalized learning; however, there are a few that have not yet been addressed.

Recommendations

  • Allow students to receive credit based on the mastery of the content, not seat time.
  • Provide additional funding for blended learning initiatives such as the Math Innovation Zone.
  • Increase the number of students taking TxVSN courses.

Conclusion

The legislative priorities are designed to give TCEA staff guidance on what legislation the association should pursue. If you are interested in finding out more and you are a member, make sure you join the Advocacy group in our social community. If you aren’t a member, consider joining so that you can get involved and help advocate for our teachers and students.

Credits

Photos of the Texas Capitol by Spencer Selvidge

Computer code photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Student smiling photo by Oluwakemi Solaja on Unsplash

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Photo by Arthur Lambillotte on Unsplash
Content AreasEducational TrendsGood Teaching

Five Ways to Succeed with Personalized Learning

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ready to bring about transformation in your school district? As principal or department head, you’ve embraced personalized learning (PL). But now, you need to learn how to speed up its adoption and full integration. In this blog entry, we’ll revisit personalized learning. You will see successful strategies aligned to the research and best practices. See how technology can make adoption of PL faster.

Defining Personalized Learning

PL is not one-size-fits-all learning. It represents a diverse program encompassing a wide variety of instructional approaches. The strategies seek to address students’ individual needs. All educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches ,and academic support strategies are available. It’s all about whatever works best for enhancing student-centered learning.

What Is Best for You?

The role of educators in personalized learning environment has shifted (Source: iNACOL). The shift puts educators in the roles of mentors, coaches, and learning facilitators. More to the point, students take ownership and assume control of their learning, which means that learning becomes grounded in students’ interests and passions. Approaches like differentiated instruction and personalized learning plans become critical. What’s more, project-based learning and eportfolios aligned to standards-based knowledge and skills predominate.

A Splash of Cold Water: New Research Findings

However, a new research report reveals challenges about making personalized learning a reality. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a study via CRPE. The results splash cold water on successful adoption of personalized learning in schools. The study focused on two questions:

  • How do teachers and principals go about designing and implementing personalized learning approaches?
  • How does the organization’s environment support or impede school-level innovation and its spread?

In the report, the authors assert:

  • Personalized learning implementation efforts were not systemic or systematic. These efforts were not blended into the existing system.
  • Teachers and principals lacked what they needed to install PL-motivated classroom practices.
  • Principals failed to provide coordination to convert teacher innovations into replicable, campus practices.

Cooperation stimulates the human brain. (Source). “Human beings have evolved to get pleasure from cooperation,” says Dr. Robert Sussman. Achieving personalized learning, therefore, must involve cooperation.

Make PL a Reality

Are you ready to make personalized learning a reality? Take these report recommendations to heart. To assist you, find specific tips below. Each will help amplify your awareness of the necessary steps. Follow these steps to make personalized learning a reality on your campus. Let’s get started.

1-Embed Coaching Supports

Read the research on coaching? If you haven’t, you need to move to adopt coaching at your organization. Here are a few TCEA resources to get you started and moving in the right direction.

  • The Power of Video Coaching: Video coaching for professional learning is much easier. Learn how to put in place coaching to transform teaching and learning.
  • Coaching Made Less Difficult: Embrace the power of collegial coaching and set up mentees and coaches for success.
  • Effective Peer Coaching Tips and Resources: Peer coaching is a growing trend. It can help teachers integrate technology to engage students. Take advantage of these tips and resources to get started at your campus.

These three coaching resources provide all you need to embed coaching supports. With these supports in place, you can begin the journey towards personalized learning.

2-Change Management Support

Managing any new system can be dangerous as leaders face tough challenges. Being grounded in change management theory remains critical. Personalized learning represents a destruction of the old system. Here are a few TCEA blog entries to scaffold your change efforts:

3-Adopt Knowledge Management Strategies

Knowledge sharing remains a key tenet of successful organizations. The knowledge management process focuses on creating, sharing, using ,and managing knowledge and information. Often this information and knowledge is only in the heads of one or two people. Externalize that knowledge for longevity.

Most schools lack continuity of purpose. Embrace these simple practices and technologies to make knowledge sharing do-able. Technologies include:

Tools abound. Make the commitment to engage in meta-thinking about school and district practices.

4-Establish Communities of Practice

Creating communities of practice can be easier with today’s tools. Two reliable tools include:

  • Microsoft Teams: This provides one-stop shopping for all your meeting needs from live video/audio chat and text on your computer and smartphone to embedded content. You can even create professional learning communities (PLCs). Combine PLCs based in Teams with a OneNote Staff Notebook.
  • Google Classroom: Use Google Classroom within the Google Suites for Education.

Extra, free tools like Microsoft Forms or Google Forms can make data collection easier.

5-Seek Out Innovation Partners

Ready to expand your personalized learning initiative? Partner with individuals and organizations that are adept at personalized learning. Here are a few to start with:

Embrace Innovative Learning

Be sure to join us at the Innovative Learning Strategies conference for a learning experience focused on the intersection of strong pedagogy and technology integration. Sessions will share the best teaching practices and research-based strategies around innovative technology trends will be elaborated on.

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personalized learning
Educational TrendsGood Teaching

Personalized Learning: Tailoring Lessons for Every Learning Style

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Personalized learning has been a much discussed topic in education for the last few years. The term is everywhere. And it’s very persuasive. It hopes to address learner variability and to make education more accessible for different learners. But there’s nothing new about personalized learning, either as an aspiration or a practice. It’s an approach that’s as old as the hills.  

Understanding Universal Design for Learning

Over the last few years, it has become well recognized by US educators that Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the perfect pedagogical approach that truly supports the idea of personalized learning.

“Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.” (www.cast.org)

You can determine each learner’s needs by using the principles of UDL to understand their strengths, challenges, aptitudes, interests, talents, and aspirations. UDL has often been connected to special educational needs, but it is a framework that applies to ALL learners who have variability in their learning. UDL helps teachers understand all the learners in their classroom. Every student brings something different and has different strengths.

New Tools for Variability

As UDL tells us, when we are designing for student variability, it is important to provide students with a few ways to demonstrate their knowledge and keep the lesson or content interesting for everyone. New technologies have revolutionized how students learn and allow for that multiple means of expression. Portable, personal laptops like Chromebooks or Surface Pros with stylus and touch interfaces, great computing power, and cloud connectivity make it possible to tailor learning to personal interests and needs, even allowing for 1:1 initiatives where each student has his own device to support learning. Because of this, students can now turn in homework that include photos, video, audio, animations, interactive graphics, smart maps, and presentations.  

Having and using technology in teaching and learning isn’t enough though. Making the most of technology requires a methodical and principled approach, one that turns the aspirations of personalized learning into an effective practice of personalized learning. Universal Design for Learning makes that practice possible.

Strategies to Address Learning Variability

Providing the tools, diverse activities, and scaffolded content to meet each learner’s unique needs can feel daunting. It’s important to start small with one new practice or strategy and then build on that. There are a number of tools that teachers can explore that can help to address learner variability. Here are just a couple of examples:

  • Collaborate – Some days we work better together. Get students to work together on Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. Maybe one works on content and one on design, if that is where their strengths lie.
  • Sketchnoting – Some students can adopt visual note taking to support information recall and build understanding. The new stylus and touch devices are great for this.
  • Overcoming shyness – Use the comments stream inside Google Docs or Word to converse with shy students privately.
  • Audio recording – Kids can practice and demonstrate oral reading fluency by attaching an audio recording to a turned-in homework assignment.
  • Text-to-Speech – Some students may feel more comfortable hearing passages of text read aloud.

Meeting Students Where They Are

Personalizing instruction and the use of technology in the classroom does not mean there is less of a place for teacher-led instruction. It also doesn’t mean that teachers need to spend endless time after school each day creating an individualized lesson for each and every student in the class. It’s all about meeting students in the spaces where they are and helping them grow by providing diverse ways for them to engage in learning, process content, and show their understanding.

Every child’s different, with their own star qualities, strengths, challenges, and learning styles.  Their needs are vast, and there are a multitude of ways teachers can meet those needs effectively in class, as well as for independent study and learning at home.

Want to Learn More?

Listen to Martin McKay, CTO and founder of Texthelp, along with special guest Kathleen McClaskey, founder of Make Learning Personal; co-founder of Personalize Learning, LLC; co-author of Make Learning Personal and How to Personalize Learning, in a pre-recorded session on How to Personalize Learning and Maximize Achievement for All Students or pop by booth 1617 at TCEA to talk to our Texthelpers and find out more.

About Martin McKay

Martin McKay, expert on personalized learningMartin founded Texthelp in 1996 to help people with communication difficulties. What started as a company focused on people with profound speech and dexterity disabilities has become a world-leading education technology company providing easy-to-use and useful software tools that help everyone read, write, and communicate with clarity in education, at work, and in life.

Over that time he has built, led, and directed a team of engineers to deliver technology that is used by millions of people every day around the world. He regards himself as incredibly fortunate to work in a sector that has such a positive impact on society using technologies that are so fun and compelling to work with. Martin is currently serving in an advisory capacity on the Universal Design for Learning council in the US. 

Most importantly, Martin and Texthelp believe that everyone’s entitled to the best possible learning and language support on their own personal journey – from literacy to life.

This is a sponsored blog by Texthelp. It was written by Martin McKay, CTO, Texthelp.

 

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