Personalized and Differentiated Learning

Kevin Hogan This episode of Innovations in Education is brought to you by stride tutoring. Stride Tutoring is an online education platform that closes learning gaps by connecting students with state certified teachers who bring lessons to life. Their personalized on demand learning model ensures every student gets the support they need to succeed. And education leaders are never left searching for effective tutoring solutions. OK. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Innovations and Education. E School News is podcast on the latest and Greatest in K12, Ed tech happenings. I'm your host, Kevin Hogan. I am the content director for E School News and I'm happy you click through to find us today. Today's conversation touches on one of the most thoroughly used, but in my humble opinion least understood, phrases in education. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it. The use of the term personalized learning dates back to at least the early 1960s, but there is no widespread agreement on the definition and components of what a personal learning environment is. Even enthusiasts for the concept admit that personal learning is an evolving term and doesn't have any widely accepted definition. My 2 guests would beg to differ and can give anecdotal as well as statistical evidence into the intricacies and practical applications of this transformative educational approach. Over the next 20 minutes or so, we'll explore real world insights and experiences shared by Doctor Matt Callison. He's the director of Innovation and Strategic partnerships from South Fayette Township School District in Pennsylvania. And Superintendent Diego Ochoa from San Mateo Foster City School District in California. They paint a vivid picture of how personalized learning manifests itself in diverse educational settings. Have a listen. OK, gentlemen, thanks so much for meeting with me today. I I really appreciate it. I guess we'll just get started. The topic being personalized learning the danger of dating myself. This is a phrase amongst many phrases in the education. Space, which has always been seemed to me to be kind of a intentionally squishy right. I would go to a a conference and I'd hear about the topic being personalized learning and sagely nod at a lot of the the techniques and and and the strategies and kind of come out and still really not have a handle on what exactly that might mean in the day-to-day. Management of a school district. So if it gets started, maybe each of you can kind of introduce yourselves and and your districts and how? To work and not to be Barbara Walters. But what's this personalized learning mean to you and in your district? Maybe, Matt, we'll have. Matthew Callison, PhD Director of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships South Fayette Township School District You get started. Hi, everyone. I'm doctor Matt Callison. I'm the proud director of Innovation and Strategic partnerships for South Fayette Township School District. We're a district of about 3500 students. Located just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. When it comes to personalized learning, I think and we take an approach of thinking about how we can provide more personalized opportunities for students in terms of course content in terms of learning experiences, I think there's an element of that that involves technology. Whether you're talking about Excel or some of the new AI powered tools, but really, how can we keep the human at the center while also creating more authentic and powerful learning opportunities for students that are relevant to their future? Speaker Sure. Matthew Callison, PhD I would classify that as my current understanding of personalized learning. Kevin Hogan That certainly sounds like it works at the at the school board meeting, or maybe the the back to school night. I like it, I like it and Diego. Diego Ochoa Hey folks, thanks for having me. First of all, really a big pleasure to be with you all. My name is Diego Echo. I'm Superintendent in the San Mateo Foster City School district. We are at K8 school district here in the San Francisco Bay area. We serve just over 11,000 students at 22 different schools. We're unique in that. We have schools, believe it or not, they go kinder through 8th grade, full Montessori. We have schools that are Mandarin immersion Mandarin and English immersion and Spanish and English immersion. We've got an array of different middle schools, so our district is a really great example of a place where cookie cutter education isn't going to work because our schools. Are so unique now. You asked about personalized learning for me, what personalized learning is about is it's about creating learning experiences that put the decision making into the hands of kids of what those students want to do, of what those students are excited to learn more about. The description that Matt gave is also. Absolutely, 100% relevant in that. You've gotta have. A curricular design for it. You've got to have an approach that wants technology to come into the picture without being the entire thing, and you've gotta think about how the adults in your system. Facilitate personalized learning. But for me it's really about getting into that student space and asking those really big questions that allow them to drive their learning in the direction that they feel passionate. About. Kevin Hogan Let me ask you this. When I was doing my due diligence on personalized learning the past couple of weeks to to prepare for this. Conversation did a lot of a lot of Googling, a lot of digging into E school news archives about what personalized learning means, and I have to say there was much more industry cons. 10. Than necessarily practitioner content and this is going back 1015 years. I mean this is a phrase that in the Ed tech industry products and solutions that have been developed and marketed to districts as an answer or as a solution or at least as an aide to some of these strategies that you're talking about. I guess my first question. To both of you is. Have they in the past been effective? And then #2, have they evolved along the same paths that it sounds like your definitions of what this means and and how it means right now in in school districts. Diego Ochoa Yeah, personalized learning, having been around for as long as it has been around, it has changed, especially in the last five years. It's it's taken in my opinion, a really. Big step forward. With any innovation in any business, when there is new work out there, when there is new technology out there, people are going to create companies to try to provide a service to customers. And so as one of the customers being Superintendent of a school district and and working in public education. There can be the approach where it says get as many products out to as many school districts as we can grow our company. Hope that one of the big companies buys us and that's definitely a strategy in education. We're a small company. We're going to give you a lot of attention. And eventually they're purchased by one of the bigs, Mifflin Pearson, so on and so forth. What I see as an educator having been, and this is my, I should say, is my 10th year as a Superintendent. What I see as an educator is over time. Those short term promises, those short term goals, they come and go. So there are a lot of school districts buying programs for one year and two years and three years and you know as far as as systemic change and transformation in the district that that's never going to. There. So what I think is the precursor that really turns personalized learning solutions or personalized learning software or tools into something useful is to have your own districts strategic plan or framework for what you're trying to accomplish. And for us our. Number one starting point for all of our work is to try to eliminate the achievement gap that exists nationwide. So we come out and say we believe all kids can achieve at a high level and our our strategies build off of that one place. So we choose solutions such as footsteps which I mentioned earlier that put the tool in the kids hands to truly allow for growth to take place. On an individualized path so that what you're doing, Kevin, sitting next to me in the same after school program, isn't dependent on what I'm. Doing. In a typical old school classroom, we're all doing problems one through 10. When you finish, Kevin, sit there. And read a book for please. Matt, I wish you the best. Keep trying, big guy. You're gonna get that answer correct eventually, right? Diego, you won't be quiet. So you're on the bench for reset. And that's we're laughing because it's true, Kevin. So what if I said, Matt, get going. Get excited, Kevin. Continue. Keep on, buddy. Diego, do your thing and we're all in three different places. But we're all getting to the goal for us, that's sort of the pie in the sky. That's what personalized learning solutions can help you achieve, but it's never separate from the district's vision of. That we want down the line for kids and you know the things that Matt was talking about earlier. Those are exciting because imagine having a kid in. His district E. Sports drone, I mean, come on. You're gonna have a bunch of people trying to move to. Pittsburgh here in a minute. Kevin Hogan That's what I always. Say, Matt, any thoughts from the from the industry side from you? Matthew Callison, PhD Yeah. I mean, I really agree a lot with what Diego said. It really resonates with me. I think my experience. With Ed Tech, I think often software companies, you know the message is is much greater than how the tool actually functions. In reality. I think with the introduction of AI, there's some really interesting potential here where I think we could finally start working on the things that companies have. That their tools could do 1020 years ago, but I think the concern is. Just how do we not create a system where students are going on an individual path, but they're just in front of a device in one way or another all day? How can we really continue to center humans in the process? I love the quote that Jim Cummins said about education is the process of building relationships and I think those human relationships are really at the heart of education. I actually sat in on a panel with my Superintendent today with some high school students talking about AI. Their experience with it concerns things we need to think about, and even they brought up this idea of we want teachers and relationships to be at the center of what we're doing. And so I think. Technology has a place and and there's like a really amazing opportunity. I think moving forward with better addressing individual student needs and really closing achievement gaps and supporting the needs of all learners. I think the challenge is how do we do that in a way where we are. Keeping relationships and authentic, meaningful work at the. Sure. I think that's one of the challenges and I think some of that challenge is that tech companies, often that are building platforms and solutions for schools often don't include teachers and educators and students in the design of those tools. And I think that would be one critical piece, especially with AI. Like, let's try something new and include students and teachers and other educators and families in the design of these products and so that they can really. Meaningfully meet the the needs that we have in our schools. Kevin Hogan Finish up with a little bit of a forward thinking when you look at your strategies and kind of the state of play of how your district is right now. If all things being equal and things continue to progress as we get out of the pandemic and start to maybe you know look at kind of a more positive aspect of of where we're going. Where do you? Where do you see your personalized learning strategies developing over the next few years? Anything. That stands out to you. Is there anything that maybe has been a surprise success that you might now be looking to implement? On the other hand, are there are things that you've begun to shed? Matthew Callison, PhD Yeah, I think we're on a path with our like world of work program across K through eight, really helping students understand their strengths, interests and career preferences. We're gonna continue to build that out and formulate what that looks like in meaningful ways at the high school level. We're gonna continue. To build out opportunities and programs that are built with intentionality around being inclusive and around inviting all students to participate in them. And we're gonna continue to explore different technological solutions that could provide. That extra support that we're all looking for, I don't think there's any magic bullet, but they're definitely a place for technology to plug in to provide support, both for the teachers and for the students and even. For building better communication between students and family members and teachers, and so I think and within that then within the system, we're also looking at scheduling and other barriers that we can minimize so that students can be at the center, their voice can be heard and that they can have. More flexibility and choice as they navigate our our school system. Diego Ochoa So what's on our agenda for the next five years is to seek out innovative thinking and innovative programming that's individualized, that we can bring in to these schools in particular, where we know the parents predominantly speak a language other than English and work in either. The service industry or the hotel industry, which is big in the Bay Area. And we want to give their kids experiences from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM at their schools that bring all of this content to them so they keep the integrity of the school day program while adding time and days. And and it's all looks like it's going to become a reality with this. With this very, very much needed funding in order to make it manageable for the next five years and and that's what we see going on is bringing in the more you. Geek, The E sports, the engineering, the computer science and really putting tools in these kids hand that get them inspired about their future. Kevin Hogan Yeah, well, I knew the toughest part of my job this afternoon would be to to end. The conversation. There's so much more we we can go and so many more insights, but just just. I really want to thank you for your insights and and your ideas here. I think there there was a certain point in the conversation where it read. Speaker They. Kevin Hogan Kind of came together and I think there's some some real great takeaways for our readers and our listeners to be inspired to do the things that you're doing in their own districts. So once again, thank you for your time and thank you for your insights. And I look forward to following both of your districts, continued success. And that wraps it up for this episode of Innovations in Education. To listen to the full conversation and to dig into more resources about personalized learning, be sure to click over to eschoolnews.com. We've got a ton of it. And thanks for listening. Again, this episode was brought to you today by stride tutoring. Stride tutoring is powered by the parent company of Stride Incorporated, a leader in online education with over 20 years of experience serving 2000 districts in all 50 states. Through personalized learning solutions, stride encourages everyone to strengthen their skills and to confidently stride through life.