Ready to Blend

Patience Nyanway is an aspiring college students in Texas. A few weeks ago Patience used her phone to interview children and parents in her neighborhood. She wanted to give them a voice so that they could share their feelings about this past school year, an unusual one for its widescale cancellation of in-person schooling. This podcast includes the audio from her short film. You'll hear Patience interviewing several families. To see the video version, go to https://www.readytoblend.com/post/short-film-reflections or subscribe to our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/readytoblend01. Mentioned in this Show: * Short Film: Reflections, by Patience Nyanway * Foundations for Blended Learning Micro-credentials Positive reviews of this podcast make Heather ever so happy and motivated. Thank you for taking the time!

As the pandemic has required schools to innovate, including with online, blended, and hybrid models that are unfamiliar to them, too many educators have suffered from trying to reinvent the wheel. The alternative is to look at pioneering virtual and blended schools that have won hard-fought battles to design learning experiences that are happy and effective. Their successes and failures can lead the way for educators who are new to the online world. In this class, you’ll look backward at how online and blended learning emerged over the past 20 years. With that context, you’ll look forward to imagine the online and blended solutions for the future. You’ll consider your personal openness to trying new strategies. You’ll analyze your learning design to check for the quality of engagement. And you’ll prioritize how to optimize the teacher’s use of time. LEARNING TARGETS Understand online and blended learning and which of their characteristics as disruptive innovations are worth considering as you design the instructional strategy for your school or classroom. Cultivate a personal openness to trying new strategies with online/blended learning. Envision the core building blocks of a flexible learning arc to scaffold the student experience. Analyze options for creating independent online work. Free up your time to prioritize individual feedback and coaching with each of your students. HAVE ON HAND Graphic Organizer: Online and Blended Learning Fundamentals FEATURED IN THIS CLASS Clayton Christensen explains Disruptive Innovation (Website) Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Book) Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools (Book) Thomas Arnett, “Distance Learning: Let’s Not Reinvent the Wheel” (blog) How to Create Learning Arcs (Ready to Blend Podcast #25: Hacks for Esteem Gaps) Professor Eric Mazur (Video from SSAT Conference) Relationships of Trust: What Great Coaches Do (Video) ENGAGE FURTHER Complete the six Foundations for Blended Learning Micro-credentials to prove your competency in implementing the concepts discussed in this class. The micro-credentials are brought to you by BloomBoard and Ready to Blend.

In this class, Heather teaches three ways to build bridges that help learners connect across any divide they might be experiencing so that they feel safe enough to speak up and express themselves, whether at school or home. You’ll learn to use digital tools to give learners a bridge into conversations where they might initially feel foreign or shy. You’ll discover how transparent norms can serve as a bridge to encourage sharing and participation. And you’ll explore how to tie your group discussions to individual student interests so that learners have an entry point into the group. No one should go through the day unnoticed. Children and teenagers have ideas that can change the world. Learn how to bring everyone into the conversation. YOUTUBE VERSION: https://youtu.be/xbX6H7cbNgw FEATURED IN THIS CLASS: Google Slides (software) Book Creator (software) Flipgrid (software) Animoto (software) How 2020 Shifted Perceptions of Technology in the Classroom (post; MRD Education) Morning Group Discussion (video; Ready to Blend) Ms. Kaylie’s slides for her Morning Group Discussion (slides; Ready to Blend) APPLY YOUR LEARNING: Make a copy of the Survey of Safety in Sharing. Use it to diagnose how well you’re playing games, creating norms, giving opportunities for people to express themselves digitally, and tying discussions to participants’ interests. ENGAGE FURTHER: RSVP for the Rebooting School Seminar Earn a Bloomboard Micro-endorsement by completing Ready to Blend's Foundations for Blended Learning Micro-credentials

I've restructured this podcast as a class, so that each episode going forward will teach a skill to help you blend online learning into school and home in ways that nurture all children. Today's class is on using games to improve children's well-being. You'll hear evidence for why students need social and emotional intensive care right now. Then you'll listen to examples of teachers who are using games to connect together their community. You'll also hear an example of using games to reduce anxiety at home. WATCH THE VIDEO: on YouTube or on the Ready to Blend website

We are alive right at the moment when there's an opening of opportunity to retool the classroom for the end user. We have the will plus the disruptive innovations to do it. School leaders and entrepreneurs can make it happen. Today's show features the main excerpt from an interview Heather Clayton Staker did with Simon Hennessy for the Atomi podcast in which they discuss principles of disruptive innovation that will bring about the transformation. What You Will Discover - How nonconsumption opens a one-of-a-kind opportunity for our generation - Why disruptive innovation can happen without any policy changes  - The value of mindsets, learner-driven content, and learner-centered coaches - Why and how to get started with disrupting standard schooling processes Featured on This Show - Foundations for Blended Learning Micro-endorsement, a set of six essential micro-credentials for teachers - Atomi, an online teaching and learning platform based in Sydney, Australia with courses in over 190 subjects

What's the best way for school leaders to equip teachers with the skills they urgently need to transform their instructional model? For years many educators have longed for a more personalized, competency-based, student-driven learning model to replace the traditional classroom. This year, remote/hybrid learning has created unprecedented demand for finally taking that call seriously. In the ideal, educators would have a modular solution for PD--one that lets them order up the specific skills they need, in a simple way, at an affordable price. In this show, Heather Clayton Staker shares her latest research from the Christensen Institute that proposes a way forward for making that vision for PD possible. What You Will Discover - Why modularity is the aim for the next generation of PD - The 3 requirements for true modularity - How micro-credentials could provide modularity - 66 competencies for student-centered teaching Featured on This Show - Developing a student-centered workforce through micro-credentials (Christensen Institute) - Stitchfix - BloomBoard - Digital Promise - Ready to Blend's Foundations for Blended Learning Micro-credentials Subscribe This podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn, and Stitcher. Its success depends on positive reviews, particularly on iTunes. Please leave a review, if you would!

Children want to make progress. They crave achievement—even if they do not appear to be motivated—provided that the basic levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are satisfied. The inequities in society grow worse for each day that children lack “flex” environments that are blended (online and face-to-face) that help them make progress seamlessly, whether they are in in-person or remote setups. Unlike ever before, it is becoming surprisingly simple to set up a Flex blended-learning model. In a Flex model, caring teachers lead discussions, provide individual coaching, and oversee the online instruction. Expect to see thousands of schools, micro-schools, and homeschool co-ops offering Flex schooling this year. In this show, we’ll discuss how the four building blocks of a blended learning arc provide the backbone for a Flex classroom and are increasingly within the grasp of schools and parents. What you will discover How to use whole group Socratic discussion to launch and close a learning arc The value of online learning for independent work sprints The critical, all-important, 1-on-1 structure that teachers consider the “killer app” of blended learning Ideas for collaborative work sprints Featured on this show Diagram of a Blended Learning Arc, readytoblend.com/tuesdays Sign up to receive free materials related to this podcast: https://bit.ly/3dFNYXd

Feeling somewhat lonely and depressed? Small wonder . . . the world is locked in social distancing, and humans brains are wired to suffer as a result. We can’t fully solve for social isolation right now. But we can avoid pitfalls that make loneliness worse. This episode addresses level three in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: the level of social belonging. We chat about how not to exacerbate children's (and our own) loneliness. For families, some types of screen time will increase heartbreak and despair, whereas others increase social belonging. For teachers and schools, let's talk about best practices for how to build community in online and distance education. Sign up for the graphic organizer: Go to www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays to get the graphic organizers or worksheets that go along with each Ready to Blend podcast. What you will discover: * Stay away completely from the "U-N-H-A-P-P-Y" web. * Go light on four other types of content. * Consume abundantly the full Recommended Daily Allowance of the Digital Media Diet. * Teachers, use Zoom either to take center stage or for Socratic discussion. * Use one-on-ones for check-ins, feedback, and building relationships. * Now's a great time to experiment with peer coaching. Featured on this show: * U-N-H-A-P-P-Y Digital Use Graphic * Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for a Balanced Digital Diet Graphic * Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa * How to create higher performing, happier classrooms in seven moves: A playbook for teachers * Adolescents and young adults are paying a high price for COVID-19 prevention Give us a rating & review If you are on an iOS device, simply press on the cover art image and click the "Give us a Rating and Review" link inside the Podcasts App. Thank you!

The shifting pandemic and school closures are opening safety gaps for many families and children, including personal, financial, and emotional insecurities. This episode offers a few hacks, in the sense of scrappy efficient shortcuts, for governments, schools, and families who are working to close safety gaps.  Sometimes becoming resourceful in the face of adversity creates more strength and safety than before the adversity hit. What you will discover: * Why scoring high on the "Do You Know" scale correlates with psychological well-being * How to tell stories to children and adolescents in ways that improve their resiliency and sense of identity * It could be time for schools to organize Family Circles Featured on this show: * Sue Shellenbarger, The secret benefits of retelling family stories, Wall Street Journal * Emory University, Children benefit if they know their family history, study finds * David Brooks, The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake, Atlantic Magazine * Ancestry, www.ancestry.com * Family Search, www.familysearch.org      

School closures and lockdowns are causing major physiological gaps for some children in the form of food, exercise, and sleep shortages, while other children are benefiting physiologically. Caregivers and educators want to help solve for physiological gaps, but it's not always obvious how to do that. This episode offers a few hacks, or scrappy efficient shortcuts, for governments, schools, and families who are contending with physiological gaps.  We are more powerful than we think when it comes to meeting children's needs, as well as meeting our own needs. But it will require using existing resources in new and creative ways. What you will discover: * Why movable outdoor gear is better than play structures * The value of acorns, pebbles, and boulders * How to repurpose school buses and cafeterias * Simple, low-cost meals hacks * Why nature trails should be broadly reopened * The value of device & screen curfews Featured on this show: * John J. Ratey, MD, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain * Maslow, Abraham, The Hierarchy of Needs * NRP, School Bus Drivers Deliver Meals Instead of Children

It might take a village to raise a child, but with school closures from coronavirus, parents/caregivers shoulder 99 percent of the work. It's on them for meals, schooling, recreation, church, and socializing—often while trying to work, deal with sickness, or solve for unemployment. Given these challenges, this show focuses on how to support parents. Until we're through with the virus, children's well-being is dependent almost exclusively on the strength of their immediate family units. You'll hear from three people who represent solutions for how we will #MindTheGap, meaning the space between where millions of children find themselves today and the entrance to the online-learning, distance education train. Children face five gaps, represented by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Speaking to #gap1—the Physiological Gap—Ruth Iaela-Pukahi tells us what it's like to walk to the local elementary school to pick up breakfast and lunch for the seven children, including two foster children, she is parenting as a single mother.  Speaking to #gap3—the Social Belonging Gap—Matt Clayton shares how his guides at Slope School connect one-one-one with their students three times a week using Zoom videoconferencing. They've also organized squads of four students who check in on each other through a structured process of peer support. Speaking to #gap5—the Self-actualization Gap—Thomas Collette shares how his company Agilix has organized a coalition of content companies to deliver a catalog of online courses for free until June 2020 so that students can work toward their goals while schools are closed. The courses load easily onto all major learning management systems. What other solutions have you found to #MindTheGap? Share them on Twitter and tag them with #gap1, #gap2, #gap3, etc. Then visit www.readytoblend.com/mindthegap to see what others have shared. To support Ruth Iaela-Pukahi, consider purchasing your next Amare wellness and mental health supplements from her beautiful collection at www.amareglobal.com/11150.  Explore Matt Clayton's Slope School at www.slope.school. It's part of the Acton Academy network: www.actonacademy.org To partake in Thomas Collette's offer for free online courses, go to https://agilix.com/freecontent/

Schools throughout the world are closing because of COVID-19. Millions of schools are rushing to post their lessons and assignments online. But there's a better way to go about it. Abraham Maslow's famous "Hierarchy of Needs" points to the way. Maslow said that people are motivated to meet their physiological needs (food, shelter, exercise, shelter) first, before they can attend to higher needs. Then they want safety (personal, emotional, financial). Then comes belonging (family, friends, connection). Only after these basic and psychological needs are met can people concern themselves with achievement and goal setting. Schools, are you putting school lunch delivery to children in need before online learning? Teachers, are you placing social connection and belonging before online achievement? This podcast kicks off the #MindTheGap campaign. Schools are rushing to build the online learning train. But there's too big a gap for most kids between where they're standing and the entrance to the train. They're going to fall. How can we #MindTheGap? Let's start as the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy and then move up. Find solutions at https://www.readytoblend.com/MindTheGap Tweet ideas with hashtag #MindTheGap as well as the Maslow level you're solving for: #gap1 is for solutions to Physiological gaps, #gap2 is for solutions to Safety gaps, #gap3 is for solutions to Social Belonging gaps, #gap4 is for solutions to Esteem gaps, and #gap5 is for solutions to Self-actualization gaps. The great news is that there are pockets of innovation where some amazing solutions are springing up. Let's make more!

Great leaders help their organizations adjust. That's true for big events that require big adjustments, as well as for lesser events that still benefit from flexibility. Episode 19 features Roy Moore, principal of Notthingham Elementary in Texas. He adapted with ninja-like agility to succor his community in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. And his staff are learning to do the same thing in their learning design. Principal Moore goes into detail about Pathway Time, a 40-minute block set aside a few times per week for learners to get individual support based on their immediate academic needs. This Tuesday, we'll post a beautiful diagram to help you replicate the Pathway Time idea. Look for it at https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays or in your inbox if you sign up for Tuesday Share deliveries at http://eepurl.com/geaExT. One secret to getting Pathway Time right is nurturing mindsets. Not only do learners need to develop a mindset of "I set my own goals," but staff need mindsets like "I view ALL of the students in this school as MY students" and "I am powerful to overcome unexpected challenges." As mindsets develop, the community is ready for the next step: setting goals and developing a routine of frequent one-on-one check-ins with mentors. During Pathway Time itself, all hands are on deck to meet with students, provide coaching and support, and ensure positive, productive work spaces for individual progress. After that, learners reflect on their results and set new goals and plans for their next Pathway Time opportunity. Don't miss the diagram: http://eepurl.com/geaExT and thanks again to Principal Moore for his innovative leadership!

You may have heard of Data-Driven Instruction (DDI). But what is Data-Driven Learning? Data-Driven Learning will replace DDI, I predict. Why? Because today's youth need to respond entrepreneurially to the abundance of data that surrounds them. To thrive in the Information Age, they must learn to cut through the noise, discern what data matters, and respond accurately. Data-Driven Learning is like teaching a teenager how to read the gauges on the car dashboard herself, without the adult saying one word from the shotgun seat. And that’s what parents want. We want our teens to learn how to drive that car and read the dials independently. In this show, Michael Norton, manager of blended learning and academics at KIPP Texas, explains why Data-Driven Learning is the "handshake" to Data-Driven Instruction at his schools. He views both strategies as important. This Tuesday we're publishing a free “Progress Power Tracker.” You can use it with your students to help them look at their data for the week, graph their results, and then analyze their results. The tool will help you equip your learners to read and respond to their OWN data. You can use it at the elementary, middle, or high school level. You’ll find the Progress Power Tracker next Tuesday on the Tuesday Share page: https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays or in your inbox if you subscribe to Tuesday Share deliveries: http://eepurl.com/geaExT     

On Saturday I attended the funeral in Cambridge, Massachusetts of Clayton M. Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School who died on January 23, 2020 at the age of 67. Clayton Christensen is regarded as the father of innovation theory. His academic work shaped the principles of business strategy. I'm one of countless people Clay's work impacted. Clayton Christensen’s theories, and his life itself, shaped my life profoundly and for the better.  Ahead for you on this podcast: * Working with Clayton Christensen on the Boston temple project * Trying to tell Clay's famous milkshake story to explain the Jobs to Be Done Theory * How adults face something akin to the innovator's dilemma in navigating personal resource allocation decisions * The value of the theory of language dancing with infants and children * Engineering the culture of an organization, including in one's personal life This upcoming Tuesday as part of the Tuesday Share service, I’ll publish printable Clayton Christensen quotes for you to keep handy, if they are helpful to you. You’ll find them at https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays, or in your inbox if you subscribe to Tuesday Share deliveries here: http://eepurl.com/geaExT  Professor Christensen, thank you for giving me the call to adventure and for being a wise mentor. You gave me the tools to use, you modeled how to stand on a stage and use them, and you helped me create a life that aligns more closely to the metrics that matter most.

Our guest today is Michael Norton, manager of blended learning and academics at KIPP Texas, a network of 55 charter schools in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin. Michael helped these classrooms transform into flexible learning environments where students have multiple options for how to make progress and teachers have several new ways of reaching and engaging each learner. The initial goal for KIPP Texas was for students to be ready for Algebra I by 8th grade. But the success of the project has led to its expansion to other core subjects and beyond the near-term goal of Algebra I. KIPP Texas has found that the new model is helping its students develop skills that will help them through life. The saying before was “KIPP to college;” now it’s "KIPP through college." For a free resource on how KIPP Texas structures flexible learning environments, download the Tuesday Share that accompanies this episode 16. It will be available next Tuesday at https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays

Caution: If your school has embarked on “tech integration,” that’s a red flag. Often that phrase is code for cramming devices on top of the traditional instructional model. Multiple studies show that approach to be a waste of effort. In this podcast episode, Heather talks to Lisa Adams, assistant superintendent at Temple Independent School District in Texas. Lisa says that for years, Temple ISD was great at giving each student access to a device and giving teachers Google Classroom training. But results were only marginally better, and the devices likely had nothing to do with the improvements. It wasn’t until 2015 that student performance started to climb. That was the year Lisa’s district switched from “tech integration” to a deep transformation of the fundamental learning design. Leaders and teachers worked together to envision four pillars of a new student experience. They visited exemplars to see model schools in action. They defined a “Learning Progression” for teachers, which articulated what the pillars of the student experience looked like in classrooms that were just getting started with the new design, in classrooms that were advancing, and in those that were going deep. The results have been dramatic, but Lisa cautions that the effort takes patience on the district’s part. Veteran teachers can feel uncomfortable as they are asked to evolve. But today, 90 percent of Temple’s teachers say they would not return to traditional instruction. For a free resource on how to use Learning Progressions to help your schools move beyond tech integration, download the Tuesday Share that accompanies this episode 15. It will be available next week at https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays

Bringing about a major shift in teaching and learning might seem impossible in a large, urban school district. Processes tend to hold firm. But Ysleta Independent School District in southern Texas is bucking that pattern. Now in its fifth year of implementing a system-wide blended learning project, Ysleta ISD has transformed 10 campuses. Part of Ysleta's success stems from bold school principals, such as David Medina, the guest of our previous podcast (episode 13). But there's a second essential piece: support from the school district. In this episode, Heather Clayton Staker talks with Micha Villarreal, who served as David's district counterpart to support his efforts as he changed his school. Micha shares the view that "in education, we've not been doing what's right for kids for many, many years. Kids are all different. To grow our kids and allow them to be successful as adults, we have to change the work that we do." Micha explains how her district runs discovery sessions to help campus teams get unstuck as they innovate. Next week, Ready to Blend will post a resource to help you run your own discovery session with your team. You can find it, as well as all the other Tuesday Share resources that accompany each Ready to Blend podcast, at https://www.readytoblend.com/tuesdays.

If you walk into a Pasodale Elementary School classroom, you’ll see students scattered everywhere, each working on an independent or group objective. To someone unfamiliar with the model, it might look chaotic. But each student can explain what she’s working on and why. A growing number of teachers and principals want to make this shift. But how can they build it? How do they find the time? It takes considerable time to convert a traditional, teacher-led unit plan to a series of student-driven stations, tutorials, on-demand resources, projects, and assessments. Teachers are willing to do the work, but they simply need time. Our guest today is David Medina. For nine years, David has been the principal of Pasodale Elementary School in the Ysleta Independent School District located in El Paso, Texas, less than a mile from the border of Juarez, Mexico. Roughly 98 percent of his students are Hispanic, and 50 percent are English language learners. For years his school was mostly teacher centered, meaning that teachers led. He thought that blended learning meant giving children access to technology. “Little did I know that it really has zero to do with technology and more to do with having students be active learners,” David says. He realized four years ago that technology was not the answer; the answer was to shift from teacher-led to student-centered learning. In today’s interview, Heather Clayton Staker talks to David about how he freed up teachers’ time to allow them to build the new model. Of all the things he tried, David found that canceling after-school tutoring was the most successful. Instituting “Blended Rounds” every 90 days and weekly 90-minute planning meetings were crucial enablers as well. It takes time to build a student-centered model. But then, once in place, the new model gives back time because students are less dependent on their teachers. In other words, giving teachers time to build is an investment that more than breaks even. For a one-page visual about this podcast, go to www.readytoblend.com/blog. It will be available on 11/12/2019 as part of the regularly scheduled Tuesday Share program. Thanks Principal Medina for your stirring words! If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. We'd be much obliged.

Do you know how to get good grades? Did you know that it's possible to get good grades even if you don't feel smart in some of your classes? This podcast episode is talking to students—to high school, middle school and even elementary school students who might be worried about how to get good grades. We'll talk about four basic strategies that will set you up for success, and then five power behaviors that will help you take your grades to the next level. One of the challenges that might be affecting you is the invention of "data dashboards" that give your parents a website where they can constantly see your grades. Help them understand that they can reduce the anxiety and tension, and increase the support, by setting a climate of unconditional positive regard when talking to you about your grades. From there, invite them to use the four basic strategies and five power behaviors to ask you Socratic questions, such as: Which of the four basics is the biggest challenge for you? Which do you find the easiest? Why? What could you do to turn the basics into habits? Which of the five power behaviors would help you most in each class or subject? Why? What can I do to support you better? Those honest and open conversations, in a climate of unconditional positive regard, will help you vent anxious emotions and convert them into successful action steps for improving your grades. It really is possible to become a great student! And it's not too late. School leaders, while students, parents, and teachers are working to improve grades, you can lead the way toward a better system overall by replacing the traditional grading system with one in which each student truly masters the content, even if they do so at varying paces. The old system is premised on sorting students into As, Bs, and Cs. A newer, better system would focus on each student reaching A-level mastery and then designing each lever in the system to support that ideal.

Prenda School is becoming the largest network of America's tiniest micro-schools.  According to Kelly Smith, founder of Prenda School, sometimes tiny things can cause outsized effects. A former student of nuclear engineering at MIT, Kelly says that operating a micro-school reminds him of splitting an atom, a process that releases incredible amounts of energy.  Kelly sees a similar phenomenon at his schools. Students don't learn the standards one course or lecture at a time. Instead, they conquer core academic skills in the morning and then spend the rest of the day in collaborative and creative projects with their peers. The result, says Kelly, is pure energy. Prenda School makes it possible for people to open a micro-school for up to 10 students, grades k-8, in their home. It provides all the training, software, and funding that they need to be able to do that. In this episode, Kelly and Heather talk about why Y Combinator wanted Prenda School in its portfolio of fast-track startups, why adults want to be Prenda guides, and why students are surprised by how hard learning can be when they have agency and when their progress is entirely mastery based. Large school systems can learn from Kelly's small-sized model. Listen in for this last episode in the summer series exploring "what schools can be" and how all schools can benefit from the innovations that are bubbling up in the super-agile micro-school movement.

Imagine you're in charge of building a new school from the ground up. You've worked on it all year and now it's time to open the doors to your first class of 4-13 year olds. What is your life like right now? In this podcast, we'll hear from Matthew Clayton as he faces this exact scenario. Matt is founder of Slope School, opening this month in Provo, Utah. It's part of the Acton Academy network, a fast-growing micro-school model that began in Austin, Texas and now has over 200 offshoots. Matt was the chief operating officer for Acton Academy for four years and has answers for why its model is growing so fast. “When I first saw Acton Academy, it changed my life,” Matt tells us in the podcast. He explains how Acton reframed his brain about what is possible. So why did Matt leave Acton to start his own school? Matt shares how why he and his wife, Maria, decided to take the leap. "K-12 education is roughly 16,000 hours of a child’s life," Matt says. "Big picture, what should all that time accomplish?" Matt explains the seeming paradox that technology is not the heart of Slope School, but that tech frees up the learning community to have even more human interactions with each other. Slope School, like other Acton Academies, has several key elements—Socratic discussion, Core Skills, Public Exhibitions, Learning Quests. Which of those elements does Matt believe he absolutely has to get right? Matt says if he had to prioritize, he'd choose team building and helping students learn to drive their own learning through goal setting and follow through. Matt describes a few of the key elements in detail: Socratic discussion The Hero’s Journey The first Quest: “Pitch a Playground” At the end of the show, Matt suggests two strategies that every educator can adopt to empower their learners: Give Respect—Always give learners the respect that you’d give to a trusted friend or coworker. Avoid the words “student,” “child,” or “kids.” The goal is to avoid hierarchical language. We are fellow travelers on a journey together. A metric to measure is how many times learners need to come to you to ask for help. What systems can you equip learners with so that they can solve problems themselves and with each other without requiring your instruction? Empowering your learner is a sign of respect. Give choice—Invite learners to set their own ground rules. You could start by saying: “Here is our mission and purpose. We need some ground rules to get there.” Then discuss and arrive at those commitments together. Also, get out of the mindset of teaching students and into the mindset of equipping learners to learn. Look for tools that give more choice around content, direction, pace, and timing. Listen in for more details about how Matthew Clayton is opening the most talked-about school in Utah this year. https://www.slope.school/ Accompanying Ready to Blend blog: Opening a School like Slope School

How much time should teenagers spend in school? Is your teen over-served by the nonstop schedule at your local comprehensive high school? This podcast features guest Brad Barber, founder of Tesla Academy, who takes us on a tour of his program in Orange County, Calif. Tesla Academy is a low-cost microschool that serves professional surfers, elite soccer teams, T.V. actors, and dozens of formerly average students who have now become exceptional learners. Heather begins with an overview of how disruptive innovation begins in circumstances where people are over-served by the existing set of options. Many of the emerging microschools in America follow this pattern, using shorter school days, new staffing models, and online learning to offer a simpler version of school at a lower cost than traditional private schools. Heather then joins Brad Barber on-site at Tesla Academy to discuss how his program works, why families like the 8 a.m.-to-noon model, the indispensable value of learning coaches, and how Tesla Academy has redefined high school. The episode ends with Brad Barber talking to Tate Staker, age 15, about what his life would be like if he transferred to Tesla Academy. For the hot-off-the-press Bellwether Education Report about the growing microschool phenomenon, go to this week's Ready to Blend blog: The Rise of Microschools.  

What could schools be? Best-selling author and film producer Ted Dintersmith contends that the 20th-century school design does a disservice to children today. Schools should be retooled, starting by de-emphasizing testing. “Low-level tests prepare children to be good at exactly what artificial intelligence excels at,” according to Dintersmith. “What if our measures of success actually impair children for their future?” In this podcast, Heather Clayton Staker and Ted Dintersmith discuss whether the “will-this-be-on-the-test? mentality” embeds a values system in today’s learners that systematically erodes their larger sense of purpose. Dintersmith believes that schools can move beyond flashcards, test prep, and learning irrelevant skills. During this interview, he questions what the purpose of school is and then points to schools around the U.S. that are replacing test prep with four “PEAK” principles: Purpose—Students believe in the importance of their work. Essential Skills and Mindsets—Learning experiences foster competencies that are essential to adults (e.g., creative problem solving, critical analysis, communication, collaboration, citizenship, character). Agency—Students create their learning experiences, set their goals, manage their progress, and evaluate their work. Knowledge: Students develop real mastery of the topics they study. They can apply it, ask thoughtful questions about it, and teach others. To learn more from Ted Dintersmith, visit https://teddintersmith.com/. His Innovation Playlist is available for free at https://teddintersmith.com/innovation-playlist/. Ready to Blend is sharing the link to his “Most Likely to Succeed” video at this week’s blog, What School Could Be.

Time. It's so valuable. Often we feel we don't have enough of it. How can schools make the most of their learners' time? This podcast focuses on competency-based learning, an idea whose time has come. In a competency-based system, learners move from one level to the next based on their own choices and timing, not based on the school calendar. Over 360 studies show that competency-based learning significantly helps children. To understand the idea, Heather takes you on a journey through five time periods in education: 1776 - Education in colonial America 1837 - Horace Mann and the Prussian system 1913 - Henry Ford and Industrial America 1984 - Benjamin Bloom's research on mastery learning 2020 - What the future can be Looking to the past, you'll get an overview of why schools operate as they do today and hopefully some new ideas for how to make them even better for tomorrow.  

Summertime can mean more cellphone time for kids, and that can mean more anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. In this episode, Heather shares four strategies for how to set up kids for success with their phones during the summer. She shares the four-part RAPS system: Relationships — Discover your teens' love language and speak it to them. Awareness — Create an open dialogue about cellphone use. Protection — Set up guardrails to make it not so hard. Sustaining — Keep this process alive by modeling it yourself and repeating it. Be sure to view the accompanying Summer Phone Strategy blog for a video on how to set up the Screen Time settings on iPhones and Android phones to protect your kids. Will you join the movement to give children a better summer by properly strategizing their cellphone use? Take the Summer Phone Challenge for Parents. Imagine if every caregiver committed to helping their kids use their phones in a pro-social, positive way this summer. The rising generation needs our help. Let's make the summer of 2019 a season they won't forget.

"But plain old classrooms worked for me!" That's one of the common objections adults raise to the idea of replacing the factory-based classroom with a personalized model. In this episode, you'll hear a discussion between Heather Clayton Staker and Shawn Rubin, Chief Education Officer of the Highlander Institute, on the topic of personalizing learning. Heather and Shawn talk about Shawn's idea that a personalized strategy has three legs: pacing, agency, and differentiation. Then they look at a few levels of personalization, starting with Traditional Instruction, and then becoming more personalized with Macro Differentiation, Micro Differentiation, Individual Mastery, and Fully Personalized. How personalized is your school relative to Shawn's continuum? Shawn Rubin is the co-author with Cathy Sanford of Pathways to Personalization: A Framework for School Change. He has helped dozens of schools and thousands of teachers in Rhode Island seriously upgrade teaching and learning for their students. Accompanying commentary and notes for this podcast are at https://www.readytoblend.com/post/personalized-learning.  

The effort to digitize classrooms is often fraught with expense and disappointment. Schools have spent well over $100 billion on computers, but often find their investment does not pay off. The good news is that it's possible to use technology to create school designs that were completely unimaginable a few decades ago. But it takes the right model and the right leader, both at school and home. This episode focuses on the problem of "cramming" technology into children's lives and suggests an alternative, more successful way of thinking about deploying disruptive innovations. In the show, we discuss: Slope School Acton Academy Kitchen appliances Katherine Mackey's "Cramming" blog The history of the blackboard The legislative process How to avoid cramming The learning model: What's the experience for students? The leader: Is he or she entrepreneurial? Starting one lesson at a time Relevance for parents You can view the accompanying materials at https://www.readytoblend.com/post/digitizing-classrooms.

What's the future of schools? Is online learning a fad or will it transform teaching and learning? What essentials do schools and individuals need to know? This podcast introduces the Theory of Disruptive Innovation, a brilliant theory that Professor Clayton M. Christensen of Harvard Business School developed to help us be able to predict the future of innovations with greater reliability. This theory shines a light on why online learning is changing the way the world learns. During the podcast, Heather discusses the implications for teachers, school leaders, families, and adult learners. You can view the accompanying materials at https://www.readytoblend.com/blog.

This episode focuses on the single most important question to ask as you consider whether to purchase technology (computers, tablets, phones...) for your school or family. In The Blended Workbook, Michael B. Horn and I provide a 20-question "Interest and Readiness Assessment" that you can use to analyze whether a tech investment is right for you. But, ultimately, those 20 questions do not matter as much as one specific question about your readiness for technology. Let's look at that question up close and then decide what the answer is for you. Is purchasing more devices the right move for you to make for the children in your care?

How much tech is the right amount of tech for schools and families? Most homes and school are brimming with technology, including computers, tablets, phones, and TVs. Some people embrace this trend and race to expand their WiFi and enlarge their screens. Others are afraid of technology, noting its real risks to optimal physical and emotional development. This inaugural podcast, hosted by acclaimed author and K-12 education expert Heather Clayton Staker, explores the trade-offs for schools and families when it comes to owning technology. We discuss how to find a middle ground and use technological innovation in a way that serves the best interests of children.