Learning at Home – Using Twitter to learn more

We’re collecting questions about Learning at Home from teachers at all levels, and we’ll be working with experts to help get these questions answered. If you have questions, please provide them here.


On Friday afternoon, March 13, 2020, Governor Pritzker announced that all Illinois schools would be closing for a week and a half at a minimum. In advance of that, over 100 of Illinois’ approximately 850 school districts had already announced closures. (See this website from the Illinois State Board of Education for more information – Scroll down to view their dashboard.) Some of these closures have been announced into mid-April. This same pattern is taking place throughout the United States and across the globe.

Follow #KeepLearning #LearningAtHome #elearning & #ILEdChat on Twitter

With the unprecedented move to Learning at Home in the face of COVID-19, resources and ideas are being widely shared, most notably on Twitter. As was shared in our previous post, encouraging teachers to actively engage with a PLN through Twitter can generally result in positive innovation and sharing, but such engagement is incredibly critical at this time–and will continue to be beneficial after we have completed the quarantine period. Even if you are an educator who is not on Twitter, clicking on the links for each of the following Twitter hashtags (a way of labeling and organizing content on Twitter) will allow you to scroll directly through the questions, answers, and resources being shared.

#KeepLearning

#LearningAtHome

#elearning

#ILEdChat

#ILSchoolsStepUp

Twitter hashtag header

Once you are in the hashtag search (which you can also access on your own by using Twitter’s search bar and simply typing in the hashtag), you will see a number of tabs near the top of the page:

  • Top
  • Latest
  • People
  • Photos
  • Videos

Of these, the two most useful are, as you would expect, Top and Latest. Top tab will show you the posts garnering the highest level of engagement on Twitter, which is defined as a mix of replies, retweets, and likes. The Latest tab will show you the most recent posts in chronological order. In either case, start reading at the top of the tab and scroll down as you read. Clicking on links as you read will allow you to access that information, and the links will conveniently open in new tabs in your web browser, so you don’t lose your place.

By the time you have scrolled through a portion of the list, there will likely be new tweets to view at the top.

Follow the Illinois Digital Educators Alliance Twitter account – @ideaillinois

IDEA Illinois is one of the leading chapters of ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) in the world, and as expected, they are taking a leadership role in providing resources regarding E-Learning to educators at all levels. If you have a Twitter account, you can follow @ideaillinois, by typing @ideaillinois in the search bar, and then clicking the “Follow” button. Even if you do not have a Twitter account, you can click here to follow @ideaillinois.

IDEA E-Learning Resources

IDEA Illinois is tweeting thoughtful questions and resources throughout the day each day and using the hashtags #elearning and #ILEdChat. Additionally, they are providing advice and gathering curated resources on this page on the IDEA Illinois website. (This page is being updated regularly, so keep checking it.)

Ask questions and share

Even if you are new on Twitter and even if you have very few followers, don’t be afraid to ask questions and share resources that you and your team have found or created. If you use the hashtags listed here (by simply typing them in with the # at the start and all one word–exactly as they are written in this post), you’ll likely get responses even with very followers.

Additionally, as you find others who are tweeting helpful information, click on their Twitter handle to go to their account click the “Follow” button to start to build up individuals and organizations that you are following directly.

March 2020

E-Learning Tips for Learning at Home

We’re collecting questions about Learning at Home from teachers at all levels, and we’ll be working with experts to help get these questions answered. If you have questions, please provide them here.


As school districts and postsecondary institutions across the P-20 Network, throughout Illinois, and around the United States and the world have had to rush to implement e-learning days in an effort to promote public health and slow the spread of COVID-19, teachers and faculty members are having to quickly grapple with days, weeks, or months of teaching online when they were previously planning to be working face-to-face with students in a more traditional learning setting. With the main goal of improving learning for all learners and supporting educators in that work, the P-20 Network will continue to seek to collect and share resources to make online learning as productive and efficient as possible for both students and their teachers. Initially, we’ve collected some tips and resources that may be helpful.

 

Engage students in impacting what & how they are learning online

As Thornton Fractional School District 215 Superintendent Teresa Lance demonstrates in the above tweet, it is critical that, from the start, teachers are transparent with students about this being a learning process for everyone. Doing so can serve to build community despite not being physically in the same location, an important social and emotional prerequisite for learning, and it can allow students to brainstorm and develop ideas that will actually improve instruction. Teachers can and should ask about:

  • Which online learning tools are most and least effective and why
  • Which activities are most engaging and why
  • How students have successfully created an environment at home in which they can learn (and where they are struggling with this)

Whether in-person or online, teachers should also create as much opportunity as possible for students to explore what deeply interests them about their curriculum, to read both fiction and non-fiction that is most relevant to their lives and appropriately challenging for them, and to create products that have real audiences and purposes. Education Pathway students at Buffalo Grove High School created this e-learning guide for teachers as part of their classwork, and it was widely shared via Twitter to help educators worldwide.

 

Connect with teachers worldwide

From early childhood educators through university professors, when teachers collaborate with other educators, they experience higher levels of self-efficacy, have greater job satisfaction, and most importantly, they are most likely to have a long-term and significant positive impact on student learning. For teachers who have not previously been on Twitter or for those who engaged in a professional development workshop regarding Twitter eight or nine years ago and who have not been back, now is the time to jump in.

Resources regarding how to provide instruction online have been shared widely as schools in other countries closed their classrooms weeks and months prior to schools in the United States. Additionally, there are already countless experienced teachers of online and blended learning courses who are active on Twitter and can help support teachers. In the example below, Adrienne Michetti, a Canadian who teaches in Singapore, and who has been an active educator on Twitter for over a decade demonstrates the profound power of being willing to ask for help from others in her professional, personal learning network.

Responses included the following resources:

Finally, even if you are new to Twitter and to teaching students online, don’t be afraid to share and ask questions!

 

Be realistic about students’ learning environments

Empty Primary ClassroomWhile Comcast has announced free Internet for low income families through their Internet Essentials program for 60 days, this service is not available in all areas–particularly rural areas. Even in areas where it is available, in many apartments, cables need to be run and modems deployed and set-up. In other words, many students will not even have Internet access. Even if 90% of your students have Internet access at home – 2-3 students per class on-average will not have Internet access.

For families and students using mobile devices to do their work, they face the additional change of costly data caps, and many do not have or cannot afford to use that device as a hotspot. (They are very limited in how many YouTube videos they will be able to watch to complete assignments over the weeks that schools and colleges/universities are closed. And, could you imagine typing a long-form writing piece on the small, glass keyboard on your phone.)

To help with this, survey your students using a private Google Form or Microsoft Form to learn about where in their home they will be working, what kind of Internet access they have, what distractions they will face trying to learn at home, and what other responsibilities they will have in their families at home during the “school” day. In addition to giving you actionable information, this will also allow students to reflect on these points and start to develop plans and solutions where possible.

Nevertheless, it is critical that teachers adjust expectations in accordance with these realities. To think that students will be able to do their normal 8.30 AM to 3.30 PM school day at home in the same way that they do it school creates an unrealistic foundation for trying to successfully “do” learning online.

 

Expect yourself to learn – and give yourself permission to do so

The greatest teachers are always learning, and everyone one of us will definitely learn when moving to online teaching. Even experienced online educators speak openly about how challenging it can be do effectively, and teachers who are new to it with little time for preparation need to be gentle with themselves regarding this reality. Understanding your students’ needs and current situations, taking instructional risks, and being transparent and open with students (and consistently gathering feedback from them!) throughout the online learning experience will go far in creating the best possible learning experience for students and upon which further improvements to future online learning can be made by teachers.

March 2020

Lake County Tech Campus – Creating a Team-Based Challenge

The Lake County Tech Campus provides a wide range of Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs to high school students from throughout Lake and McHenry Counties in Northeastern Illinois. Education is one of the many high quality career areas in which programming is offered at Tech Campus, with a team of three teachers who provide instruction for juniors and seniors in high school. These students, in turn and alongside their professional teachers, provide instruction and learning opportunities three days per week for early childhood students in the specifically designed early childhood classrooms at Tech Campus.

Team-Based Challenge-Career Pathway Endorsement SlideAs part of this work, the Education teacher team decided to incorporate Team-Based Challenges from the Illinois Career Pathway Endorsement model, and the P-20 Network team both facilitated the instructional planning and participated in this effort alongside the Education teachers. The Education teachers identified two potential real-life, complex problems of practice that they believed an in-depth Team-Based Challenge would help their high school students learn and solve and through which they could develop a deeper understanding as potential pre-service teachers. Together, we spent one entire “professional development day” building out the Team-Based Challenge.

First, we explored the key College & Career Pathway Competencies that would be taught and on which students would be assessed. Specifically, both the Essential Cross-Sector Employability Competencies as well as the Human and Public Services Career Pathway Competencies (which are currently defined through EDU-specific competencies) were studied and discussed. After examining all of these competencies, the teachers specifically identified the ones that would be best taught and assessed through the Team-Based Challenge.

Competencies-Assessments

Then, the teachers determined how they would assess each of these competencies as well as, through that discussion, beginning to plan instructional lessons and activities that would be embedded in the Team-Based Challenge.

Tech Campus Ed Teachers

Finally, using the Backwards Design Model of instructional planning, multiple assessments were fully built-out prior to the end of the professional development workday.

Ultimately, in one day, the teachers learned more about the Career Pathway Endorsements, identified the competencies that would be taught and assessed, created those specific assessments, and outlined a two-week instructional unit that would serve as a Team-Based Challenge.

For more information about Career Pathway Endorsements or to reach about arranging for professional development and planning support around the Career Pathway Endorsements and Team-Based Challenges, please contact either Brooke (bsimon3@niu.edu) or Jason (jason.klein@niu.edu) at the P-20 Network.

Early Childhood Classroom 1

March 2020

Illinois Postsecondary Profiles continues feature roll-out

Have you visited the IllinoisPostsecondaryProfiles.com website yet? Have you shared it with your school counselors and academic advisors? Students and parents?

The Illinois Postsecondary Profiles website brings together data from across multiple agencies in one interactive, easy-to-use website. Currently, visitors to the site can explore the full range of postsecondary institutions in Illinois.

New features that we want to highlight for end users includes:

  • Download the Data – Researchers can download the data from across the site into a spreadsheet file with the link at the bottom of each page.IPP Website Screenshot - Download the Data
  • Print and/or Export Data on a particular screen – Users can also take what they see on their own computers and print or export to a spreadsheet for future reference.
    IPP Website Screenshot - Article Inset Detail Image

What’s coming next?
The next phase of the website, which is under development, will allow users to explore occupations and areas of study.

The Illinois Postsecondary Profiles website is a collaboration of the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois Community College Board, and it is developed and managed by Northern Illinois University’s Illinois Interactive Report Cards.

February 2020

PASS Summit again brings educators together to focus on College and Career Readiness

The Sauk Valley Partnership Advocating Student Success (PASS) hosted their 5th annual College and Career Readiness Summit on Friday, February 7, 2020 at Sauk Valley Community College. The day highlighted the combination of policies, programs, partnerships and practitioners in pursuit of a community-focused approach to college and career readiness. Highlights from the day include the keynote from Tim Farquer, Superintendent and Curriculum Director for Williamsfield Schools, one of the first competency-based pilot schools. Tim explained how the district focus on students attaining needed skills, completing career pathways and participating in local partnerships has resulted in the number of students meeting or exceeding state standards rising from 34% to 50% in the past four years. Instead of arranging students by age, students are arranged according to graduation outcomes. Students can choose to complete an associates degree by the time they graduate from high school, college credits, trade certifications or work-based experiences.

Another key to the attainment of competency-based education is identifying acceleration points in various subjects. When students reach these benchmarks, they identify opportunities to accelerate through work that they have already learned. A continual focus on “this is where I am but this is where I want to go and this is how I will get there” has permeated the district such that even parent conferences are now led by the students themselves.

Tim states “Our approach to career pathways leverages student’s passions to drive core skills farther & faster, positioning themselves for success after high school.” For more information about  competency-based education in Williamsfield, contact Tim Farquer at tim.farquer@billtown.org

The day also included “policymaker speed dating” in which state and local policy-makers met with practitioners in a round-robin format. Policymakers answered questions about how practitioners and policymakers can work closely together and then listened to the practitioners’ perspective on the issue. Topics included competency education, students ready for life after graduation, career pathways, limitations of rural settings, and more. Janis Jones said, “The structure of policy speed dating forced participants to be thoughtful and articulate in their comments. It allowed policy makers to hear directly from those who attempt to implement the policies, and created great dialogue. Both sides benefited.”

PASS Summit 2020 - Alan Clemens presenting the Illinois Postsecondary Profiles website

Business and industry representatives joined the group for lunch and then the afternoon included several break out sessions. Topics ranged from learning more about Transitional Math to Career Pathway Endorsements to the IllinoisPostsecondaryProfiles.com website. These breakout sessions not only provided conference attendees with opportunities to learn from the presenters, but there were also many instances in which great value also came from what educators shared with one another through discussion.

Sauk Valley Community College and Regional Office of Education 47 (Lee, Ogle, and Whiteside Counties) ended the day with an announcement that they had been awarded funding through the Illinois Community College Board’s Transitional Instruction-English Pilot Project grant. Click here to read more and to view the grant awardees from across Illinois.

February 2020

Focusing on Career Pathways with an emphasis on individual students’ plans

Belvidere School District 100 has been focused on putting each piece in place to support students’ engagement with the College and Career Pathways.

One of the early key steps in this work was exploring the “crosswalk” (pictured below) between the Postsecondary and Career Expectations Framework (PaCE), the Illinois State Board of Education’s College and Career Readiness Indicators (CCRI), and the College and Career Pathway Endorsements (CCPE) outlined by the Postsecondary Workforce Readiness (PWR) Act.

PaCE-CCRI-CCPE Framework Crosswalk
PaCE-CCRI-CCPE Framework Crosswalk (Click to enlarge)

Belvidere School District 100 knew that they wanted to support student learning and exploration with the Career Pathways and to ensure that students had the requisite knowledge and skills to be successful beyond high school – in postsecondary education and in the workforce. Nik Butenhoff, Director of Career Readiness, said the the framework crosswalk, “supported the hunch that we had. This was the evidence that if we have to track the College and Career Readiness Indicator (for the State), if we just go all-in for the Endorsements, we will then land on the work that we needed to support the Indicators.”

Nik goes on to point out that this work is central to the efforts of teachers and administrators in Belvidere to improve learning, “The stuff that the State is giving us; this is good. These frameworks show how its all intertwined with each other. It is not separate initiatives, but it’s all connected.”

Belvidere School District 100 has developed its own graphic to show the importance of individual planning with each student. The State’s College and Career Pathway Endorsement graphic, which is linked above, also places individual planning at the top of the framework, but the Belvidere viewpoint is to stress it even further as pictured below with the “Individualized Plan” section wrapping around each of the key components.

Belvidere 100 - Career Pathway Endorsement Graphic

In addition to this, students are asked to be thinking about their College and Career Pathway in a number of different ways. One small, easy, yet very powerful, example of this is on student’s Course Selection Form (pictured below). As student’s consider what courses they are requesting for the following school year, they are also asked to think about their desired College and Career Pathway Endorsement area.

Belvidere 100 - Course Selection Sheet with Endorsement Area
Belvidere 100 – Course Selection Sheet with Endorsement Area

In addition to these strategies, the posters pictured with this post are up in the high schools and the middle schools to help students consider the Pathways as they move through the day, and the District 100 Career Guide is offered to students and families in both English and Spanish.

Possibly the most important component in helping make the College and Career Pathways begin to come alive for high school students in District 100 is that all ninth graders are required to complete a Freshman Careers Course, during which a wide range of career exploration and skill-building activities take place.

January 2020

Survey – What support do you need with Perkins V?

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) jointly implement Perkins V and they continue to provide resources for school districts, community colleges, and EFEs to move through the Perkins Grant process successfully. The following websites include resources and support documentation from these state agencies:

Based on feedback from school districts and community colleges, Education Systems Center, the Center for Governmental Studies, and the P-20 Network, all based out of Northern Illinois University, are seeking to determine if there are additional needs related to the Perkins V processes, and if so, how our organizations may be able to assist. This short survey is designed to provide that feedback to know what needs may exist that require additional support. 

January 2020