PILOTed

What does Virginia Beach expect from Teachers and Students

This year's CoSN Annual Conference was online last week. Aaron Spence, Superintendent of Virginia Beach and the CoSN and AASA Empowered Superintendent of the Year gave an incredible presentation.

His conclusions after so many years in the field are that deep learning requires the personalization of learning. The power of personalized learning is to foster student agency. Student agency requires a transformation of the learning experience of students. The purpose of technology is to accelerate the transformation.

Here are his expectations for Teachers:

1. Teachers will use digital technology to appropriately connect students to authentic learning experiences, inside and outside the walls of the classroom.
2. Teachers will empower students to choose their learning path through relevant and purposeful use of digital technology.
3. Teachers will personalize learning through real-time data collection and analysis of individualized learning experiences.
4. Teachers will use digital technology to collaborate, globally and locally, to foster professional growth.

And those expectations are to result in these outcomes for students:

1. Students will take ownership of their academic growth by being active partners in their unique learning pathway by having voice and choice.
2. Students will gain a global perspective by leveraging digital tools.
3. Students will collaborate using digital tools to support their learning and the learning of others.
4. Students will demonstrate academic mastery and growth through creation and publication of digital work.
5. Students will become responsible and ethical digital citizens.

Having spent so much time the last few years working with the folks from 3DBear, this sounds positively Finnish.

Here are a few additional observations during the conference by district administrators:

• You can’t unsee what you’ve already seen, and we’ve already seen the inequities that exist and the executive functioning skills that aren’t existing in our students. The world has changed, and we are not going back.
• We need to move beyond grades. Are you grading the fact that children are in poverty, that their parents are illiterate, that they don’t have after school opportunities, that their parents are working two jobs and don’t have time to work with them on school work? is that what you are grading?
• If we don't figure out schools right now, the economy is not going to come back.

Remote Learning via Webconference reinforces both privilege and deprivation

How do we give every student dignity when we conduct live online classes with them? Each time we videoconference with a student we are inviting ourselves into their homes. What are our reactions and how do we think students and their families feel when

• An argument breaks out at home while we are conducting a lesson?
• Two children need to be on the same computer at the same time?
• We crowd out whatever bandwidth exists in the house?
• The child is in the same room with their other relatives who also are stuck in isolation?
• There are 10 or more people sharing the same (small) residence?
• Members of the family walk around not completely dressed?
• Are we going to require the family to keep the home or room immaculate?
• The paint is cracking , the windows are broken, or the furniture is in disrepair?
• A student is homeless; how do they participate and how do you think they feel about showing a different “home” every week?
• A student doesn’t have access to food?
• A student is in an abusive environment, and even more so now that they don’t get out for the school day?

Who is thinking of these things and how are we fixing them?