Personalized Learning Task Force - Cheshire Public Schools

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Personalized Learning Task Force Overview

Personalized Learning Task Force Recommendations

Vision of the Graduate and

Definition of Personalized Learning

Board Approved (7-2019)

Presentation to the Board of Education - 2/21/19

Vision of the Graduate and Definition of Personalized Learning Handout

Cheshire Public Schools Personalized Learning District-wide Strategic Goal

Cheshire Public Schools’ staff will work collaboratively to research, plan and initiate the integrated use of academic standards, assessments, instructional strategies, resources and grouping practices for the implementation of a K-12 personalized learning approach to support advances in academic achievement and learner engagement. (Adopted by the Board of Education in 2015).

Cheshire Public Schools Strategic Planning Initiative Definition of Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning transforms schooling by providing student voice and choice regarding what, where and how students learn in relation to a standards-based curriculum. Within a personalized learning system, students work closely with teachers to establish individual goals. Students pursue individual and collaborative investigations, research, independent studies, and projects to learn and apply new concepts and skills, and regularly evaluate their own progress in relation to the learning standards and their own goals.

Personalized Learning Task Force Goals

Examine our current practices relative to our personalized learning goal (where are we now).

Plan strategies for parent engagement and communication with respect to our practices and initiatives for consideration.

Study the principles of personalized learning and evaluate the most effective way to provide this instruction for our students.

Provided that technology is identified as a strategy to move personalized learning forward, the Task Force shall identify how that technology is to be used and the value added through its implementation.

Propose recommendations to the Curriculum Committee of the Board of Education for the district to evolve in our capacity to meet our strategic goal in personalized learning.

Identify associated costs with any recommendations made by the Task Force.

Develop metrics to assess the success of any proposed recommendations.

Report ongoing work and progress to the Curriculum Committee of the Board of Education.

Meeting Dates/Times

Our meetings for the duration of the 2018-2019 school year are listed below and held in the Cheshire High School Library, from 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm. The dates and general agenda for the meetings are as follows:

Date	Focus	Session Information
Monday 4/23/18	Why do we need to prepare our students differently? How are we preparing our students for the world they will enter?	♦ 4/23/2018 - PowerPoint Presentation ♦ Resources

Monday 5/21/18	What is our current status in Cheshire? We were fortunate to have been joined by Steve DeFalco from CHS and Allison O’Donnell from Highland Elementary School. Each teacher provided an example lesson followed by questions and answers about strategies they employ to teach to the edges (following the theme established in the Todd Rose video from the April meeting). The form that we used to collect practices can be found here. The time together was meant in part to address goal 1 from what we had originally stated below. To provide further exposure to our current practices we are offering the classroom visits to see instruction in action.	♦ ReflectionSheet ♦ Classroom Vist Reflection Sheet

Monday 6/11/18	How might we in Cheshire achieve the desired outcomes? The June 11th PLTF meeting focused on a review and sharing of the instructional practices observed my membres of the task force who spent time visiting classrooms at all levels (elementary, middle and high school), as well as the May meeting presentations. These experiences will support our creation of a definition of what we want Personalized Learning to look like in Cheshire. We reviewed a variety of potential definitions for Personalized Learning in small groups and drew out what we felt was most compelling. Small work groups will focus on using that information to draft a definition for Personalized Learning over the summer.	♦ Characteristics of Personalized Learning

Monday 8/20/18	Defining Personalized Learning for Cheshire and creating a vision of the Cheshire graduate. Many members participated in subcommittee meetings over the summer to provide drafts of both a vision of the graduate and a definition for personalized learning. We looked at those definitions through the lens of Tony Wagner’s The Global Achievement Gap text which the full committee read over the summer. At the August 20th meeting, there was an engaging discussion about the book and then they reviewed the draft work that was done. The group provided feedback to both subcommittees who in a final meeting of those smaller groups, should be able to finalize their drafts. The plan is to review those finalized drafts in our October meeting and create a full plan for public review of those drafts. We will also examine some of the challenges that arose during Summit to determine if there is any interplay between those issues and our definitions.

Monday 9/24/18	The Task Force reviewed second drafts of the Vision of the Graduate and definition of Personalized Learning completed through subcommittees of the PLTF throughout the summer and into the early part of September. The task force made further modifications before unanimously adopting versions to be shared with the public. This completed a critical step for our group as these documents will serve as a “North Star” to provide direction about our destination for future work for all stakeholders within Cheshire Public Schools. The Task Force designed a communication plan to solicit feedback from the community specific to these two documents. The group felt strongly that we offer a single presentation at the CHS Auditorium and video record that so that others who can’t attend have the option of watching on their own and providing feedback about the definition and Vision of the Graduate we created. At the September 24th meeting, we also began to examine some of the challenges that arose during the 2017 launch of the Summit Learning Platform to provide some structure and guidance for our future work on how we will meet our goals for the vision of the graduate and personalized learning. As the Task Force develops that plan there will be additional opportunities for community input.

Monday 10/15/18	The Personalized Learning Task Force reviewed and offered feedback on the public presentation of definitions scheduled for Tuesday, October 23rd in the Cheshire High School Auditorium at 7pm.

Tuesday 10/23/18	Community Presentation at Cheshire High School Please give us your feedback!	Video Brochure Survey

Monday 11/19/18	The Task Force reviewed the list of challenges associated with the Summit implementation that they had previously identified in a meeting early this fall. The list included the identified concerns, reflections from central office administration, and a proposed strategy to address each concern. Members of the Task Force worked in two different groups to provide feedback on those proposals and add any additional information they felt relevant. The information will be reviewed at a future meeting as we begin to make recommendations about how we move forward.

Monday, 12/17/18	Taskforce members reviewed feedback from the community on the definition of personalized learning, vision of the graduate, and performance standards. The task force began working to integrate the feedback into the documents.

Monday, 1/28/19	Taskforce members discussed the role of the teacher and ultimately settled on language to integrate into our document. The team created this element in response to community feedback. The task force continued their work in examining the recommendations to avoid the missteps which occurred during Summit implementation.