by Kim Loomis | Apr 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
In these COVID-19 times, we are all learners. Teachers, students, and families are learning new skills, pedagogies, and technologies. While new learning and professional growth is exciting, it is also exhausting. Be kind to yourself, your students, and their families. Not only are teachers looking for new lesson planning ideas, technology options, and creating a digital presence, your students are also learning new skills, course content, and working with family members new to schooling at home, who themselves may have lost their job or are also trying to work from home. Repost from SoftChalk’s Innovator’s in Online Learning with a supporting webinar. Click here for playback. As the former Online & Blended Learning Director, in Nevada’s Clark County School District, I’m a huge fan of digital learning. Even today, I help others across the nation establish actively engaging learning environments so that students are empowered to take ownership in their learning as the founder of i3DigitalPD with numerous blogs on partnering with digital content and author of a book titled: Think Outside the Box, but I never expected a world quite like the one we have been pushed into today. Check out other continuous learning tips shared in my previous blog Teaching in COVID-19 Times. The seriousness of closing schools for COVID-19 will affect us all. Time away from ‘normal’ educational setting pulls students away from friends and social services once provided by schools (e.g., food). The emotions that students, families, and teachers will experience during a time like this will be stressful. Disappointments abound – missed friends, field trips, ceremonies, and family outings. As you plan lessons,...
by Kim Loomis | Mar 31, 2020 | Uncategorized
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has put us all in a world that we did not see coming. The rapid deployment of social distancing took many by surprise, and each state, school, and individual teacher will contend with their own unique challenges as they tackle this crisis. Yet, as educators, we must figure out how to continue the learning. In times like this, even our teachers will be learning – learning new skills and pedagogy. Repost from SoftChalk’s Innovator’s in Online Learning with a supporting webinar. Click here for playback. As the former Online & Blended Learning Director, in Nevada’s Clark County School District, I’m a huge fan of digital learning. Even today, I help others across the nation establish actively engaging learning environments so that students are empowered to take ownership in their learning as the founder of i3DigitalPD with numerous blogs on partnering with digital content and author of a book titled: Think Outside the Box, but I never expected a world quite like the one we have been pushed into today. Ideally, designing effective distance learning programs requires planning and targeted professional development. However, in our current state of emergency, educators are caught in triage mode and are not in a position to craft an ideal online learning program. The key is to maintain the indispensable human touch of teaching and learning during this period of social distancing. With school closures, our focus should not be online or distance learning, it’s about maintaining continuous learning. Technology will be a crucial tool for learning when physical classrooms and schools are closed. Yet, teaching and learning is not about the...
by Kim Loomis | Jan 7, 2020 | Blended Learning, Digital Learning Models, Online Learning, Personalized Learning, Program Design, Research, Uncategorized
When students struggle in the traditional classroom and absences become daunting, creating larger and deeper learning gaps, where can educators turn? One way to help struggling students is by providing opportunities for success in different learning environments. Past practices often led students away from neighborhood schools, to alternative placement educational facilities. Yet, not all students that struggle need such a drastic remedy. Access to digital curriculum in a comprehensive school setting can be an excellent way to create opportunities to thrive. Digital curriculum is the first piece of the CIA of Blended Learning (digital Curriculum, guided Instruction, authentic Assessment), yet it’s important to ensure that educators understand the partnership between digital content and teacher-led guided instruction. Otherwise establishments create digital learning environments that isolate and remove high quality instructional practices, such as teacher and peer interaction, plus they tend to lower standards/expectations. This is often seen in credit recovery programs across the nation, as documented by Nat Malkus in his whitepaper Second Chance or Second Track (September 2018), were second chance credit recovery becomes a lower-level pathway of isolated, independent study programs designed for struggling learners. When we lower expectations, we are creating a lower track of students, many of whom were struggling to begin with. The TNTP whitepaper Opportunity Myth (2018) notes how schools and teachers are letting students down with low level learning opportunities that just don’t meet the standards. Yet, we must cultivate classrooms where struggling students learn how to take ownership of their learning. Where students can track and manage their learning outcomes in a digital platform, that allows them to pick up where they...
by Kim Loomis | Nov 5, 2018 | Uncategorized
In the CIA of blended learning model, teachers work in tandem with digital curriculum to provide a personalized learning environment for each and every student. Like any good partnership, one needs to test the waters, look for strengths and weaknesses, and find how the two of you complement each other. This is also true when selecting and working with digital curriculum in a blended learning classroom. When adopting digital curriculum for blended personalized learning, it’s important to consider what the digital curriculum is bringing to the partnership. Don’t get hung up on what it does not bring. When you think of other partnerships in our lives, like your spouse or kids, they are not perfect. You may find that these partners didn’t put the dishes in the dishwasher the way you would have, but the dishes got washed. Or they may not have mowed the yard the way you would have, but it got done. The same is true with digital curriculum. Just because it’s not the way a teacher would have instructed, students are still exposed to the curriculum. By releasing a little bit of control to the digital curriculum, teachers now have more time to guide instruction with an eye on grade level power or essential standards. Use a curriculum map when planning. Start small. It’s better to eat an apple one bite at a time, rather than shoving the whole thing in your mouth. When partnering with digital curriculum, classroom teachers should work in bite size chunks. For example, look at one unit of study at a time, rather than the whole semester or school year....
by Kim Loomis | Dec 18, 2017 | Blended Learning, Program Design, Uncategorized
Last month I had the opportunity to share options for digital learning that opens doors for high school students from the early freshman year to college ready senior year. Often, we think of digital courseware as a solution to a single problem; typically credit recovery or within alternative education. Having courseware opens numerous opportunities. Check out the Apex Learning Personalized Learning webinar: Think Outside the Box – Moving Beyond Credit Recovery. When designing digital learning environments, teacher preparation is just as important as student readiness. Personally, I’m a huge fan of “go slow, to go fast.” This means start with something small, something easy for both students and teachers. Use a tiny pilot. Watch it closely, refine as needed. Set everyone – the students, the teachers, the digital courseware – up for success. Since the digital content is new to both students and teachers, think of ways to create a learning environment that allows for familiarity with as little pressure as necessary. For example, elective classes can be fun and engaging, typically requiring less homework. Given a choice, start with electives. Freshman year is an ideal place to have students experience digital success with an online elective, embedded in an advisory type blended environment. Digital courseware can be introduced in a blended classroom by using the CIA model of blended learning, where teachers have a full understanding and embrace a balanced approach to digital curriculum, guided instruction, and authentic assessment. Blended classrooms are an ideal way to introduce students to taking ownership of their own learning, in a nurturing environment. Students still have a structured learning environment and see...
by Kim Loomis | Apr 17, 2017 | Uncategorized
On April 1st, I had the pleasure to enjoy and present at the Blended Personalized Learning Conference in Rhode Island. In preparation for the sharing of the 10 Digital Learning Models (book coming this summer), I was interviewed by Nick DiNardo in a “Meet Education Project” Podcast. Listen to the 30 minute Podcast #173 In the podcast, you will hear my passion for digital learning. The passion that drove me to create i3DigitalPD with a desire to share all that I have learned over the past fifteen plus years. It made me reflect upon my path to digital learning, from my early beginnings in 2000 when working with eighth grade recovery students, to building the first fully online public high school in Clark County in 2007 (graduating class of seven), though the failure of big money high school reform which did not change the way students learned, and growing in my belief that digital learning changes the classroom for the betterment of teachers and students. Prior to the conference, we visited several schools embracing blended personalized learning. One elementary school was in the early adoption phases, with a small handful of teachers testing the waters with personalized digital learning in grades three and five. A middle school was working to fine tune blended learning by adding a learning management system and digital content. An exemplar elementary school, three years into blended personalized learning, had a thoughtful leader and focused staff who had a data-driven polished rotation model in place. Each school was at a different place, yet all were seeing the positive effects of digital learning and looking to...
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