On Our Minds:
And The Winner Is...
Honestly, you are all winners to us, but sometimes it is nice to give an extra big shout-out, accompanied by an extra heavy paperweight / trophy, to a few special districts or individuals so at this year’s Personalized Learning Summit we did just that. ICYMI - here are the 2016 award winners:
- The “Whatever it Takes Award” went to the Enlarged City School District of Middletown for their continued commitment to doing everything they can to support student learning. Over the past few years we have been honored to support Middletown in taking grades K-6 Blended, grades 6-12 Flipped and are excited to now be helping them with their new OER initiative. If it will help students they are up for it, and we are too!
- The “Once Isn’t Enough Award” went to Cindy Ambrose. Formerly the CAO at Horry County Schools where Cindy worked closely with Ed Elements to implement personalized learning across 40,000+ students, she re-located to Loudoun County Schools in VA and is now leading the charge to implement personalized learning for 75,000+ students there. She likes personalized learning so much she did it twice.
- The “Engage and Inspire Award” went to the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township where through the use of analogies (bars of soap, swimming pools), twitter chats (#warrenbl), rap songs and general enthusiasm the school district has not just gotten buy-in, but instead created champions for personalized learning across their district. The leadership inspires their district and in turn we find ourselves constantly inspired by them.
New York State of Mind
Earlier this year a group of leaders in NY state visited Middletown, NY, a district we have been working with since they first started to think about personalized learning while writing their winning 2012 RTTD application. Based on what they saw in Middletown and heard about in Syracuse, 6 NY school districts formed a consortium and we are kicking off work with all 6 school districts, 2 BOCES, plus an additional 5 other NY districts this summer (that’s 11 more districts in NY!). We could not be more excited that the work of one of our flagship districts has led the way for many others, large and small, to feel ready to take the leap and transform their districts through personalized learning. Stay tuned for more news about each district. New York, welcome to personalized learning: It’s been waiting for you.
Live Free and Personalize
Rochester, New Hampshire just kicked off their own personalized learning initiative starting with their middle school. June has been a busy month already with school readiness assessments completed just before the end of the year and workshops conducted to align teachers and leaders on their goals for personalized learning. We are having fun in the Granite State!
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