Partnering with LEAP Innovations, a national leader in personalized learning, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is launching a blended online course that will make LEAP Innovations’ rigorous professional development programming available to educators, schools and district leaders beyond Chicago for the first time.
The course, “ launches Sept. 24 on , ISTE’s new online professional learning hub that sources best-in-class content for educators. With case studies, video demonstrations, personalized learning assignments and direct, “live” virtual coaching, the eight-week, 30-hour course will give educators the fundamental knowledge to design their own personalized learning approaches at the classroom, school and district levels.
“At LEAP, we know how vital professional development and coaching is to create a learning experience that helps students realize their full potential,” said Phyllis Lockett, founder and CEO of LEAP. “With this new online course, we are excited to give more schools access to the rich insights of our team, and learnings from hundreds of educators who have implemented personalized learning in their schools and districts.”
The course is anchored in the LEAP Learning Framework, a research-based framework that establishes the four core components of a personalized learning experience. The four components, which can be applied in classrooms, schools, and districts, are: Learner Focused, Learner Led, Learner Demonstrated, and Learner Connected. Course participants can receive graduate-level credit from Dominican University of California.
Over the last four years, LEAP has worked with more than 120 schools across Chicago to design personalized learning strategies, incorporate the necessary tools and practices, and test the impact along the way. Students in LEAP’s second cohort of schools gained 13 additional percentile points above the comparison group on the national Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) literacy test.
LEAP Senior Advisor Al Bertani will serve as the course’s virtual coach. Bertani also works as a senior advisor with the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago, and a senior fellow with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in San Francisco.
“ISTE is incredibly excited that one of the first ISTE U courses was developed by LEAP Innovations.” says Joseph South, chief learning officer at ISTE. “LEAP, like ISTE, is all about learning transformation, and this new course provides educators with evidence-based strategies for personalizing learning so they can incorporate proven methods in their practice and then design their own approaches."
To learn more about the LEAP Innovations ISTE U course, visit www.iste.org/learn/iste-u/personalized-learning. To access LEAP Innovations research and resources on personalized learning, visit www.leapinnovations.org.
