For many of our attendees, it’s their favorite part of our digital transition discussion events. This local panel of educators features the region’s (and often the nation’s) brightest and best education minds. In this edition, we feature Dr. Matthew Lonn, State Director, Superintendent for North Dakota Center for Distance, Nicole Abernathy, Innovation Facilitator at Warroad Public Schools ISD 690 and Dr. Joe Gothard, Superintendent at Saint Paul Public Schools.
This discussion centered around which model (or models) of education each administrator was involved in. LeiLani Cauthen, Learning Counsel CEO and moderator, framed the discussion, “So, Matthew you're coming from that ‘Prescriptive pathways are set, jump on the pathway.’ And then Nicole is coming from a very small district in Northern Minnesota with an advanced viewpoint of how she's bringing it all together. And then Joe is a big district that's had a lot of roadblocks thrown in the way and besides just the pandemic, is also doing a lot of interesting things with technology. So, the three of you are going to provide a really great viewpoint. I want to start the conversation and let me frame it for you. So, we just finished scripting our big national survey, which we put out over a year, last year, and over 32,000 schools, and districts participated.
“This year we're going to ask people ‘What's your model?’ Because it's all over the place. There's the new traditional, which is a change of your time, right? Then there's blended flipped, traditional, where now all your asynchronous is afterschool homework time. Then there's hybrid, simultaneous, where teachers are still in brick and mortar, but they're teaching kids that are remote. Then there's competency-based traditional, which is competency-based but it's still great in class structured. Then there's contemporary competency-based which dissolves grades in class structure. Then there's fully online traditional, fully online contemporary, which is Khan Academy. And the last one is the hybrid logistics, contemporary, which is the prospect of Uberizing, personalized learning. So, you still intersect with the teacher, but you're not kept in a class structure; it flips the institution, not just the classroom.”
You’ll love this no-holds-barred discussion, as some of the best minds in education discard the preconceived notions, roll up their sleeves and really let the great ideas roll. It’s a great video, and is must-see for every educator in America.
