Giving Compass' Take:
- The Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD), a small, rural district in central California, is taking the time to make the best personalized learning environments for students in the wake of COVID-19.
- What support do schools need to see the best outcomes for students and educators during this time? How can donors help bolster these specialized learning environments?
- Read how COVID-19 changes the norms of education philanthropy.
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2020 brought immense uncertainties to schools, so it is critical to center the design of any school model on student experiences. That’s why Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD), a small, rural district in central California, is doubling down on their Instructional Look Fors, a set of 26 observable, research-based indicators that depict how educators can create and support desired behaviors and outcomes for their learners in personalized learning environments. Developed as part of a collaborative project with LUSD, Summit Public Schools, and Transcend, the Look Fors provide aligned educator actions and sample strategies to inform instructional design.
In the past three years, Lindsay Unified has implemented these Look Fors across various professional learning and instructional leadership contexts, including classroom observation tools, professional goal-setting, and coaching. The Look Fors have become the core of the district’s Adult Learning Curriculum, which offers educators a learner-centered, competency-based approach to professional growth and practice. In addition to the implementation of the Look Fors, LUSD partnered with TLA to study their construct validity and reliability as well as their implementation during last spring’s remote instruction during school closure.
Knowing that effective implementation requires comprehensive resources and professional learning supports, LUSD also partnered with TLA to develop the Instructional Look Fors Guide, an open micro-site that layers in guidance, additional resources, and connected research for each Look For. Designed as a learning tool, the guide supports teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders in planning learner-centered instruction – whether in-person or remote – to facilitate effective personalized learning.
Read the full article about personalized learning tools by Stephen Pham and Amalia Lopez at The Learning Accelerator.