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The Technology Leadership Institute kicked off its 2021-22 Virtual Keynote series with a speaker who specializes in an area that is exceedingly relevant in education today: change.

Highlander Institute Executive Director Shawn Rubin is his organization’s lead architect, ensuring their work serves students most of all.

A former teacher, he says the language of personalized learning has been around for a long time. Personalizing schools and classrooms requires a new approach to the change process, said Mr. Rubin, who broke down his organization’s “Pathways to Personalization” Framework and the components necessary for school redesign through stories of successes and challenges.

He is a national thought leader on coaching and consulting approaches to classroom personalization and school change management. His days are split between providing on-the-ground support in districts supporting educators and leaders, and the creation and design of new processes for systemic educational change.

In his keynote, Mr. Rubin said that his own approach as a young teacher was centered on a personalized model, but he found that it didn’t scale beyond that level. There were not enough people who understood the vision or were informed enough to sustain it, he said. There was no systems-level lens, and families didn't understand enough to advocate for the approach.

Since 2012, his organization’s theory of change has evolved in response to research and lessons learned in the field. Starting with Blended Learning, his work moved to Personalized Learning that let students see themselves in their learning. Along the way, in studying the impact of what was working, “we weren’t pleased with what we saw,” he said.

The approach didn’t put enough emphasis on safe spaces for students, their lived experiences and on building academic mindset.

“If we had been focused in on that the last 20 years, I don’t think we would have had as many challenges during the pandemic,” Mr. Rubin said.

His focus today is on the processes of getting to our aspirations as educators. He said he is shocked by how little opportunity there has been to restart coming out of the remote learning period and returning to in-person instruction. We realized, he said of his organization, students and families actually didn’t have the skill sets to succeed in a virtual setting.

“When we think about perspectives, we’re talking about how capable and supported a student is to be successful in the individual learning environment that they find themselves,” he said.

Coming up

The year ahead brings a full slate of enriching and substantive presentations relevant to educators today. The TLI committee strives to assemble a lineup of speakers and events that will positively impact instruction and help shape the way we educate our students.

Following this month’s NYSCATE Convention in Rochester, the TLI Virtual Keynote Series returns in January with Alex J. Bowers, a Professor of Education Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. That is followed by Active=Con and the TELL Awards presentation, which are separate March events that are both planned to return in person this school year. The year wraps up with Tech Expo in May at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff.

See http://it.lhric.org/tli for more information. Register in My Learning Plan.

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Online Conference Tools icon LHRIC Instruction Software team has assembled a list of supported titles with LHRIC contact information. This partial list of products represents digital solutions that can be utilized for remote learning, communication, and assessment. The LHRIC Sr. Facilitators listed are certified with these products and can support your teachers and administrators during this time.