Blended learning competencies and standards

This post continues my effort to examine guidance offered should teacher training and professional development efforts focus more specifically on preparing educators to teach online. An observation I made when reviewing the National Standards for Quality Online Teaching was that those responsible for developing these standards emphasized the individualization of instruction to include what I would describe as “mastery learning” concepts such as competency-based progress in a way not apparent in standards more typically used to guide the preparation of future teachers to use technology (e.g., ISTE Standards). The blended learning competencies make similar goals very apparent.

Blended Learning Teacher Competency Framework

As I have continued my search for guidance in this area I have discovered the iNACOL Blended Learning Teacher Competency Framework (note iNACOL is now the Aurora Institute) which offers a similar, but more general perspective. Their use of the description “blended learning” does not assume all instruction will occur online, but does assume a similar focus on differentiated and personalized instruction which they contrast with “time-based” approaches to instruction. Again, the expectation of an instructional approach that is differentiated and personalized emphasizes different capabilities of technology as core in the development of teaching thinking and skills.

The organization responsible for authoring this guidance explain their preference for educator “competencies” in contrast to standards to expand needed teacher characteristics to include habits of mind and I would say values rather than limiting their guidance to what I would describe as knowledge and skills. They identify four areas – mindsets, qualities, adaptive skills, and technical skills – as competencies. The technical skills category is most similar to what I see as most similar to what I have described as standards and what for the sake of brevity I will emphasize here. The document I reference does offer details on these other areas and how they might be developed. I found the effort to explain competency development to be very interesting with a greater emphasis on modeling, coaching, and reflection for the areas other than “technical skills”. The full document is well worth a thorough examination.

Technical Skills

Competency – Data Practices

Standard A: Use qualitative and quantitative data to understand individual skills, gaps, interests, and use this information to personalize learner experiences.

Standard B: Continually assess student progress toward specific goals to identify when individual students need additional support. 

Standard C: Use data from multiple sources including data systems to inform individual instruction and grouping.

Standard D: Help students consider their own data to promote independence.

Standard E: Evaluate instructional strategies to determine effectiveness.

Competency – Instructional Strategies

Standard A: Provide resources to enable independent and group work.

Standard B: Provide resources to generate evidence of skill and knowledge.

Standard C&D: With students, create customized learning pathways linking goals and experiences.

Standard E: Create learning experiences that promote content-area relevant problem solving and collaboration.

Standard F: Develop valid assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards criteria and allow evaluation of the mastery of learning goals.

Competency – Management of Learning Experiences

Standard A: Manage face-to-face and online components of lesson planning

Standard B: Provide student opportunities for asynchronous and synchronous interaction

Standard C: Develop, model, and practice respective behaviors

Standard D: Demonstrate and model technology troubleshooting

Competency – Instructional Tools

Standard A:  Use learning management systems and collaboration tools to organize learning environment

Standard B: Demonstrate skill in the selection and use of instructional materials, tools, and strategies and engage students in such processes.

Standard C: Provide assistive technologies

I have shortened and interpreted these standards for the sake of brevity. For serious consideration, please refer to the original document.

The authors include a section of this document to expand and explain the standards associated with each competency. A snippet of this section is included here to give an idea of what the authors have made available.

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Unique standards for online teachers?

This post is a follow up to the previous post asking there should be specific skills taught to preservice or inservice teachers involved in online teaching. 

The Covid Emergency forced many face-to-face educators into teaching at a distance (e.g., online teaching). The challenges for these educators and for their students (and parents) were many and the lack of training and time for preparation were among the difficulties the educators faced. The issue I raised in my original post was that if aspects of online education for K12 students continues after COVID should there be different expectations for the training and certification of educators emphasizing remote experiences. I would like to use remote experiences in a more general way than some might assume as online credit recovery and speciality course experiences may be experienced by students within a school facility even when the educator is located elsewhere. 

In a way this is a question of the importance of the specificity of preparation. Most students coming out of colleges and universities into the teaching profession have experienced a “technology for teachers” course and perhaps other experiences based on standards that were developed to define expected expertise in the understanding and use of technology in instruction. The ISTE standards are likely the most common example. By specificity, I am asking whether the ISTE standards are necessary given the training of K12 teachers are already guided by standards emphasizing content area knowledge and pedagogical skills. Given the ubiquity of technology in education, why haven’t the existing bodies responsible for teacher skills and knowledge already incorporated the topics ISTE addresses. Moving to the present question of more specific standards, one might ask a similar question. Are the ISTE standards specific enough to cover the skills and knowledge for teaching remotely? I am really asking the questions – who is responsible for making the adjustment to address new circumstances of instruction and what roles do they have in mind for those they prepare?

As someone who is expected to use standards and benchmarks to guide my work, I must admit I often find standards frustratingly vague. I have a version of this same reaction when I review online activities and lessons that are tagged as satisfying specific standards. Often, I can kind of see a relationship, but wonder whether the connection to the standard is specific enough. It often feels like an educational Rorschach test – what do you see in this example and what does this say about your motives and personal understanding of knowledge and skill goals. 

Anyway, I have been exploring whether standards specific to teaching at a distance exist and how these standards might compare to what I see as the more general ISTE standards. I pick the ISTE standards because when our book was sold through a commercial publisher I was expected to mark in the margins of pages the standards that applied to the content in our book. Maybe the application of standards works like that old joke describing the response when a baseball umpire is asked about the basis for calling a pitch a ball or a strike and he responds that the pitch is nothing until I call it. 

Below, I identify two sources for standards that address the use of technology in education – ISTE and the National Standards for Quality Online Teaching. I think of standards as a hierarchy that moves from general to specific. Personally, I have to move several layers down in this hierarchy before I feel comfortable with my own level of comprehension. I am not going to get into attempting to differentiate standards, benchmarks and assessment methods as those who get deep into this model of guidance do, but I like to at least see attempts to explain concepts and give examples. You should get a sense for this hierarchy in my attempts to use snippets of the hierarchies from the two sources for teacher technology proficiencies I am using. You should find a very general area of competence, an effort to break this area down (as indicated by the identification of “substandards), a short effort to provide a description, and then perhaps a few examples. I have tried to identify an area in which the skill/knowledge covered would at some level seem very similar. For full appreciation of these efforts, you will have to use the links I provide to the online content provided by the responsible organization. 

ISTE Standards for Educators

1 Learner – Educators continually improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning. 

2 Leader – Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning. 

3 Citizen – Educators inspire students to positively contribute to and responsibly participate in the digital world. 

4 Collaborator – Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems. 

5 Designer – Educators design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability. 

5.1 Use technology to create, adapt, and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.

  • Personalized learning – Capitalize on technology’s efficiencies and functionality to meet students’ individual learning needs, for example, scaled tests and quizzes; adaptability tools and features; software data that can capture when students are struggling or spending the bulk of their time; competency-based learning resources; ….

6 Facilitator Educators facilitate learning with technology to support student achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students. 

7 Analyst Educators understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals. 

National Standards for Quality Online Teaching (Quality Matters and the Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance) 

Standard A: Professional Responsibilities The online teacher demonstrates professional responsibilities in keeping with the best practices of online instruction.

Standard B: Digital Pedagogy The online teacher supports learning and facilitates presence (teacher, social, and learner) with digital pedagogy.

Standard C: Community Building The online teacher facilitates interactions and collaboration to build a supportive online community that fosters active learning.

Standard D: Learner Engagement The online teacher promotes learner success through interactions with learners and other stakeholders and by facilitating meaningful learner engagement in learning activities.

D.1 – The online teacher uses digital tools to identify patterns in learner engagement and performance that will inform improvements to achieve individual learner growth.

Explanation – The online teacher needs to be able to analyze and interpret a wide range of activity and performance-level data provided in LMSs, adaptive software, and other digital tools. Further, the online teacher needs to be able to identify patterns in the data that can inform interventions geared towards maximizing each learner’s growth.

Examples:

The online teacher uses a mastery dashboard to keep track of whether learners need remediation, are near mastery, or have achieved mastery (as well as what defines an individual’s level of mastery based on growth). Data from the dashboard are used to determine who needs 1-1 sessions with the instructor, learner grouping, etc.

The online teacher uses activity data with the course LMS or dashboard to identify how often a learner logs into the system and what areas/objectives the learner is spending instructional time on. This data helps the teacher in a goal-setting consultation with the learner.

Standard E: Digital Citizenship The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.

Standard F: Diverse Instruction The online teacher personalizes instruction based on the learner’s diverse academic, social, and emotional needs.

Standard G: Assessment and Measurement Assessment and Measurement – The online teacher creates and/or implements assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure the validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures. The teacher measures learner progress through assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals, and evaluates learner understanding of how these assessments measure achievement of the learning objectives.

Standard H: Instructional Design These standards are considered optional, as instructional design does not always fall under online teaching responsibilities. 

So, are these two sources unique enough and important enough to both be applied in the preparation and certification of educators intending to teach at a distance? Because I study and write about these topics I do see some uniqueness. I find the standards for online educators more focused on individualization (some might say personalization). When I hit the example mentioning mastery dashboards, I immediately think of the Kahn Academy dashboard and the potential for an individualized mastery approach the Kahn dashboard, mastery structure, and assessment system makes available. It is not that mastery, individual progress, and assessment systems could not be used in face-to-face classrooms, it is that this model is rare and I think present goals for online instruction (e.g., credit recovery) make consideration of such approaches more likely. Our present book does discuss the potential of individualization, but I would probably expect those preparing to work entirely online would be more likely to encounter such tactics if intended to work for an organization with an online mission. The decision is how many of these areas could I identify and what number would encourage consideration of a separate course and practical experiences (e.g., student teaching). 

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Waiting for the standards

I want to get the new version of our Amazon Kindle book out so we can compete with the book reps promoting similar books with college faculty members. We write a textbook but it appears Amazon tends to sell our book to individuals. This presents an issue for us – writing a trade book is different from writing for a group-based instructional setting. When you write a textbook that tends to be purchased by individuals looking for a trade book, there is a mismatch that can’t be good.

I can’t compete with the book reps who go door to door except by offering a comparable resource at a fraction of the cost to the end user. I make this statement based on sales when we generated a product sold through a book company versus sales and the pattern of purchases when selling through Amazon. Pretty much the same book (even without the resources we now add online). So having the new book available during adoption time is about all I can think to adjust. I am always looking for suggestions.

At this point, I am being held up waiting for the new ISTE standards for students. I know the new standards are coming and I have reviewed a draft. However, I do not want to write something when what I describe may not be the final product. My guess is that ISTE will release the upgrade during the ISTE conference in several months. I am still trying to decide if it is worth waiting or indicating in the Kindle book that a release is coming soon,

I will add this issue to the various other issues I have with standards.

My issues with standards:

Standards themselves are pretty much a Rorschach test; the goals are vague enough that far too many things “could” be promoted as examples. Note that curriculum developers are sometimes expected to tag the activities they propose with the standard or standards that are addressed by the activities they have created. This tagging does establish an awareness of the standards which is probably a good thing, but the appropriateness of the standard to activity connection is seldom evaluated.

To be fair, standards are typically supported (if you are willing to explore a bit) by “examples” proposed by those generating the standards. The challenge here is one of translation. Educators in a variety of disciplines with specific goals in mind seldom find a perfect fit for their personal situations.

Standards seem to be trendy. They seem to support the priorities of the present crop of true believers who are motivated to participate on the committee writing the standards. The process of generating and releasing standards takes a considerable amount of time so it is a real commitment to see the process through. For example, the present NET*S has taken 7+ years to rework. I would ask for an addition to the product being generated. What is the body of research evidence supporting the various priorities/positions that are advanced? For those of us who care, this is a way to understand and sometimes challenge what has been proposed.

I often wonder if it would be more influential to promote the standards or to promote the evaluations that will be expected? I ask this as a matter of practicality and not as an endorsement of either extreme. If student performance is to be evaluated in any way that is external to evaluation experiences generated by the teacher, it is obvious that these evaluations influence what precedes them. Translate this as teaching to the test if I am being too vague. It seems we have moved past evaluating the “value added” performance of educators in most settings, but no administrator or instructor wants to view a low average performance from students. The issue here is often called “alignment” – does what is evaluated match what is proposed by the standards. I also expect that content area standards and performance evaluations are likely to more closely aligned than are more general standards (i.e., NET*S).

Will we be describing the NET*S standards in our writing? Of course we will. This really does not mean we are wishy-washy (is that the expression) or flip-floppers (I think this is still a political expression). What we are trying to do is develop a quality textbook. One of the keys in argumentation is being careful to understand issues as they are understood by those who advocate them. This is part of critical thinking and as a textbook author, it is essential to recognize that is not always about my critical thinking. It is mostly about the critical thinking I can generate in those who read my work. Presenting a simplified version of a complex topic does not promote the necessary depth of thought. My readers are exposed to standards whether I think they have practical value or not.

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Was, might be, WHY

ISTE is working on a revision of Standards for Students. A draft is available online and you are invited to provide comments.

I must admit I am neither pro nor con when it comes to standards. To me, standards are vague and lack the specificity of examples and expected frequency  that actually matter when it comes to implementation. What qualifies as an experience meeting some expectation and how frequently are students to have such experiences.

As a potential consumer of these standards (assume I shape educational experiences for future educators and want to do the right thing in focusing this preparation), here is what would be helpful to me:

  • What has changed – this is the what was and what might be? I have considered making this an assignment for the students I work with – here is a copy of the existing standards and here is a copy of the proposed standards, what has changed?
  • Why are these changes justified? I cannot help asking this question. I came to my interest in educational technology as an educational psychologist and educational researcher. I want to know why changes are made. Are these “trending topics” or is there research support for these topics? Just tell me what citations I should read. I want to offer these sources to the potential instructional designers I work with.

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The illusion of standards

It is time for back to school posts. Time for optimism and enthusiasm. Time for the new trends and the new ideas. Time for a post about standards.

The new thing in standards is the Common Core.

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.

Perhaps “new thing” is the wrong descriptor. The Common Core standards have been around long enough to be both lauded and criticized.

I cannot decide if I am for or against the standards. I am not against preparing students for success. As I understand the focus is on math and reading, I am concerned that many important skills are not recognized and may receive less attention until a more well-rounded set of expectations are developed. Perhaps we need better agreement on what skills are at the educational core.

Secondly, I think we have had perfectly acceptable standards previously and the concern that these standards ignored “21st century skills” (substitute your own favorite phrase here if you are not a fan of 21st century skills) were often inaccurate. When I began looking more carefully at various discipline specific standards about 10 years ago, I found many skills one advocacy group or another claimed was not being developed was actually included in the standards. Hence, it seemed and it still seems to me that focusing on goals (broad or specific) is not the actual problem. Somehow, the process of getting from the goals to the achievement of the goals breaks down.

When I was reviewing the topic, I learned a new word – alignment. The idea when applied to standards argues that various stake holders might adapt to the standards. Teachers must implement classroom activities consistent with the standards. Resource developers (e.g., textbook companies) must offer resources consistent with the standards. Those selling evaluating instruments must offer tests consistent with the standards. Perhaps most important learners must meet the goals established by the standards in the time allowed.

Simply put, alignment is usually not perfect and when reality sets in things begin to fall apart. If only certain skills and content areas are emphasized on high stakes tests, the activities required by teachers and the subset of the resources provided by developers actually used shifts. I would also argue that the emphasis being placed on specific students, but this is a subtopic and would take too long to develop here. If only the M of STEM is evaluated, you may find no science lessons in the Spring of the year.

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Change in NETS for Students??

eSchoolNews has an article outlining proposed changes in NETS for Students (NETS Draft). This is a significant issue for us – we have a book out there with a 2007 copyright focused on the existing NETS. Assuming the draft is approved, this is a good example of why books, while important, must be backed by readily available web resources. Hate to have students out there learning dated material.

What follows is an initial reaction.

I have been attempting to cross reference the surface level of the existing and the draft standards. The terminology has changed, but in some cases the change in wording mostly reflects an effort to use phrases that are currently in vogue (e.g., Technology Research Tools -> Research and Information Retrieval, Technology communication tools -> Communication and Collaboration). Note the draft standards include numbers to help us see how the older standards have been incorporated or reworded.

Looks to me like the “tool” concept is out. This will take some time for me to digest. In the early days, Cindy and I were influenced in our writing by Jonassen’s “Mindtools” and the message we offered was an attempteto help educators see that technology (in various forms) offered various ways to help students explore content area topics and skills. This was not the modal model (Note – this is not an original phrase, but I have been waiting a long time to use it). Going back even further, it was the third option in the tutor, tutee, tool model. Perhaps the removal of the word tool and the focus on verbs (communication, collaboration, research, information retrieval) is an effort to help teachers consider what students should be doing or learning to do. Not sure I think this change will necessarily be meaningful to most or that it would necessarily differentiate the role of those offering “technology” standards in contrast to those offering standards for content area instruction. Technology does, in fact, offer all of us various “tools”. Those of us who encourage the use of technology are pretty much encouraging educators to assist students in using such tools to accomplish a wide variety of curriculum standards. The application of the tools to the goals of content area disciplines is what I would see differentiating Science, Language Arts, etc. standards from NETS. This is very different than encouraging students to learn about technology (which is really one of the six standards) or focusing technology on improving efficiency (e.g., assessment, record keeping) or on direct instruction (CAI).

Anyway, the “new standard” concerns Creativity and Innovation. Is this the Tough Choices or Tough Times, flat world, etc. standard? I don’t mean to be critical – I like the message.

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