Fuse Architect - An interview with Highlander Institute on school progress by MVLRI

This episode is the fifth in our series documenting the Fuse Architect Project, a collaboration between the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Highlander Institute, and several other Rhode Island-based stakeholders endeavoring to design and pilot systems that promote student centered learning. In this episode, we’re excited to talk with Emily Zilly, science teacher at Rodgers High School in Newport, Rhode Island, and four of her students who are participating in some student-centered learning models. We also talk about their work for the upcoming science fair, an example of a project-based, student-directed learning experience benefitting from the Fuse Architect influence.

This episode is the fifth in our series documenting the Fuse Architect Project, a collaboration between the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Highlander Institute, and several other Rhode Island-based stakeholders endeavoring to design and pilot systems that promote student centered learning. In this episode, we’re talking with Pegah Rahmanian, the Executive Director of Youth in Action. Pegah and her team have been working with two participant schools of the Fuse Architect program to help ground their work in conversations around equity and social justice. Pegah also notes that through working on this initiative, their own organization has learned and grown in areas as well.

In this episode, we’re joined by two researchers affiliated with the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub – Mimi Ito from UC Irvine and Justin Reich from MIT. First we’ll get acquainted with their work more generally and learn about the unique research topics they’re pursuing at their respective institutions. Then, we talk extensively about a recent publication that they authored that was published through the Hub, called From Good Intentions to Real Outcomes: Equity by Design in Learning Technologies. We talk about the process of producing this report, including convening stakeholders from many different organizations involved in education technology and online learning, and the challenges and strategies identified with regard to equitable use of learning technologies in K-12 settings.

This episode is the fourth in our series documenting the Fuse Architect Project, a collaboration between the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Highlander Institute, and several other Rhode Island-based stakeholders endeavoring to design and pilot systems that promote student centered learning. In this episode, we’re talking with Roberto Gonzalez of the Rhode Island-based nonprofit STEAM Box. Roberto shares with us some inspiring stories that come out of the work that he does with Fuse Architect schools and other programs, and gives us insight on his process that puts students at the center and grants them control of their learning.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jordan Rickles, principle researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Jordan’s work focuses on K-12 education, and has recently examined outcomes of virtual learning for credit recovery. We talk about some of the big questions being researched in a recently launched initiative with Los Angeles Unified School District aimed at studying the efficacy of online learning solutions in a credit recovery setting.

John Jacobs, the Director of the Wisconsin eSchool Network, joins us for this episode. He paints for us a picture of the digital learning landscape in Wisconsin and explains how his organization fits into that landscape, helping multiple entities across the state form a holistic approach to digital learning in the K-12 public school space. He talks with us about the benefits of partnering with the Wisconsin eSchool network and the exciting research efforts that they are undertaking in the coming year.

In this episode, we’re talking with two researchers about a project they are currently working on to develop a tool to assess readiness for blended teaching. Charles Graham from Brigham Young University and Jered Borup of George Mason University join us to discuss the first phase of this project, including how it came about, how it’s being developed, and how it might be practically applied in an educational setting.

In this episode, we are joined once again by John Watson of the Evergreen Education Group. Since the last time John joined us, he and his team have produced some new research reports, three of which we discuss in our conversation today. As always, Evergreen’s work does a great job painting an overall picture of what’s happening in K-12 blended and online learning, including how providers of online courses are evolving, the reasons that students are giving for enrolling in blended and online schools, and the ways that teachers are incorporating technology and digital learning tools into their instruction.

In this episode, we’re talking with Kim Loomis of the Clark County School District in Clark County, Nevada. Kim serves as the Director of Online and Blended Learning, and shares with us the history and evolution of digital learning in the district over the past 15 years or so. We also discuss the many structures and supports in place to serve both teachers and students in one of the largest school districts in the country.