STRIVE APR - JUN 2018 | Page 41

teaching reading, mathematics, and science to improving the
life of each and every child.
To get where we need to go, everyone has to be engaged.
I don’t wonder why we have trouble attracting people to
education; I marvel that we attract the talent that we do. Is it
the long hours, short pay, or thrilling work conditions? No. It
is the students, and the chance to shape the future by grow-
ing young minds. I think about the communities I’ve lived in
(Juneau, Utqiaġvik/Barrow, Laramie, Cody, Jackson – a cross
section of Alaska and Wyoming, the true last frontiers), and
how each student, family, teacher, and community has to take
responsibility for students’ learning.
My morning drive buzz
led me to look around, and
when I got to work (in a
brief unscheduled moment!)
I found a fascinating article
regarding education, innova-
tion, and technology that fit
the frame of ideas I had been
spinning.
The article from the
Brookings Institution (Win-
throp and Shankar, 2016) was
entitled The Top 5 Education
Innovations Needed to Keep
Up In a New Economy. I
want to synthesize between
my own ideas and theirs,
and begin by noting that
the purpose of education
goes beyond employability to what it takes to be a citizen in a
globalizing world.
Winthrop and Shankar’s thesis begins with the need to
do something radical to transform education systems. The
five top takeaways regard the role: (1) skills, (2) teachers, (3)
technology, (4) non-state actors, and (5) accreditation play in
supporting and delivering innovations in education. I want to
focus on four of the five – to have fun with mixed metaphors,
not the whole loaf but still a full meal deal!
1. “Education systems must work to expand and strength-
en the education workforce.” This caught my eye, as I
have been testifying before the Legislature regarding
Alaska’s educator shortage crisis. The innovation they
propose is based on what can be learned from the health
sector, which has helped expand access to care by diver-
sifying the roles of health workers. “Expanding the roles
of teachers could enable them to become facilitators of
learning rather than transmitters of content, or leverage
community members to help unburden tasks” was a key
thought, and technology tools can help. They suggest
“[t]ools such as the Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based
Learning Environment platform could also play a criti-
cal role in unburdening teachers by giving them options
to easily engage and simultaneously assess students
while encouraging critical thinking.” Districts’ emphasis
on induction and professional development has never
been more important. Not surprising, districts in Alaska
that are giving the two priority are seeing increased
teacher retention and better student performance.
2. “The application of technology to learning offers huge
opportunities. From enhancing learning to improving
data collection to driving down costs, technology can
function across innovations. Examples like Can’t Wait
to Learn show the massive
potential of gamified tablets
to reach students and help
children acquire 21st century
skills such as social and ana-
lytical skills. Other national
platforms like KA Lite offer
offline versions of Khan
Academy to provide content
where Internet access is lim-
ited.” The Teaching Channel
has helped more than one
thousand of Alaska’s teachers
connect their professional
learning efforts across their
buildings, districts, and the
state through the Alaska Pro-
Photo by Bridget Weiss © 2018
fessional Learning Network
(AKPLN). A reality check
– Alaska has the most challenging broadband environ-
ment in the United States!
3. “Partnerships with non-state actors are critical for
improving educational capacity.” We all know that
education requires teamwork from a broad coalition,
including districts, schools, NGO’s, health organiza-
tions, community groups, etc. We can all work together
to wrap around students and build out our learners.
Flexibility, alternative pathways, and choice (blended
models) – while preserving quality learning – will be the
new norm.
4. “Flexible accreditation systems are increasingly im-
portant. Ultimately, investments in alternative learn-
ing pathways like open educational resources such as
massive open online courses must be supported by the
entire environment to achieve results.” Here my inner
rebel kicked in. We need to broaden approaches to skills
verification. Why is a Carnegie Unit still defining a tran-
script in the second decade of the 21st Century? There
are many ways to learn. We need to overhaul how we
track student progress to adapt to the variable pathways
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