An afternoon virtual K-12 Summit for faculty, designers, advocates, and leaders alike featuring presentations, small group discussions, and networking about one of the fastest growing sectors in online learning, and one perhaps forever changed by COVID-19. Wednesday, March 17, 2021
About | Schedule | Committee Members
Present and Future: Effective Online and Blended Instruction for All K-12
Pivots to virtual school and digital learning stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic have made online teaching and learning a norm in ways previously thought unimaginable. As we plan and experience transitions into greater in-person learning and hybrid situations across the country and world in 2021, the challenge becomes envisioning a present and future-state where greater blended and online learning across all grade-levels, subject areas, and school-types is the expectation of students, families, and education practitioners.
Online K-12 Present and Future is an opportunity to review the just-in-time skills, competencies, and considerations required to effectively thrive in our current condition as well as plan to bridge equity, technology, skill, and engagement gaps headed into a likely future state of expanded online and blended learning. Partnership and sharing across education sectors (K-12 and higher education) is also key in this transition as lessons learned from both higher education faculty and K-12 teachers from COVID-19 strike chords across the entire industry about how to best position students of all ages for unparalleled achievement and success upon their matriculation, exit, and graduation to their chosen college and/or careers. This summit celebrates all of that energy, through discussion, sharing and brainstorming about what was and what comes next.
The K-12 Summit is open to all OLC Innovate participants and held in three parts on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 17. Attendees can attend one or all of the sessions, and are encouraged to bring colleagues from their leadership teams to attend as a connected cohort across the event.
All sessions listed in Central Time Zone.
Instructional Design for Blended Learning: Essential Skills for K-12 Settings
K-12 educators across-the-board have turned to digital resources to enhance instruction and address student needs. But not all content is created equal, and educators have been challenged to learn and scale online learning platforms when sifting through options to find high-quality material with little time for basic considerations of instructional design. This session will focus on creating and implementing online, blended and digital learning innovations within the K-12 sector that can be sustained over time. Considering that blended learning or some aspect of digital learning is likely to persist in K-12 education, we must revisit the design considerations most important for ease, adaptability, and assurance of student success in our K-12 classrooms. Blended learning calls for us to use a more systematic methodology (rooted in instructional theory) to design and develop content, experiences, and other solutions to support our students’ acquisition of new knowledge or skills.
Moderator:
Presenters:
Quality Characteristics of K-12 Online Learning
Even prior to COVID-19’s introduction of nearly every student and school to some degree of online teaching and learning, the world of online learning has exploded with roughly 6 million of the country’s 56 million K–12 students having taken at least one online or virtual class over the last 20 years. Most K–12 teachers start with a learning management system (LMS) to manage their online classroom space (for example, Canvas, Blackboard, Google Classroom, or Schoology) and have also integrated technology into their coursework. Even more of us have added remote synchronous instruction using a host of web-conferencing tools during the pandemic. This session will focus on taking our unique knowledge base of what has worked and what we need additional support and training to reimagine in the digital sphere when asking key questions about online quality in the new normal. It is certainly very possible for K-12 educators to capitalize on the distance learning revolution and extend what works in the post-Pandemic world.
Moderator:
Presenters:
Designing Learning Futures: Navigating Toward the Next Normal
Given the rapid disruption and changes brought on by COVID-19, we know that there will be no returning “back to normal.” In this session, we want to explore ways in which educators and leaders can begin to design and give shape to a new normal, even through all the uncertainty of now. Using the mindsets and tools of design and strategic foresight, we will explore how we might reimagine our teaching and learning environments – particularly online and digital learning environments – by addressing and harnessing the plausible outcomes and impacts of our collective uncertainty. We will also explore and practice with emerging tools and strategies for leading change in a rapidly-changing world.
Moderator:
Presenters:
Registration for this event is included in your conference registration – there are no additional steps to register for these sessions other than your general conference registration.All sessions will be available for on-demand viewing for one (1) year post-conference.
While participation in the K-12 Summit is part of your OLC Innovate 2021 conference registration, we are offering access to watch the live session to all K-12 educators for free.
Please fill out the form below to watch the live stream.
Please contact Alexander Case at alex.case@onlinelearning-c.org with any questions.
