Designing a personalized learning approach takes time and methodical planning. Once design teams have everything in place—systems, design artifacts, instructional materials—they must figure out how to talk about personalized learning with their key stakeholders, especially parents and community partners.

Recently, iNACOL hosted a webinar for educators looking to create or refine their communications strategy, which is an essential part of successful personalized learning implementation. Springpoint joined the conversation, along with two of our partner school principals and friends at LEAP Innovations.

Check out the webinar to hear school leaders share tips, tools, and outreach strategies for communicating about personalized learning in their communities. You’ll hear about communication strategies across stakeholder groups, and learn more about the robust community partnerships that provide students with personalized learning opportunities. You’ll also learn more about Springpoint’s approach to community-based and student-centered school design.

For even more information on this topic, please check out these tools and resources from us and our partners:

Denver School of Innovation and Sustainable Design (DSISD)

• Mastery Night: This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of DSISD’s mastery-based system for parents. The school ties their approach to the mission and vision, outlines graduation requirements, and delves into what grades mean. They also highlight the parent role.
• Launch Night: This presentation gives parents a complete picture of the personalized learning model at DSISD. It includes details on graduation requirements, advisory, college and career readiness, and demonstrates how students and parents can use the school’s personalized learning plan.
• Student Led Conferences: This guided outline helps students run parent-teacher conferences and relay key messages about DSISD’s mastery-based learning model.

International High School at Langley Park

• How the Community Is Coming Together to Support Our English Language-Learners: This article gives an overview on how ISHLP communicates about their partnerships, and outlines the ways in which the school worked with their “cornerstone” partners to design a school model specifically for the ELL students in the community.
• How Community Partnerships Can Transform the High School Experience: The second part of this two-part blog series delves into details on the specific types of community partnerships IHSLP has cultivated to build on their personalized learning approach.

Springpoint

• Designing New School Models – A Practical Guide: Our school design guide provides a practical starting place for any educator, practitioner, or community member who wants to develop thoughtful, new school models. Featuring pertinent tools and questions, it breaks down the design process into three broad categories, including a design phase where we prompt school leaders to think about how they will plan for measurement and communications (see pages 27-33).