Finding the New Profit Community at SXSW EDU 2019
SXSW EDU 2019 is here! This week (March 4-7), forward-thinking, purpose-driven stakeholders from across the country will be convening in Austin, TX to discuss the biggest problems and most forward-leaning solutions in the education field.
New Profit is extremely excited to be hosting a panel titled “CEO State of Play in Personalized Learning” featuring four amazing social entrepreneurs from our Personalized Learning Initiative, including Dana Borelli-Murray of Highlander Institute, Susan Patrick of iNACOL, Beth Rabbitt of The Learning Accelerator, and Elisabeth Stock of PowerMyLearning.
Join us on Wednesday, March 6th at 3:30 in Salon H in the Hilton Austin Downtown to discuss the current state of play in the personalized learning field. The session will cover the following topics:
Personalized learning is one of the frontier movements in education with massive potential, but making sense of the term, the moment of opportunity, and the future of the field is challenging. Hear from leaders of personalized learning organizations sharing their insights on the field. What trends are they paying attention to? How do they think about building the capacity of their organizations? In short, what is it like to be a CEO in the fast-paced and evolving world of personalized learning?
Keep reading to find out where to find other members of the New Profit community during SXSW EDU 2019.
Monday, March 4th
The Learning Accelerator: Blended and Personalized Learning Toolkit | 1:30pm in Hilton Austin Downtown Salon K
Educators and leaders strive to ensure that ALL students are supported in an effective, equitable manner. Integrating technology with in-person instruction via blended learning can be a powerful way to achieve this goal. This interactive, learner-centered session offers stations featuring tangible practice strategies backed by learning science, guidance around the critical decisions leaders face (e.g. scaling innovation across a district), and resources for personalizing professional learning.
LiftEd: Startup Spotlight: LiftEd | 3:00 pm in Austin Convention Center Exhibit Hall 4 Meet Up Pavilion
The Startup Spotlight is a networking event that spotlights education startups at SXSW EDU. Attendees will have the opportunity to demo products and offer valuable, real-time feedback in a fun and casual atmosphere. Head over to the Austin Convention Center Exhibit Hall 4 Meet Up Pavilion to meet and network with LiftEd, a mobile instructional support platform that empowers special education teachers, related service providers, and other specialists to continuously track student progress, intelligently refine instructional strategies or interventions, and accelerate learning outcomes for students with learning differences or special needs.
EdSolutions, UnboundEd, New Profit, and Columbia University Teachers College: From Equity to Anti-Racism in Education | 3:30pm in Hilton Austin Downtown Salon H
What will it take to dismantle an inherently racist system that holds our students back? We know that teachers were most likely to say their class was too difficult for black students—18% of math teachers and 13% of English teachers—despite only 8% of math teachers and 6% of English teachers stating their class was too difficult for white students. This panel conversation will explore the provision gap from the perspective of educators and investigate how to change the system.
This panel features New Profit’s own Marco Davis, alongside Christopher Emdin from Columbia University Teachers College, Kate Gerson from UnboundEd, and Jeff Livingston from EdSolutions.
Tuesday, March 5th
CAST: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education | 11:00 am at the Austin Convention Center Room 9AB
Every student is unique and learns differently. Variability in culture, socio-economic status, race, gender, ethnicity, and more in higher ed can make teaching overwhelming. Universal Design for Learning is a framework that empowers educators to address multiple barriers to learning through the design of their environments. To build capable, just, and compassionate leaders for our future, we need to create learning opportunities that are rigorous, relevant, inclusive, and accessible to all.
Big Picture Learning: Deep Poverty & Deeper Learning | 2:00 pm at the Austin Convention Center Room 17A
The good news: the ed world is emerging from its test-obsessed fever dream. We’ve recognized that student voices matter, learning should be meaningful, and the skills young people need to be successful are not prioritized in traditional high schools. The bad news: there are far too few examples of schools committed to deeper learning that serve students in concentrated poverty. But the work is happening, and this panel shares insights and lessons from some of the leaders who are doing it.
CAST: UDL: Designing for Learner Variability | 4:00 pm at the Austin Convention Center Room 10AB
Neuroscience tells us that every brain is completely unique, that every person is an individual. Yet schools still teach as if all students learn at the same pace and in the same way. Join this interactive session to learn the basics of the neuroscience of learning. Participate in a brief design-thinking activity that will give you a taste of how to transform your thinking and enrich your lesson design. You will leave ready to master UDL so that ALL students can become expert learners!
National Center for Learning Disabilities: So States Missed the Mark on ESSA: What Now? | 5:00pm at the Austin Convention Center Room 17B
Many states missed the mark in ESSA planning by failing to address the needs of students with disabilities. But there is still an opportunity to make change for those students! This panel will discuss the missed opportunity and provide strategies for teachers and schools to improve outcomes for students starting now. Through evidence-based strategies and by promoting the use of strengths-based IEPs, schools can take a new approach to planning and instruction for students with disabilities.
Understood for All: Who is Your SEL Program Not Serving? | 5:00 pm in Hilton Austin Downtown Room 408
How meaningful are SEL programs if they aren’t inclusive of all learners? How do we ensure educators are equipped to support SEL? Explore the unique considerations educators must be aware of when it comes to SEL & supporting students with learning and attention issues like dyslexia & ADHD. Leveraging an equity & inclusion framework, we’ll consider the broad diversity of these students & their needs, including those marginalized for reasons of race, socioeconomic status, gender, or sexuality.
Wednesday, March 6th
LEAP Innovations: World of School is Preparing for the World of Work | 11:00am at the Austin Convention Center Room 17A
The shelf life of skills is shrinking. At a time when skills developed by college graduates will be due for a refresh in just five years, is our emphasis on today’s technical skills fueling a race to the bottom? How should K-12 evolve to prepare today’s students for jobs and fields that don’t yet exist? Come discover how the “world of school” is changing to keep pace with the future of work.
Highlander Institute: Pathways to Personalization | 11:00am at the Hilton Austin Downtown Room 412
This session will help leaders who are struggling to design, launch and scale blended and personalized learning initiatives across a school or district. This session will breakdown Highlander Institute’s Pathway to Personalization Framework, which is a linear process for determining readiness, creating a vision for pilots, launching pilots, evaluating pilots through continuous improvement, and then scaling best practices.
Read a recent opinion piece in The 74 penned by Shawn Rubin of Highlander Institute, which gives a preview of his conversation on March 6th – A Personalized Approach to Personalized Learning: How this 5-step Pathway Is Helping Schools and Districts Experiment the Smart Way.
iNACOL: iNACOL and CompetencyWorks Meet Up | 11:00am in Hilton Austin Downtown Room 602
We envision a world where all students are engaged in powerful, personalized learning experiences. Meet the leadership at iNACOL and CompetencyWorks to network and share your work in creating next generation learning models. Learn more about engaging with us and addressing issues, promising practices and lessons learned with the largest active community of innovative practitioners and leaders in personalized, competency-based learning.
Big Picture Learning: From What Kids Know to Who Kids Know | 2:30pm in Hilton Austin Downtown Salon A
Using the latest research & data, we will discuss how high school and college learning should not only focus on knowledge acquisition but also on building students’ professional networks & situating their learning within the real world. We will plot a course to reimagining school to be something that is more about who kids know, not just what the know. Attendees will walk away with research on the consequences from gaps in opportunity & data on the impact of building student social capital.
New Profit: CEO State of Play in Personalized Learning | 3:30pm in Hilton Austin Downtown Salon H
Personalized learning is one of the frontier movements in education with massive potential, but making sense of the term, the moment of opportunity, and the future of the field is challenging. Hear from leaders of personalized learning organizations sharing their insights on the field. What trends are they paying attention to? How do they think about building the capacity of their organizations? In short, what is it like to be a CEO in the fast-paced and evolving world of personalized learning?