Flipping the Script on Youth’s Role in Personalized Learning
Location
Moody
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
In 2013, the Vermont Agency of Education passed Act 77, a piece of legislation that required personalized learning plans for every Vermont student from seventh grade onwards. While many educational leaders worried about this unfunded mandate, one nonprofit organization offered to support the roll out of this legislation. This program, called the Communicating School Redesign (CSR) initiative, worked to create communication strategies and campaigns by high school youth and adult teams in communities across Vermont designed to gauge and shift stakeholders beliefs about the benefits of personalized learning. Therefore, this study asks the following research question: How do youth and adults participating in the CSR initiative understand youth’s role in translating student-centered learning policy into practice?
Drawing on four years of data collected from teams in eighteen schools we found that youth took on the role of peer professional development, while also newly aware of the politics of school reform efforts amongst teachers and principals. These findings suggests that the CSR initiative disrupted the hierarchical flow of top-down policy by engaging new stakeholder. We will conclude our presentation with implications for how Georgia may craft and implement a personalized learning plan.
Keywords
Policy, Personalized Learning, Policy Implementation, Case Study
Recommended Citation
Brezicha, Kristina and Biddle, Catharine, "Flipping the Script on Youth’s Role in Personalized Learning" (2017). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 11.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2017/2017/11
Flipping the Script on Youth’s Role in Personalized Learning
Moody
In 2013, the Vermont Agency of Education passed Act 77, a piece of legislation that required personalized learning plans for every Vermont student from seventh grade onwards. While many educational leaders worried about this unfunded mandate, one nonprofit organization offered to support the roll out of this legislation. This program, called the Communicating School Redesign (CSR) initiative, worked to create communication strategies and campaigns by high school youth and adult teams in communities across Vermont designed to gauge and shift stakeholders beliefs about the benefits of personalized learning. Therefore, this study asks the following research question: How do youth and adults participating in the CSR initiative understand youth’s role in translating student-centered learning policy into practice?
Drawing on four years of data collected from teams in eighteen schools we found that youth took on the role of peer professional development, while also newly aware of the politics of school reform efforts amongst teachers and principals. These findings suggests that the CSR initiative disrupted the hierarchical flow of top-down policy by engaging new stakeholder. We will conclude our presentation with implications for how Georgia may craft and implement a personalized learning plan.
