LearningFront™ Program

Vision. Reimagining education and building the future of teaching and learning.

Challenges. America's 50-state educational systems face pressing challenges: persistent student learning gaps, outdated structures and methods for teaching and learning, and a growing need to adapt to an unpredictable future.

According to the 2023 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) long-term trend assessments, average scores for 13-year-olds declined by 4 points in reading and 9 points in mathematics compared to the 2019-2020 school year. Over the past decade, these declines amount to 7 points in reading and 14 points in mathematics. At the same time, rapid advancements in technology, diverse student needs, and increased demand for flexibility call for a bold rethinking of teaching and learning.

Solution. This program empowers leaders of learning to harness creativity, collaboration, and innovation to design a learning paradigm that meets the needs of today's students and educators. During the program you will engage in strategies to move beyond the traditional "one-size-fits-all" approach by creating models that:

Leverage technology to increase student achievement and provide equitable access to engaging, personalized learning experiences.
Offer flexible and future-ready teaching and learning strategies, exceptional professional learning, and disruptive innovations.
Foster collaboration among educators, students, and stakeholders to meet academic, career, and social-emotional needs.
Adapt to interruptions like severe weather, health crises, or other emergencies.

Payoff. Through dynamic professional learning experiences, you will gain, practice, and apply knowledge, skills, and tools to:

Define new rules for learning in a disruptive innovation.
Develop flexible and future-ready teaching and learning strategies.
Transform education into systems where time is flexible, and learning is dynamic, equitable, and impactful in any content area and across any setting.

Join us in shaping the future of education -- this program provides you with professional learning experiences for applying Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation to develop your vision of a new learning paradigm.

Program Learning Layouts. Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation plays out in Learning Layouts -- our way of blending people, learning, and technology. For each Learning Layout, our approach supports you to a) identify a measurable learning goal, b) engage in real world actions to reach your goal, c) complete activities that help practice the actions, and d) adapt essential information to develop and share products. The following seven Learning Layouts are designed to help you transfer Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation to your school, district, or organization.

Learning Layout 1: My Home Base and Self-Assessment

Getting Started: This component contains a welcome to the program, your Coach's background, and tips to get started.
My Program Support: This component contains the program description and schedule, advance organizers for program products, and resources such as references, badges, video tutorials, and an interactive glossary. We strongly suggest that you bookmark and visit "My Program Support" often throughout the program.
Self-Assessment of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation: This component contains two activities for self-assessing your proficiency and for applying the self-assessment results. The results of the self-assessment appear as red, yellow, or green indicators in front of Learning Layouts 1-7.

Learning Layout 2: Creating New Rules for Learning

Measurable learning goal:
"Select your goal to increase student learning on classroom and high-stakes assessments"
Real world action you must take to reach the learning goal
Lead, create, and support a disruptive Startup Innovation Action Plan
Realistic activities to practice the action:
- Practice 1: Disrupt the learning process
- Practice 2: Create learning layouts
- Practice 3: Start a learning rave
Essential resources offered to complete the practice activities and product:
Research: Websites, videos, infographics, and reports about disruptive innovations
Benchmarking: Example disruptive innovations in action
Data: COVID-19 resources and research about learning
Product - My Team Start-up Innovation Plan (SIAP): SIAP templates and editor
Collaboration: Peer and coach feedback and assessment

Learning Layout 3: Teaching and Learning at the Speed of light

Measurable learning goal:
"Select your goal to increase student learning on classroom and high-stakes assessments"
Real world action you must take to reach the learning goal
Develop a Web 2.0 Demo to forecast teaching and learning trends in the next five years for specific subject matter area(s)
Realistic activities to practice the action:
- Practice 1: Create a new paradigm and components for teaching and learning
- Practice 2: Discover trends in F2F, virtual, and blended learning strategies
- Practice 3: Align models of schooling beyond COVID-19
Essential resources offered to complete the practice activities and product:
Research: Websites, infographics, and reports about paradigms for learning
Benchmarking: Models of schooling beyond COVID-19
Data: Results from TIMSS and PISA
Product - My Web 2.0 Demo: Optional Web 2.0 Demo tools to forecast trends
Collaboration: Peer and coach feedback and assessment

Learning Layout 4: Envisioning the New Paradigm Teacher

Measurable learning goal:
"Select your goal to increase student learning on classroom and high-stakes assessments"
Real world action you must take to reach the learning goal
Develop an Infographic Story to display the role and aligned job expectations of new paradigm teachers
Realistic activities to practice the action:
- Practice 1: Define roles and expectations of new paradigm teachers
- Practice 2: Align the new paradigm teacher role with curriculum, instruction, and assessment
- Practice 3: Integrate a PLN to support new paradigm teacher collaboration
Essential resources offered to complete the practice activities and product:
Research: Websites, videos, and infographics on teacher roles and responsibilities
Benchmarking: Websites and models for PLNs
Data: Instruction in the age of COVID-19
Product - My Infographic Story: Optional Infographic apps
Collaboration: Peer and coach feedback and assessment

Learning Layout 5: Designing Exceptional Professional Learning

Measurable learning goal:
"Select your goal to increase student learning on classroom and high-stakes assessments"
Real world action you must take to reach the learning goal
Design a Solution Brief for an exceptional professional learning strategy that teachers might embrace and value as their own
Realistic activities to practice the action:
- Practice 1: Define exceptional professional learning
- Practice 2: Discover why teachers embrace and value professional learning
- Practice 3: Design an exceptional professional learning strategy
Essential resources offered to complete the practice activities and product:
Research: Websites, videos, infographics, and , and COVID-19 emerging practices
Benchmarking: Blended learning models and digital learning systems
Data: Results of qualitative studies that reveal the preferences of teachers
Product - My Solution Brief: Optional Web 2.0 tools and apps
Collaboration: Peer and coach feedback and assessment

Learning Layout 6: Producing a Startup Pitch for a Disruptive Innovation

Measurable learning goal:
"Select your goal to increase student learning on classroom and high-stakes assessments"
Real world action you must take to reach the learning goal
Produce a Startup Pitch for a disruptive innovation to acquire professional and financial support
Realistic activities to practice the action:
- Practice 1: Prepare to engage in the Dynamic Learning Lab
- Practice 2: Design your Team's startup pitch demo
- Practice 3: Discover roles and expectations of investors
Essential resources offered to complete the practice activities and product:
Research: Websites and infographics of startup pitches and investor roles
Benchmarking: Videos of startup pitches for education and business startup companies
Data: Angel investor, foundation, and government grantor support levels
Product - My Team Startup Pitch: Optional digital apps and templates
Collaboration: Peer and coach feedback and assessment

Learning Layout 7: Dynamic Learning Lab, Portfolio Reflection, and Kaizen

Overview of Final Learning Layout: This component contains a review of the Learning Layouts and their connections to real world actions by leaders of learning and the continuous improvement process known as Kaizen.
Dynamic Learning Lab: This component contains the process and schedule for SIAP teams to pitch their disruptive innovations to a simulated panel of investors.
Portfolio Reflection and Program Feedback: This component contains the activities for completing your Portfolio Reflection and the Program Feedback Survey.
Kaizen: This part promotes connecting your accomplishments, badges, and certificate of mastery to continued professional learning after the program.

Sources: The Program Measurable Learning Goals, Real World Actions, Realistic Activities, Essential Information, and Products were created by your coach, Nick Hobar, to help you think beyond decades of educational theory, research, policy, and practice and global crises that have yet to restructure American state and local school systems.

The LearningFRONT Dynamic Learning Community

The LearningFront Dynamic Learning Community (LDLC) supports professional learning entirely over the Internet. It blends what people do best -- nurture, facilitate, and support -- with what technology does best -- process information at the speed of light. LDLC members become colleagues, join teams, learn, collaborate in cohorts, and share products and performances.

Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation is offered through the LDLC Program Coach, Team and Self-Paced Strategies. These strategies help you to complete practice, development, collaboration, and assessment activities and to demonstrate real world actions expected in program learning layouts. The program includes seven learning layouts, which are subdivided into components and activities. Text, graphics, animations, video, and social learning tools such as Syzygy, colleague and team messages, and instant messaging support each learning layout. The program also helps you to use the TaskBuilder and WikiTasks tools to develop and share program products.

Program Coach - Nick Hobar is the program subject matter expert and author of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation and will serve as your Program Coach. Please use a Colleague Message to contact him directly throughout the program. Learn More about Nick Hobar.
Team Strategy - In the Team Strategy, members complete learning layouts working as a cohort, in teams, and independently as part of a scheduled webinar. Members submit practice activities and products to their coach, colleagues, and teams for formative feedback and to their coach to confirm completion and earn badges. The Team Strategy can include brief coaching sessions for individual members during the scheduled webinar.
Self-Paced Strategy - In the Self-Paced Strategy, members complete learning layouts independently, at their own pace, in their preferred location, and submit practice activities and products to their coach, colleagues, and teams for formative feedback and to their coach to confirm completion and earn badges. The Self-Paced Strategy can include brief coaching sessions for individual members in a scheduled web conference.

Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation supports the LDLC Team and Self-Paced Strategies by leveraging the skill sets of cohort members to offer peer instruction and feedback thereby converting, for example, a 1:12 coach-member ratio to a 12:1 coach-member ratio facilitated by the program coach.

Program Delivery and Timeline. Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation is delivered as described below and displayed in this Infographic.

Week 1.

Using the Team Strategy your program coach will initiate Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation by conducting a webinar to meet members virtually, clarify program expectations, establish colleagues and a cohort team, and demonstrate the LearningFRONT integrated social and professional learning tools. These tools are used to collaborate, complete practice activities, and construct program products. This webinar will include time for members to complete a self-assessment and practice the first and second learning layouts to gain experience with the LDLC integrated tools and virtual collaboration and learning.
Using the Self-Paced Strategy, you will continue to work on the second learning layout for creating new rules for learning after the webinar and practice the LDLC tools.

Weeks 2-4

Using the Self-Paced Strategy, you will acquire and apply content and skills to complete learning layout practice activities and develop products for new rules for learning, teaching and learning at the speed of light, and envisioning the new paradigm teacher.
Using the Team Strategy, your program coach will conduct the second webinar for the cohort members to share progress and challenges, initiate the fifth learning layout for exceptional professional learning, and prepare for the final four weeks of the program.

Weeks 5-7.

Using the Self-Paced Strategy, you will acquire and apply content and skills to complete learning layout practice activities and products for exceptional professional learning and the dynamic learning lab.

Week 8

Using the Team Strategy, your program coach will conduct a culminating webinar to reflect on your own portfolio development, conduct the Dynamic Learning Lab, provide program feedback, and build on the collective expertise of your program cohort. The program cohort member relationships and products will serve as powerful professional learning resources for use in your career development opportunities and to share in learning communities beyond the completion of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation.

Program Schedule

Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation is delivered through the LDLC according to the schedule of dates and times posted when registering for the program and can be modified for a customized approach with interested individuals and organizations.

Expectations: For a successful outcome to your efforts in Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation, you are expected to complete the following learning layouts and products to demonstrate your achievement of the program real world actions. The real world actions are described in the "Advance Organizers" in each Learning Layout and the target completion dates are specified below.
Products	Learning Layouts	Completion Dates
Self-Assessment	LL1 - My Home Base and Self-Assessment	During the first Team Strategy Webinar and updated after each Learning Layout
Practice Activities	Learning Layouts 2 - 6	During Team and Self-Paced Strategies
Startup Innovation Action Plan (SIAP)	LL2 - Creating New Rules	Draft: By the end of Week 4 Final: By the end of Week 7
Web 2.0 Demo	LL3 - Teaching and Learning	By the end of Week 3
Infographic Story	LL4 - New Paradigm Teacher	By the end of Week 4
Solution Brief	LL5 - Exceptional PL	By the end of Week 5
Startup Pitch	LL6 - Disruptive Innovation	By the end of Week 7
Demo, Reflection, and Feedback	LL7 - Dynamic Learning Lab, Portfolio Reflection, and Kaizen	During the final Team Strategy Webinar

Click here for an infographic of the days and strategies projected for developing and submitting the real world action program products.

Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation uses a portfolio reflection to measure your performance and award a program completion badge and certificate. Your portfolio reflection will apply the following rubric to measure progress from your initial self-assessment toward the completion of the program vision, challenge, and real world actions. You will consider the rubric performance levels and descriptors as you reflect on your accomplishments in the program. You may seek external validation of your portfolio reflection by sharing it for feedback with a colleague, mentor, or other professional associates.

Portfolio Reflection: Rubric Performance Levels and Descriptors
Dynamic	Fully understand Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Submitted all practice activities that provided vivid examples and answered pertinent questions to demonstrate my knowledge of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Masterfully navigated LearningFRONT social and professional learning tools to support my learning; Enjoyed learning collaboratively and sharing products with my program colleagues, teams, and coach; Attended all program webinars in accordance with the program schedule, stayed on task, asked probing questions, and took risks to learn deeply; Demonstrated professional netiquette expectations during program team webinars, action team breakout sessions, practice activities, product development, and coaching sessions; Offered insightful interpretations or extensions of the program real world settings; and Completed at least four expected program products at the dynamic level and can confidently implement them in my school, district, or organization.
Proficient	Substantially understand Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Submitted all practice activities that provided relevant examples and answered relevant questions to demonstrate my knowledge of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Skillfully navigated LearningFRONT social and professional learning tools to support my learning; Enjoyed learning collaboratively and sharing products with my program colleagues, teams, and coach; Attended most program webinars in accordance with the program schedule, stayed on task, asked probing questions, and took risks to learn deeply; Demonstrated professional netiquette expectations during program team webinars, action team breakout sessions, practice activities, product development, and coaching sessions; and Completed at least three program products at the dynamic level and with support can implement them in my school, district, or organization.
Novice	Just beginning to understand Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Submitted some practice activities to demonstrate my knowledge of Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation; Still learning how to navigate LearningFRONT social and professional learning tools to support my learning;< Enjoyed learning collaboratively and sometimes shared products with my program colleagues, teams, and coach; Attended some program webinars in accordance with the program schedule; Demonstrated professional netiquette expectations during program team webinars, action team breakout sessions, practice activities, product development, and coaching sessions; and Completed only two program products at the dynamic level and need more help to implement them in my classroom, school, or organization.

You will use the colleague, team, and Syzygy messaging systems; Program, TaskBuilder, and WikiTasks professional tools; and other modern information services identified in the program resources to complete program real world action products. In addition to Team and Self-Paced strategies, your coach is available for online coaching sessions scheduled according to the Coaching Tool. For LearningFRONT technical help please contact: LearningFRONT Support Team.