From

Art Sathoff

Superintendent

Indianola Community School District

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Prior to the pandemic Indianola Community School District has made a big commitment to equipping our educators as instructors who integrate technology well. The blend/flip coursework from AEA Learning Online has been a key part of that. When the district had to offer hybrid and remote instruction out of necessity, staff who had completed blend/flip and other training had a huge advantage. Technology is not becoming less a part of anyone's life. Technology is engaging for students and is part of who they are. Indianola CSD appreciates all of the great assistance we have gotten from AEA Learning Online.

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From:

Allie Emery

Director of Teaching and Learning

Knoxville Community School District

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As schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a need to expand our tool boxes for effective virtual instructional practices.  KCSD had 32 teachers express interest in learning more about online, blended, and flipped learning environments.  We reached out to Denise Krefting and Melissa Wicklund at AEA Learning Online for assistance.  They helped us navigate learning opportunities available and were extremely responsive to our needs, setting up a cohort for KCSD to engage in Blend/Flip courses with dates that would work for the majority of our staff.  They also shared additional offerings across the state to provide flexible options to meet individual needs.

 

Surveys were sent in September to our cohort teachers and 100% of respondents indicated the Blend/Flip courses were helpful or very helpful in preparing for virtual and in-person instruction. This fall our teachers have been serving students who attend school in person as well as virtually. All teachers are using a learning management system, Canvas or Seesaw, to organize learning activities, provide feedback, and communicate with students and families. Teachers are designing synchronous learning environments where virtual students attend live classes with their on-site peers.  This learning can be supplemented with asynchronous activities posted in Canvas.  Other teachers are hosting daily morning meetings with their students via Zoom, and connecting with families to support their work in an online learning service.  Blend/Flip courses have also influenced the design and delivery of professional development at KCSD.

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From:

Linda Hunecke

Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

SE Valley Schools

 

At SE Valley we had all our teachers take the Blending and Flipping course one and encouraged them to take the rest of the cohort during the summer of Covid, 2020.  Our overall district position is that we are convinced that we are much further ahead than we would have been without the benefit of AEA Learning Online’s instructional designer's expertise and the instructional opportunities their team provided! It has certainly expanded our teachers' use of technology. We now have teachers who were previously reluctant to use technology beginning to use some new programs and tools! Our conversations on how to blend instruction are much richer and many are getting very creative as they find ways to make classroom/remote learning more engaging!

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From: Ali Sauter

Technology Integration Coach

Indianola Schools

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At Indianola Schools we have developed an Online Learning Program for our students and support our teachers as they differentiate instruction for students in their blended classroom.  Our blended and online learning initiatives have been supported by  AEA Learning Online, which has been instrumental in many aspects of our journey, but especially with our professional development. AEA Learning Online's focus with blended and online learning matches up very well with our district goals. Not only do they help us with the technology part of teaching in a blended or online environment, they continue to walk us through the pedagogy and purpose of learning with technology. Higher order thinking, depth of knowledge, and classroom processes are all incorporated into their training offerings. 

 

Indianola also uses AEA Learning Online's Student Personalized Learning System in our blended learning classrooms, as well as our self-paced online learning program at our high school. We have had fabulous support from the AEA Online team in utilizing that system from initial onboarding, course design, to the continued support as needed. 

 

This is year three of our online high school program and the AEA Online team has helped us develop and grow that program. Our online learning program gives our students, served by our online programming, an opportunity that no other students before them have had the chance to experience. It allows those students needing credit or unit recovery to learn the same content as students in our regular classrooms, thus enabling the transition in and out of the classroom as necessary.  Students who would benefit from a self paced instruction with coursework that can not fit into their schedule also attend our online learning program.  It has been a win-win for our district and we appreciate the support we have received from AEA Online Learning.