Dive Brief:

• Teachers at the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township in Indiana tried to develop individualized learning plans for high school students in a blended program, but their plan didn’t work at first.
• Michele Eaton, the virtual education specialist for the school from Achieve Virtual, writes for eSchool News that the teachers’ first attempt used Google Docs, but students didn’t stay engaged with the plans — which were also hard for teachers to manage on top of their other duties.
• Instead of giving up, the teachers took advantage of a new learning management system that had its own ILP feature available to be built into the homepage students saw every day, helping with adoption and inspiring Eaton to use similar plans for Achieve Virtual online teachers designing their own professional development.

Dive Insight:

Educators can use their own experiences as teachable moments for their students. The experience in Wayne Township schools is a great example of that. Students were asked to embrace the original individualized learning plan concept when it wasn’t as polished, and many of these same students were likely still there for the following year’s introduction to the learning management system’s version of an individualized learning plan. Teachers could use that as an opportunity to point out to students that adults have to try and fail and try again in their work lives, too.

Persistence is a hard skill to teach through simple explanation, but sharing stories like this can provide the basis for student self-reflection as they persevere through their own learning challenges. Students who struggle should not be left to think their experience is unique. And while they may not be tested on their mastery of this lesson, it will surely help them in life after high school, whatever they move on to next.