Catherine Duplisea, wife, mom of 3, and educator of 17 years, began her career teaching on the tiny island of St. John, USVI and continued her career in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. With twelve years of early childhood classroom teaching and five years in a curriculum/ technology coaching role, she has gained knowledge, experience, thought partners, and perspective. Catherine’s passion for meaningful learning with technology is strong, and her desire to bring quality learning opportunities to children in urban schools fuels her work. “We must do things differently than we have been if we want to see different results. I am hoping this e-portfolio will capture my journey as I strive to make greater impact on the children, educators, and families I serve.” -C.Duplisea
Learning Manifesto
Paving a pathway to a happy life
I believe the duty of our educational system is to empower learners to embrace a lifelong journey of “yet”, and hence build capacity for confident happy people. If we can instill the growth mindset as the norm for our society, then we will encourage innovation, creativity, joy, and confidence in our learners.
Our country is currently stuck in a fixed mindset system of education that we all know needs to change, but with standardized testing, traditional grades, and an educational system rooted in systemic racism that categorizes scholars by “intelligence” and “abilities” that have been widely accepted by our society, the shift to a more just and good system is slow moving. We conduct standardized testing, give grades, and then group and/or label kids based on these snapshots of time on specific sets of skills deemed appropriate by government officials. The problem with our current model is that the tests are often biased and students with certain experiences and cultures score higher than others because they understand and can relate to the content presented. The history of our educational system in the United States is sadly rooted in biases of measuring success, and unfortunately it is our children, the children of Cleveland, that are unfairly underestimated.
I believe if we can shift learning to a mastery learning approach and embrace creative outlets for sharing learning, we will have a more fair, just, joyful, and adventurous approach, aligned to our vision for learning. We will be able to guide our learners and facilitate more meaningful learning experiences that encourage continued learning and development on a personal level.
Through a 1-to-1 device initiative, internet access for all, and a district learning management system, we have the ability to implement blended learning as the vehicle for a joyful and personalized mastery learning approach. This personalization will enhance our ability to accelerate learning, as well as remove barriers we face such as chronic absenteeism and lack of time to personalize learning for all. These tools allow for learner agency of pace, path, time, and place, as well as teacher planning for personalized delivery of intervention or stretch to give each scholar a learning experience uniquely their own.
Some of the emerging issues we face with blended learning are the inequity of devices, lack of teacher knowledge and ability with educational technology, and internet access. Inequity of devices becomes more of an issue as teacher capacity with the different devices strengthens. Sure, when you are using the basics of internet , accessing content on our Schoology learning management system, or word processing software, the device doesn’t seem to matter much. Once educators and scholars begin to utilize devices for creativity, capturing thought process, or even personalizing the device for accessibility, the type of device does make a difference. In our district, we have many varying devices, and teachers are starting to realize these differences for teaching and learning as they become more comfortable with the different tools and resources available. Teacher knowledge and ability with instructional technology varies greatly also, as it does even without technology. Lastly, internet “anywhere access” can also be a variable. Although our district has partnered with providers and makes hotspots available upon request, it can still be a barrier at times to a fully integrated blended learning model.
Luckily, I have had some experience with blended learning and a mastery approach to learning in my career in education thus far. Some of my accomplishments on this journey include implementing a 1-to-1 iPad initiative in a PreK-8 building with approximately 500 scholars as part of the ConnectED initiative with Apple. I also helped lead our building to Apple Distinguished School distinction, twice, as we are recognized for our innovation in the teaching and learning process with Apple products in our school. This process was grounded in infusing joy and creativity into teaching and learning, and took years of coaching, co-facilitating lessons, learning playgrounds, reflecting, sharing our story, and constant evolution. We successfully implement coding in all grades PreK-8, provide choice in the learning process, and make real world connections to the work our learners do each day to personalize the learning experience. I also designed an Innovation Lab where scholars have opportunities to play, create, and apply skills with robots, photo and video, podcasting, movie editing, 3D printing, video gaming, coding and more. This space provides opportunities for our learners to dream big and make ideas become reality through passion projects and relevant community partner experiences.
Amazing things happen everyday in our district for some scholars. My dream is that amazing things will happen everyday for all scholars through personalized blended learning and the power of “yet” to develop lifelong learners that embrace joy. The children of Cleveland have incredible ideas and potential. It is our calling to nurture the gifts and talents each scholar possesses or would like to develop, to pave a pathway to a happy life for all.      Â
References:
Delpit, Lisa. (2012). “Multiplication is for white people” Raising expectations for other people’s children. The New Press.
Dweck, C. (2014, September 12). The power of yet. [TEDx]. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN21c Dweck, C. (2014, October 9).
Horn, M. B., Staker, H., & Christensen, C. M. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. Jossey-Bass.
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.
Mahatma Ghandi
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