Evolution to Transformative Digital Learning Experience/Environments

Platinum Medal

Chicago Public Schools' Curriculum Equity Initiative

Chicago Public Schools and SAFARI Montage

User: K-12

Goals: Ensure CPS students were engaging with a high-quality, rigorous, and culturally responsive digital curriculum that reflects their daily lives; close the opportunity gap, especially in distressed communities

Challenge: Lack of high-quality instructional resources for teaching and learning

Solutions: Portfolio of projects coordinated to produce the district's first preK-12 digital curriculum (called Skyline) across six content areas with plans for future development. CPS developed a hybrid model designed to obtain the benefits of both off-the-shelf and built-from-scratch content. The district purchased base licensed content and is working with publishers to modify and customize a portion of it, based on feedback from district-level teams and teacher reviewers, and centralize the content on the CPS Technical Ecosystem. To keep innovating and evolving the curriculum over time, CPS created a production cycle with a continuous improvement element: partnership with EdReports to ensure that content produced by publishing partners met expectations; engaged over 400 teachers in a "Curriculum Collaborative" to review draft content and provide feedback that would inform the next and final iterations (total of six production cycles).

Learning Impact: In the fall of 2020, the district released the first Skyline units to provide teachers with materials to support remote instruction. CPS teachers have been using these digital resources to a degree greater than originally expected. Utilization of the LOR in CPS is up by 150% over last year, and teachers have been successfully leveraging the integration with Google Classroom to share Skyline lessons and communicate with students in a remote setting.

Bronze Medal

Desert Sands Leverages CatchOn to Keep Students Safe and Personalize Learning

CatchOn and Desert Sands Unified School District

User: K-12

Goals: Create inclusive and safe digital ecosystems for students that support and encourage customized learning.

Challenges: Monitoring digital resources (1:1 district with 27,000 students) for student data privacy and track engagement; getting a clear view into resource usage; ensuring vendors meet data privacy standards for students’ information

Solution: Incorporating data analytics into the district’s holistic instructional strategy equipped Desert Sands with the measurable data required to improve learning outcomes and assess ROI.

Learning Impact: Within seconds, the district is now able to identify “unsafe” resources and turn off access. With detailed data on resource usage, the district can see tool utilization at the student, classroom, and school levels to determine where they need to focus their teacher training. They can also link data between “time on” specific applications and student achievement to help more effectively invest in the district’s educational technology.