See personalized learning in action at the Kenowa Hills Public School District

You have heard about personalized learning, but what does it actually look like in a classroom, school, and district?  On Monday, May 6, Kenowa Hills is welcoming up to 60 educators to visit their elementary, middle, and high schools for guided classroom tours, mini-presentations, and Q & A sessions with teachers, students and school leaders. This is a free opportunity open to all educators.

How Kenowa Hills Began to Personalize Learning

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From 2013-2016, Kenowa Hills Public Schools worked with Marzano Research and Re-Inventing Schools to begin transforming the district from a traditional time-based system to one based on personalized learning and competency-based practices.  They call this approach “Personal Mastery”.  Kenowa Hills utilised Marzano’s High Reliability Schools (HRS) (2014) framework to develop a strategic implementation plans at each building to support this paradigm shift.  As such, the site visit will be framed around the following HRS components: 
  • A Culture for Learning
  • A PreK - 12 Instructional Framework 
  • Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
  • Standards-Based Reporting Practices 
  • Practices that support Competency-Based Education (CBE)

​2016-2019 School Years

In 2016, Kenowa Hills Public Schools has partnered with KnowledgeWorks to deepen their implementation of a Personal Mastery.  KnowledgeWorks is a non-profit organization, “committed to providing every learner with meaningful personalized learning experiences that ensure success in college, career and civic life” (website, n.d.).  With a presence in over 30 states, KnowledgeWorks brings a national perspective on best practices to the important work of personalizing learning.  During the site visit, Kenowa’s CBE Coach, Steve Lavoie, will shared his knowledge and experiences in working with schools outside of the state of Michigan to support implementation of personalized learning.  

The site visit will also include:
  • Student and teacher-led discussions and tours, 
  • Choice activities to meet individual needs, 
  • Demonstrations and discussion surrounding Kenowa Hills’ Learning Management System (LMS): Canvas; 
  • An opportunity to tour the Knights STEM Academy; an off-site learning environment located side-by-side to an advanced manufacturing business within the district.

Time and Location

This site visit experience is at  Kenowa Hills Middle School on
​May 6, 2019 from 8:30AM - 3:00PM.

Site Visit Schedule
​Time               Event
8:30 AM         Welcome, Overview, Mini-Presentations (K-12)
9:30 AM         Middle School Classroom Tours 
10:10 AM       Travel to High School
​10:20 AM       High School Classroom Tours
11:00 AM       Secondary Debrief with Q & A
12:00 PM       Lunch (Provided by Kenowa Hills)
                        Travel to Central Elementary
1:00 PM        Welcome & Overview
1:15 PM         Elementary Classroom Visits
2:05 PM         Debrief with Q & A
2:35 PM         Personalized Learning: What’s happening in
                         Michigan and the U.S.
3:00 PM         End of Site Visit
Kenowa Hills Middle School
3950 Herdershot NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49544
NOTE: Conference registration is separate from site visit registration. Please be sure to register for both the conference and site visit separately.