Since its founding, WAB has been known to be "different." Our students, teachers, parents, and staff have a commitment to pushing boundaries, exploring the unknown, taking risks, and creating solutions. Our school's latest push for innovation, The Future of Learning at WAB (FLoW21), is a journey to reimagine school so it serves the needs of students in an uncertain future. In this Innovative Learning at WAB series, we will show you the different ways in which WAB is evolving, improving, and making the school experience more relevant for one purpose: to foster success for each individual student.

In our first post as part of this series, we explain WAB's vision for educational technology and introduce Kevin Crouch, WAB's first Head of EdTech. Stay tuned each week on the FLoW21 Blog for more posts covering topics like team teaching, mentoring, China engagement, and more. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading worldwide, schools around the globe were sent on an adventure of evolution, adaptation, and transition.

Campuses closed, and, seemingly overnight, the traditional model of education became no longer viable.

The next thing we knew, school was in session remotely. Students no longer had to roll out of bed to catch the bus and make it to class. Teachers began interacting with a class full of students on a single screen. Parents took on enhanced responsibilities in their roles as partners in learning.

For many schools, the transition to a new approach to learning meant lots of bumps and detours. At WAB, however, before COVID-19 struck, our community was already well on its collective way to achieving the future of education. We were transforming learning in a way that broke down traditional barriers but maximized learning for each student.

That is not to say our community didn’t struggle with the transition. It was a challenging and difficult task to transition teacher planning, student interactions, and curriculum delivery to an online learning environment – especially when our teachers and students were scattered around the globe. It required an immense amount of collaboration and exceptional spirit to go above and beyond to make the most of the situation.

But WAB was not caught off guard. Our community had been making intentional progress on our path of innovation, and the pandemic forced us to increase our pace. It served as a catalyst for us to quickly train more teachers, get our families on board, implement forward-thinking learning activities, and create custom-made systems to serve a set of future needs we could still not completely predict.

WAB has been a worldwide leader in innovation and education since its founding, and our community’s most recent initiative in support of this, FLoW21, has been recognized globally and is setting new standards in the field of education.

As we continue to navigate the changes our learning community will face as we forge into a future of new learning methods, WAB has prepared itself by proactively increasing its investment in and use of educational technology, or EdTech.

Last year, the school made a strategic decision to bring on board high-quality leadership to drive innovation: the Director of Innovation in Learning and Teaching and the Head of Educational Technology.

WAB created the Head of EdTech role to meet the technological demands of learning in an uncertain future. Kevin Crouch joined WAB in the position at the end of the 2019-2020 school year with a goal of ensuring the technology we are using serves each individual WAB student's needs and creates more avenues for high-quality, impactful learning.

“Educational technology is the key to achieving learning innovations that challenge learners at the ‘just right' level and help all them to succeed,” Kevin said. “WAB's vision for personalized learning is the driver for technology adoption, and I will ensure that all stakeholders have the right tools to make this happen and know how to use them effectively.”

Kevin said he envisions WAB as a showcase school for the purposeful and effective use of technology. He aims to help WAB continue to differentiate its program from other schools around the goal of developing future-ready learners and global citizens.

The pandemic pushed schools around the globe to adapt new online systems to facilitate different types of learning. The fact that WAB uses the Microsoft Teams application and other softwares is not what makes the school innovative; it’s the way in which we use the software to enhance personalized learning and meet individual students’ needs that help WAB stand out.

“We are pushing the limits to restructure and re-imagine learning in school. We are allowing students and teachers to create the learning experiences they want to create, the experiences that will be best for them,” Kevin said. “Our plans to use technology in education will be based on the Targets we have outlined in FLoW21. The technology is not the driver, but a vehicle for our innovative practices.”

Working with WAB’s new Director of Innovation in Learning and Teaching Stephen Taylor, the EdTech team has developed several pillars of success for the integration of new technologies that align with FLoW21, including:

• Continuous personalized feedback (Target 16): We are using the collaborative functionality of Teams and other systems to ensure students are getting immediate, consistent, and individualized feedback on their learning so they can continue to develop. Mentors, counselors, and teachers in different subjects can also follow feedback for an individual student, so all of the stakeholders are aware of how a student is progressing.
• Team Teaching & Collaborative Planning (Target 17 & Target 19): With our community all over the globe, students can take advantage of the expertise of an entire team of teachers who may be available for classes or conversations in any time zone. Teachers plan together and can rely on one another to offer consistent support for students whenever necessary.

• Self-directed Learning (Target 2) & the "Flipped" Classroom: Teachers are able to provide materials and resources for students to explore on their own. When it’s time for live classes or discussions, there is no need for a teacher to spend time delivering content. Students are prepared to engage in higher order thinking and learning.
• Competency-based Progression (Target 8): The way we are utilizing online systems will allow students to progress through their learning activities at the pace that best suits them, while still receiving the personalized support for where they are in their learning journey. Some students can accelerate through learning modules, while others can seek support or expertise from a teacher in their time zone.

“We are all working together as a team in each student’s learning. We are pushing the limits to integrate and streamline our technology ecosystem to best serve each of our learners,” Kevin said. “We are working together to build an educational model that will serve our students, teachers, and parents as we accelerate our transition into the future of learning.”