Member’s of Kaneland’s Personalized Learning Steering Committee met on Thursday, December 16th to continue planning for the creation of the Kaneland IgKnight Personalized Learning Academy. As you may recall from previous posts, Kaneland has worked to incorporate personalized practices across all schools since 2015, and identified the creation of the Kaneland IgKnight Academy as a goal within the district’s strategic plan, Kaneland Connects.
The Academy is designed to customize learning for each student based on their unique strengths, opportunities for growth, interests and areas of passion. The Academy will run in tandem with existing Kaneland schools, to provide a non- traditional, student-driven learning environment option for district families, with students in grades 4-8.
During the Personalized Learning Steering Committee’s recent meeting, several key topics related to planning for the opening of Kaneland IgKnight Academy were reviewed and discussed. Topics included identifying a color scheme to use when designing Academy spaces, potential staffing numbers, use of a student-generated 20 block schedule, student/ staff start and end times, learner profile tools, exploratory structures, and how to structure the first 6 weeks of school to acclimate students/ staff to the personalized environment. The committee continues to work with Becky Greenlee from the Kaneland Foundation to identify and apply for grants to support the creation of IgKnight Academy.
