Consulting Services

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The mission of Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting is to provide high quality, innovative professional learning solutions for PK-12 school districts throughout the country. Andrew Marcinek boasts 15 years of experience in the classroom, in information technology, educational policy, and administration. Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting helps schools and districts with every aspect of educational technology planning and development. My goal is to help educators use technology as a tool for learning in order to build positive school cultures and prepare the learners and leaders of tomorrow.

 

Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting provides a suite of services and professional development workshops/training including:

  • Strategic planning and vision setting
  • Openly licensed educational resources strategic planning and implementation
  • Leadership coaching and support
  • Digital privacy and digital citizenship plans  
  • Instructional strategies for iPad, Chromebooks, and Laptops
  • Google Apps for Education planning, deployment, implementation and training
  • Mobile Device Management for iPads and Chromebooks
  • Building networks and community relationships

Background 

Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting was founded on the principles of supporting school districts across the country in digital readiness, infrastructure and IT strategies, and models for professional learning and implementation of devices, digital tools and applications, and openly licensed educational resources. Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting has experience working in PK-12 schools, Information Technology and Security, District Administration, and Federal Government Policy.

There is a growing need for guidance on digital readiness and cultural shifts when implementing digital tools. With President Obama’s  ConnectED Plan more school districts have access to high speed broadband connections and mobile devices. There is increasing need to not only continue working towards closing the digital divide, but the digital use divide as stated in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP). The digital use divide is a gap between students who use technology to create, question, and collaborate with mobile devices as compared to students who use technology passively.

Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting  will

  • Develop and implement solutions that help close the digital use divide and support anywhere, all the time learning
  • Design scalable and sustainable digital readiness plans that support school districts and directly impact teaching and learning
  • Provide personalized professional learning opportunities for all educators and school districts

sample-offerings-for-full-day%2fhalf-day%2fmulti-day-workshops-1Core Tenants for Digital Readiness and School Transformation:

  • Dynamic, Digital leadership
  • High Quality, Openly Licensed Resources
  • Personalized, professional learning
  • Innovative teacher leaders
  • Active, creative learners
  • Adaptive learning spaces

NOTE: All modules and sessions can be personalized to the needs of the client.  

Module 1: Change Management and School Culture Design

This module is focused on two of the most important concepts in any profession: change management and culture building. Both concepts are evident in every job in the world and impact morale, growth, and sustainability. Participants will be introduced to concepts shared by Simon Sinek (Start with the why), Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), and Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People). Each workshop will reflect on current practice, and how school leaders can design more effective learning cultures that promote inquiry, innovation, and design thinking. By the end of this module participants will be able to

  • engage with faculty, staff, students, and parents on best practices for the school;
  • design and facilitate a culture of understanding, empathy, and learning;
  • incorporate instructional rounds into the culture of the school;
  • measure success through conversations about data

Session 1: What is great about your school? – In this session, we will set out to answer this question and reflect on the assets associated with the school. Participants will engage in exercises that help synthesize the assets available, while considering innovative approaches to teaching and learning.

Session 2: Designing School Culture- This session will look at the answers to the question, “What is great about your school” and begin to design action items, goals, and expectations for everyone in the school.

Session 3: Instructional rounds – This session will engage participants in the research and case studies done on Learning Walks or, instructional rounds in both public and independent schools. Participants will look at best practices with instructional rounds and develop and design strategies for implementation.

 Module 2: Learning at the core: A transparent EdTech Culture

This module will focus on learning through active use of technology devices and applications. In module one the focal point was on relationships, school community, and culture, this module will add educational technology to the equation. Participants will discuss best practices with technology in education, placing the focus on the learning, not the device, and developing a culture of trust and transparency. This module will cover predominant hardware and applications, but focus heavily on policy, procedure, and sustainability. By the end of this module, participants will be able to 

  • design innovative plans for educational technology implementation;
  • support a culture of sharing and learning with digital workflows;
  • develop policy on responsible use of technology that supports all the time learning

Session 1: Innovation planning – This session will help school districts forget about strategic planning and look forward towards innovation planning that prepares faculty, staff and administration for next generation school design. This workshop will focus on defining pertinent data points, analyzing data, and putting that data into action. 

Session 2: Designing consistent digital workflows – This session will look at school policy, procedures, and protocols and seek to design digital efficiencies. These new efficiencies will take into account all of the digital tools a school has in place and define ways to create consistent, pragmatic workflows for all facets of a school. 

Session 3: Responsible use policy – This session will guide participants through the development of a revised or brand new Acceptable Use Policy. Participants will learn what is required of these policies and what districts can do within them.

Module 3: Professional Learning

At the core of a shared culture of learning is professional learning that is purposeful, timely, and learner centered. In this module, participants will engage with case studies and best practices for optimal use of district professional development time, as well as find new approaches to bringing new learning opportunities to faculty and staff through blended and online learning options. By the end of this phase, participants will

  • design professional development to consistently support new and emerging technologies and programs;
  • integrate new models of professional development growth plans;
  • develop an assessment tool for evaluating professional development;

Session 1: Remixing professional development – This session will introduce new models of professional development to participants and share examples of how districts utilize different PD paradigms.

Session 2: Everywhere, All the time, learning – This session will share ways in which teachers can leverage digital tools for anytime, anywhere learning. Many of these practices can also be assimilated to classroom instruction.

Module 4: Sustaining meaningful conversations

This module will pull fundamental themes from module one and two and look to sustain conversations around best practices for all initiatives. Additionally, this module will look to break down educational silos and encourage faculty to share, collaborate, and engage across all content areas and grades. Personal Learning Cohorts will be defined and introduced. Participants will prepare to design their own policy for sustaining momentum, regardless of the initiative. By the end of this phase, participants will

  • develop strategies for organizing curriculum Personal Learning Cohorts (PLC);
  • revise and align curriculum to meet Common Core Requirements;
  • understand curation strategies for openly licensed educational resources

Session 1: Personal learning cohorts for curriculum alignment – This session will touch on the importance of developing, updating, and aligning curriculum to meet the current federal and state guidelines. Participants will learn how to leverage and sustain PLCs and how important this step is when introducing technology initiatives.  

Session 2: What happens in a PLC? – This session will focus on the structure of a PLC and how districts can leverage them to move along both curricular and technology planning.

Session 3: How can we leverage Openly Licensed Educational Resources? – This session will focus on designing and developing scalable and sustainable transition plans to replace textbooks with openly licensed educational resources

Module 5: Openly Licensed Educational Resources

Digital conversion impacts all facets of school systems.  As teachers change their practice and students use new devices and applications in their learning, curriculum and educational resources change as well.  This participant-driven workshop will seek to share ideas and understandings of openly licensed educational resources in K-12 schools as a part of a new overall digital content district strategy. The workshop will focus on how transitioning to openly licensed educational resources in place of static, traditional textbooks will impact student learning, professional learning for educators, and digital systems and infrastructure. Participants will hear from school system technology/education leaders who have started or made this transition, learn from their examples and insight, and leave with a draft strategy to take action in their respective schools.By the end of this phase, participants wil

  • coordinate an OER planning team that will develop scalable, sustainable solutions for OER implementation;
  • develop metric for assessing quality assurance of openly licensed educational resources;
  • design professional learning model for implementation of openly licensed educational resources

Session 1: Designing a scalable plan for district wide adoption of OER – This session will offer proven strategies for districts to use when thinking about implementing OER in place of traditional textbooks. Team members will engage in goal setting workshops that set the framework for scalable OER implementation.

Session 2: Infrastructure and platform selection – This session will focus on the technology needed to scale up the use of openly licensed educational resources. Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting  of professionals will support decision making and coach district technology leaders through steps necessary to make informed decisions about technology and platforms that support teaching and learning.

Session 3: Curation and Discovery – This session will focus on proven strategies from experts in the field who have implemented openly licensed educational resources and worked with platform developers to design better systems for discovery of OER.

Session 4: Open licensing and sharing of Instructional Materials – This session will focus on Creative Commons and how districts and educators can leverage both licenses and tools for search developed by Creative Commons. Participants will leave with a thorough understanding of Creative Commons in the classroom and what it means for district wide resources.

Module 6: Student Led Genius Bar 
In the Fall of 2011, Burlington High School launched one thousand iPads for every student and teacher in the school. One of the best outcomes of this launch, was a student led genius bar that not only supported tier 1 tech support, but designed, created, and led a school-wide digital transformation. This session will share the student led genius bar experience and work through ideas with participants on how to design and implement their own. Participants will learn to design a student genius bar course that supports self-directed learners This course goes beyond relieving an overwhelmed IT department and positions students as the drivers of innovation and learning in the school and beyond. Students creatively solve problems, test updates, author tutorials, research new and emerging technologies, and develop passion projects. Learn how the Student genius bar meets Common Core requirements, drives student engagement, and teaches 21st Century skills.

EXAMPLE RUN OF SHOW FOR LAWRENCE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Session 1: What is a Student Led Tech Team and Why do we need one? 
This session will guide students through the makeup of what a student led tech team is. Additionally, students will look at student tech team examples and find elements of these courses that they like.

  • Why does your school need this course?
  • What kind of course would you like to see? (i.e. project-based)
  • What kind of skills would you develop as a result of this course

Session 2: Course & Spatial Design
In this breakout session, students will begin designing their ideal course. Based on the previous breakout group discussion, we will begin designing what this course and this space will look like.
Each group will sketch…

  • What this course will look like each day? What will you do?
  • What  the ideal space will look like and why you made these choices.
  • What resources are needed?

Session 3: Marketing and Public Relations
A big part of this course is marketing and public relations. In many cases, student tech teams cannot wait for challenges to come to them, but rather, how do we get ahead of issues before they become a challenge?

Using easel paper, pens, and markers, students will design a…

  1. Magazine cover that highlights the student tech team in some capacity
  2. A logo and slogan for their tech team
  3. An outreach plan to engage other students and teachers.

Session 4Shark Tank Pitch

This final session will build upon all the previous breakout sessions and ask students to combine breakouts 1,2, and three and present a pitch on shark tank in order to garner interest and investment in their Tech Team.

Shark Tank Pitch Guidelines:

  • You will have no more than 3 minutes to deliver your pitch.
  • Include in your pitch your name, your location, and your background.
  • Share your business mission and products and services.
  • Who is your target market or customer?
  • State your current progress towards your plans.
  • What do you need to get there?

This is your chance to sell your story and get others to invest in your dream, spread the word or provide support. This is your chance to practice the ASK!

Tips for your pitch:

  1. Keep it succinct and simple!
  2. Show your passion for your business plans!
  3. Be clear about what you will accomplish with your business.
  4. Remember that your pitch is meant to inform, engage and market.
  5. Demonstrate your belief in your success by using confident language like, “I will” and “We can.”

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If you are interested in working with Andrew Marcinek Education Consulting, please fill out the contact form below. Thank you!