 OTAN Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we report on our learning experience with OTAN in the D-LAC Digital Leadership Academy 2018-2020. Today we are going to tell you how OTAN saved Corona Norco Adult School. And for this presentation it's time for a casting call. To begin, I'd like to introduce our amazing team. We have Toyby Roblitus who's been our principal and one of our greatest pillars of support over these past two years. We also have our Dean of Students and Tech Team Advisor Omar Andrade. We have our inspiring leader for our D-LAC team, Marcy England, who unfortunately could not be here today due to unexpected circumstances, but this presentation would not have been possible without her. My name is Kevin Belcher. I'm an ABE and ESL instructor as well as a tech team member and I'm here with Christina Hyatt, who is also an ABE instructor and tech team member. And we have our amazing and legendary D-LAC coach, Susan Gair. So now that the cast is set, let's get started. Today we're going to share the background of where we started. We're going to discuss our blended learning project and the tools that helped us achieve it and the highlight the future plans stemming from our D-LAC project. However, we're going to reach our objectives in an unconventional way. When we reflected on our accomplishments over the last two years in the D-LAC program, we recognized that this process was much like the hero's journey. Please join us as we take you through this journey. We will discuss how we recognized our powers, used our skills to conquer our first tasks, how we recruited and taught our staff and students. We'll share about the ultimate battle that we were all well prepared for and how we will now regroup and prepare for the sequel. And now it's time for a flashback, a little backstory. Allow me to introduce our principal, Toyby Reblidis. Toyby will tell us why she decided to enlist your staff members in the D-LAC push to blended learning. And Marcy and Hi, I'm the principal of Corona Norco Adult School and Marcy and her team of the D-LAC project have asked me to say something about why Corona Norco Adult School chose to be part of the D-LAC project. And I am a new principal, but I was a member of the TMAC in 2014 and from OTAN I have learned that there was a huge potential in using technology to prepare our students for the 21st century. Besides that, distance learning is something that is very near and dear to my heart because students who are the type of students who we serve have lives and jobs and things to take care of. So when they have the opportunity to learn on the go and whenever they can, it is a good opportunity for them. And I also know that Corona Norco Adult School under our leadership in the past have always been in the forefront of new challenges. And when we have leaders like Marcy who chose to be the leader of the D-LAC team, we took the opportunity and it has come to be really, really advantageous for our school because when COVID hit in the last five, six weeks, we have learned that because of our team, we were able to put a distance learning plan within a short period of two to three weeks. And our teachers have had all the support they needed from the technology team, which has been immensely helpful. And we are now in the cutting edge of adult education programs by piloting the CUSES as well as the IELCE remote testing. And this is possible because of the leadership of our tech team members. So to anybody out there in the adult education field, I would say take this opportunity to be part of D-LAC because there's huge learning in this process. Thank you so much, OTAN. Thank you so much for your leadership, Toyby. And so now like every good superhero movie, after a call to action, the hero received some sort of supernatural aid. For Clark Kent, it was his father's crystal. For Peter Parker, it was a radioactive spider bite. Well, for Corona Norco Adult School, it was OTAN training. First, throughout the two years, we had ongoing support and leadership training with a mentor by our side, Susan Gair, supporting our growth. Second, we had Destiny Simpson leading the Ideal 101 and 102 courses for how to build a blended learning program. We also participated in TDLS that allowed us to recognize the best practices throughout the state and adult education field. We also had accessibility training in which we learned how to create curriculum that is equitable. And finally, Dr. Porter helped us find our individual leadership strengths and learn how to use them effectively. All of these aids have helped us reach our potential as technology leaders at our site. Christine will now share about our blended learning plan. To be successful superheroes need a plan. For us, that plan was to create blended learning for our bridge courses. Our bridge courses in language arts and math fill the gap between ESL achievement and high school level requirements. We chose Canvas as our learning management system and NROCs fully developed math and language arts courses as our primary curriculum. We liked what we learned about NROC during webinars and conferences hosted by OTAN. Along the way, halfway to victory, we realized we also would need some gadgets and tools. We implemented a second orientation where students learned to use the technology and navigate courses online. We also focused on teaching students how to log in and work from home. Built-in supports included face-to-face interactions to build community among students and more access to teachers using Canvas tools and apps like Remind. We created a rubric to help us identify the most important features of our curriculum, and we also instituted open lab hours for student orientation and to provide a dedicated time and place for tech and technology for the students that needed it. We're working on building better advertising, single sign-on capabilities, and bring your own device Wi-Fi access to our school. Hundred percent! That is a really big number. Every student from the blended math B course that attempted the high set math test in the fall of 2019 passed it on the first try and scored 12 percent higher on average than the students enrolled in the non-blended course. Comparing the fall 2018 and 2019 costs us, we saw over 20 percent increase in student level completions. The blended program was working. We were seeing students better prepared for the high stakes tests and courses coming their way. These small victories built the confidence of our heroes and piqued the interest of others wanting to join our distance learning team. Now Kevin's going to talk to us about how we blended. So how did this get delivered to the students? Well by combining forces of course, in the blended learning ABE program we assembled all the strongest types of instruction we could. We combined the face-to-face instructional strengths of critical thinking, application, collaboration, and community as student motivation with the strengths of distance learning through Canvas, providing immediate feedback, extended learning time, and individualized and differentiated learning. But what does this look like on the ground? What does this look like from the other side of the desk? Let's hear from a few superwomen of the blended learning ABE program. This is Lou, Alicia, and Luzma sharing their experience transitioning from brick and mortar classrooms to blended learning and eventually when the pandemic hit full distance. I feel wonderful on my class because I can't, I don't drive to attend the class because my kid is at home, stay at home, and all the people stay at home. So I can have more time to take my kids. So this has helped me a lot and I learned a lot through them online classes. And I think I have progress. A bit of progress. Do you think? For me it's, I think it's work better than in class because I was planning and switching class since the night class and I was a little bit worried that I won't be able to have my teachers with me. I'm going to see someone different and I feel so comfortable working with with Mr. Belcher and Ms. Ayert so well. So I feel like I learned more since I'm home. I understand it better. I don't know because I also get one on one just to ask questions and it's just focusing on me. I feel like I've grown more since the past month that I'm online working. I love to continue online learning for the rest of this time if it's available. I feel like I have more connection with the t-shirt with you. And I feel less mentally less relaxing and 100% in focus in that class. And before it's like it stressed me because it takes time for my home driving back and forth and takes probably like three hours or four like good things back home and coming like as stress they had to do these and now it's in focus 100% in the class and I feel like a connection. Like more relaxed and I understand more. My mind my mind is more like open and to learn things I had a challenge to learn that on computer but it's for good because I know I will improve. Thank you so much ladies. So this was our blended learning program was was growing and building but it all couldn't be so calm forever. When all felt at peace and one battle of implementing blended learning was done it felt like a war rose. With the pandemic the school was tasked with transitioning from one blended learning program to four distance learning programs. Although the task was monumental the Krona Norco adult school team remembered their training and got ready for the fight to transition all classes to distance. We began by working closely with the tech team offering weekly webinars and trainings to help our teachers through the process of reconnecting with students assembling curriculum delivering it with power and patience and reporting attendance effectively. However change like this requires constant support. Accordingly our tech team were closely with teachers under their wing offering office hours both daily and by appointment. In the end as the fight to transition to distance learning pushes on so do we building our teachers our students and community along the way and as we know the fight will one day end and what will what will that look like for Krona Norco adult school. When we return to some sense of normalcy Krona Norco adult school will continue to increase blended learning throughout all programs continue building our teachers to be stronger distance educators integrate canvas as the learning management system of all programs and for our WASC 2020 action plan goals to improve and expand alternative learning options for our students and provide rigorous and relevant learning opportunities for all. This has been a fight of comic proportions for all of us. We have been we have all been tasked and tested and we at Krona Norco adult school want to thank OTAN our fellow D-lackers and our brave admin team for giving us the power strength and support to push on and soar even when things seem impossible because it wouldn't be a story if it didn't seem impossible right. Thank you so much for spending your time to share this presentation with us and if you have any questions please feel free to um to send them to the Q&A as well as you can send emails to Marcy, Christina or I. Thank you very much.