I'm so pleased that my good friend and longtime collaborator, Grace Magley, outgoing Director of Digital & Personalized Learning in Natick Public Schools, is conversation #50! Grace has incredible vision for what technology should do to support good pedagogy and she builds partnerships as well as anyone in the space.

"For much of my career, I was a one-person department for professional learning on digital tools and personalized learning strategies. Being a team of one pushed me to secure grant money to bring in digital learning programs, train teachers, and identify and work closely with amazing teacher leaders.

I have developed strong partnerships with several leading nonprofits in the edtech space, like The Learning Accelerator, who I worked with to bring the EdTech Systems Guide for Massachusetts to my district. This was a critical statewide effort to streamline digital tools, helping to vet our platforms, prioritizing digital equity and accessibility for students and ease of use for educators, especially important in the age of AI emerging technologies.

This edtech vetting and streamlining process is now used across our district to help us redefine our digital ecosystem. It has been powerful to apply the process to what we are exploring and learning about AI tools. After two years facilitating an in-district AI task force, we now have a set of guidelines so teachers know when and how AI can be used for student assignments. For example, our district recently used our AI taskforce and vetting process to land on MagicSchool AI as one of our AI "super power" tools.

While working alone supported my personal growth, it did not provide the district with enough coaching capacity to carry out our leadership team’s vision for technology in classrooms. So, two years ago I was given the privilege of building a team of in-house Personalized Learning Instructional Coaches. These coaches truly transformed teaching & learning districtwide. We centered our work on Universal Design for Learning and culturally responsive practices, aiming to boost student engagement, sense of belonging, and agency.

The district-based coaches were strategically placed — 2 at the high school, 3 at the middle schools, 1 for each elementary, and I covered preschool. Their hiring involved school teams and principals, which built crucial buy-in. Coaches were integrated into schools, understanding building leader priorities and how they align to the district strategic plan.

Coaches underwent extensive coaching training from Katie Novak and Harvard Graduate School of Education to build essential trust. Principal engagement and making the coaches' work highly visible were vital, especially since their role was non-evaluative. This fundamentally changed PD in our district, moving us away from passive 'sit-and-get' sessions to collaborative learning.

At the end of this school year, I will be retiring from district work after almost 30 years in K-12 education. I will be traveling for a few months and then look forward to my next chapter in other non-profit education roles."