KP Compass 7 Success Stories: One year of pioneering online mastery

KP Compass has been live for just over a year now.  Born from over ten years of experience creating the next digital textbook for culinary arts as a software solution, KP Compass achieves the company's dream of putting digital content with a next generation mastery system in the palms of the students' hands.  KP Compass is used in over 100 institutions. Here are a few success stories we've gathered from these early pioneers as they learn how to use this new method of reaching students that goes above and beyond the simple e-book/iBook.
Job Corps Centers FTW At the Potomac Job Corps Center, Chef William "Tee" Danley teaches a different set of youth than your standard public school.  They come in at different times and he has to teach the entire lot of them according to when they entered.  He took KP Compass's Culinary Arts curriculum and aligned the modules to the Job Corps National Standard (called TAR) and created 11 open entry modules. Students are required to complete each module before they can move on to the next. From day one, the students became engaged with the system.  Chef Tee's first problem was that he didn't have enough computers to satisfy the students in class or in their dorms.  Seeing immediate results from the system, he realized that students were completing the modules at an accelerated rate of up to 200%, which made them more knowledgeable and gave them more time for labs.  He says, "This is the most amazing program I've seen in my entire 20-year teaching career and it has truly transformed my class into what I want it to be, a dynamic and engaging system that grabs my student's attention." If you have ever been to a Job Corps Center, you know that teaching these kids out of a book is tough. Chef Tee found that using computers and having students compete in the mastery system really drives their spirit of competition.  He makes full use of the built-in leader board because it takes advantage of their competitive natures.  "I've never seen my students this wrapped up in book learning and now they come to class understanding what they are doing rather than just going through the motions.  The best part is the access to the videos. I rarely need to show them what to do. They already know it!" Chef Tee has had incredible success with KP Compass.  Feel free to contact me and I will share his contact information with you so you can hear it for yourself. Charter School Success Chef Aaron Link teaches at Vista Academy, a new charter school in Denver, Colorado.  When Aaron first called wanting some online videos, he found out about KP Compass and how it goes beyond just offering videos with a few simple quiz questions online.  He immediately noticed how the leveling system fits the model at his school by assessing levels of knowledge rather than assigning letter grades. He teaches youth on a variety of levels and loves how he can customize the content, even individualizing the instruction for a single student to help him/her through the class.  This is the level of care and attention to detail that makes Aaron's program one of the finest in the region. Watch Aaron talk about his experience in this short 3 minute video. http://youtu.be/r6qKTP38nM4	High Schools with Video Testimonials NW Career and Technical Academy is nestled in the far outskirts of Clark County in Las Vegas, Nevada.  This multi-million dollar career center was built with technology in mind.  When they adopted the Sous Chef, it became an incredible in-class resource for the students and instructors.  Clark County had visions of going one-to-one using mobile technology, and KP Compass gave them the opportunity to put the Sous Chef content and videos directly in the hands of the students. But don't take my word for it.  Watch these videos and hear what they have to say. Michael Pitman, Dept Chair http://youtu.be/bXfEwt57Bkc Shannon Kelly-Smith, Freshmen and Sophomores http://youtu.be/3oGijSsJF30 Brenda Hitchins, Baking and Pastry http://youtu.be/bQ0q75Jhp-k And from the students themselves! http://youtu.be/fVI4XLc8w6M Overcoming the Computer Hurdle Chef Henry, from Roanoke Public Schools, admits he doesn't use computers much at all and the prospect of having to use an online system would not be his first choice for an instructional aid.  Chef Henry worked at CIA for 20 years and just entered into education in the past year.  He wanted a way to engage his students, which textbooks weren't doing, so he turned to KP Compass. Despite the slight learning curve, Chef Henry learned how to use the system and got his students online in less than a week.  He saw immediate changes in student engagement with the content and got valuable feedback from the mastery system.  He admits that the online system will change the way he teaches, and he is willing to make these adjustments because of the positive student response. Jack on Leveling and Aprons Jack Aldrich has always had a dynamic class at Huot Technical Center.  Jack deals with many youths who are unmotivated in the school system.  He devised a way to encourage student participation and drive competition with a system of colored aprons that shows what "level" each student is in the class.  Students get higher level aprons by completing paper quizzes.  If they do poorly on a quiz, they will have the opportunity take it again to gain that level of achievement.  In their final year, if they make the grade they will receive their very own chef's coat. When Jack saw KP Compass' leveling system, he was amazed by how similar it was to his own classroom motivational practices. Using KP's Automatic Remediation and Mastery System, Jack no longer needs to print out paper tests and manually enter scores into a spreadsheet.  The system not only allows for students to take quizzes online but because of the mastery system, they rarely get the same questions in a row.  The students have embraced this new format and have become even more engaged in his class.  Jack takes full advantage of KP ARMS and the leader board.	Michael Riggs at a College Chef Michael Riggs, at Bowling Green Technical College in Kentucky, has always been a pioneer in instructional technology.  He started implementing digital resources using the Sous Chef back in 2004, and technology is an integral part of his growing program.  When KP Compass became available in the fall of 2011, he first tested the new system with one class to see how his students would react to online instead of using computers in the classroom.  The results have been very positive. Chef Riggs customized the modules to his course and had his students purchase KP Compass instead of a textbook for use at home.  He picked out the learning modules related to his Garde Manger class and further customized them with additional information.  When the students log in, they know what they are expected to learn for the semester and they test themselves in the mastery system prior to coming to class.  He made it a mandatory exercise to achieve at least Apprentice level to gain class participation for the work done.  He has also seen improvements in the students' research and writing skills by having the digital assets online.  As a result, his students now come to class ready to discuss topics and perform skills.  KP Compass has really maximized his time in the kitchen and labs. Now going into the Spring semester, he has fully implemented KP Compass in all five of his college courses.  Next year, they are looking at ways to implement the Kindle Fire or similar tablets to completely eliminate textbooks in his program. Rick Teaching Teachers Chef Rick Martinez teaches a different set of students.  At Middle Tennessee University he is in charge of getting teachers ready to teach culinary arts through two semester-long courses.  His students are all adult learners who intend to become educators.  He has to teach a lot of information in a very short time frame.  He found KP Compass and loved how the content could be molded to fit his two classes.  Once the course was customized, his students purchased the "books" from KP and used them to study before meeting once a week. As the semester progressed, Rick noticed that his students were more engaged and ready to go into labs, saving him a lot of instructional time.  The mastery system allows him to check on their progress through the learning modules and see how prepared they are for the final exam.  Since the class is still in action, we will ask at the end of the semester if they preferred KP Compass over the textbook / lecture style of teaching.

Concept Driven Mastery: beyond the textbook, ebook, iBook 2… Essay

By Nai Wang - Founder and President

Textbooks have been around for centuries. They are pieces of knowledge put on paper and bound. Authors start at page one and continue until the epilogue. From A to B to C... boring, but necessary. When computers came around, information was seen differently. We were freed from the shackles of the linear, given license to roam to our hearts content, skipping links through a complex web of interrelated topics. We were allowed to think non linearly, to teach dynamically, and to innovate in previously unfathomable ways... so why don’t we?

KP is hard at work taking advantage of technology to free learning from the old linear instructional design. How could a sculptor work with only a pen and paper? How could an architect help but feel limited by concepts only drawn on long expanses of chalkboards? As publishers and framework designers, it is our duty to create materials that break the traditional models that are holding us back.

Our response to this challenge has been to create the next generation textbook by utilizing concept-driven mastery. Simply put, information in a given subject is broken down into individual concepts. Educators piece these concepts together and create a learning module. Students are tested against the knowledge through KP’s Automatic Remediation and Mastery System (ARMS) in KP Compass and given a knowledge rating (Novice, Apprentice, Scholar or Guru).

By doing this we are no longer bound by the rules of a linear textbook model (pun clearly intended). Apple’s recent announcement of revolutionizing the textbook is another step in the right direction, but it is by no means redefining the genre. E-Books are simply lazy translations of an old system into a digital format. They are great for saving trees and shoulder pain but there is nothing revolutionary about them. Making it easy for authors and publishers to put media rich content in an interactive tablet makes the content more interesting but it’s still in a linear design.

The next evolution will take a holistic approach. Look at the content as a whole and then break it down into its simplest forms which are knowledge concepts. This is a philosophy that will always elude the chapter by chapter design of textbooks. And without making things modular, they become fixed, difficult to move, and eventually skipped! We want to put customization back in the hands of the educator to determine what the student needs to learn. In a world where our 21st century learners are multidimensional thinkers, linear models don’t go with the flow of information that students are comfortable with in their lives outside the classroom.

Publishers need to get off their thrones and make that leap for the sake of education.

The new KP Compass learning platform is designed with the philosophy of doing a few things, very well. First, our aim is to put the information in the hands of the students anywhere, anytime, on any device. Using HTML5 to drive our front end, we are able to accomplish and scale the platform from something as small as an iPod touch to as large as a 1080p computer driven display. This is access without limits. Second, we aim is to put the content back in the hands of the teachers in the field. We accomplish this by allowing the teacher to take individual concepts, add their own content, and assessment questions, and put it all together into a relevant learning module. Then, POOF, the system does the rest. Teachers won’t have to worry about things like terms, vocabulary and tests because the platform takes control of the details. That’s interoperability. This much magic would even make the teachers at Hogwarts proud!

This design challenges our current thinking of testing for grades, and transforms learning into a true system of growth and mastery. The current instructional model relies on fixed tests, which can be intimidating and stressful for the students. They study for this test, cramming all the knowledge they gained hoping that they will get a few question that they can spit back correctly. Or worse, they just study the answers to pass the test without mastering the subject. Moreover, if students get a C on the test, what can you say to them, “that’s ok, try again?” There is no ‘again’, unless they fail the class and to take it over again. Because of the linear system, all they can do is move along the track, at the mercy of the engineers that designed it, and the conductors that are paid to keep things chugging along.

The Automatic Remediation and Mastery System in KP Compass is designed to give the students a chance to practice in a less stressful environment but it is no simple, single practice test. It is a system that promotes mastery through the use of abundant assessments. Simply put, we create more questions than any one student will ever use, so that their assessment is unpredictable, challenging, and measured with a larger statistical sample. KP Compass, contains concept pages, each with a large number of questions related to the content. When students feel ready they test themselves on the learning module.

The testing system randomly selects three to five questions from each page and builds a quiz for the student. If the students answer the questions selected for a given page, then the page is remediated out of their learning module. Any pages that are not passed remain for them to review the content and test again. We never tell the student what questions they got incorrect because we don’t want them to just study for the answers. The goal is to go back to the lesson, and master the content. The can repeatedly test their knowledge against the content, getting different questions each time.

The students are also given a knowledge rating for their performance. Game theory principles are embedded into the system, with student’s leveling up their knowledge after starting at Novice. Each time they take the test, they gain knowledge points. Points are accumulated in the learning module, allowing them to level up through Apprentice, Scholar and Guru. They also gain points which are applied to their personal profile and their K-Bot (Knowledge Bot) which has its own leveling system. The gaming is not in the forefront of the system, but it creates an environment that adds a bit of fun without the recognizable ‘cheese’ that we commonly see in education games.

In the end, the teacher knows the knowledge level of each student and can address the needs of struggling students on an individual basis. The main goal of KP Compass is to allow teachers to do what they do best, mentor the students and help facilitate the learning process. Information is readily available and stale lectures serve little more than to bore the students in a controlled environment. Face time is valuable and should be spent in creative discussions, group projects and performance of skills that teach through doing. Knowledge is power, but true wisdom can only come from experience. KP lets technology handle the knowledge, so teachers can get down to business.

KP Compass is the net result of over 10 years of research and experience publishing our own content in a digital format. Unlike other platform providers who build the system and tell others to put information into it without the experience of content, KP has always had content and developed technology to suit our vision and goals. We create new ways to interface with content with a fundamental philosophy of keeping the information organic.



KP stands for knowledge and practice. We have invented the knowledge portion of our overall design. Next up, we tackle the practice side of our namesake. I’m thinking we should call our newest feature LEGS which stands for Logarithmic Evaluation and Grading System. Sounds impressive and reflects the non linear approach to 21st century learning! KP’s vision is to eventually create a learning system that incorporates true Project Based Learning (PBL). But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We will soon have ARMS and LEGS, but we still need a head and a body to realize that dream. :)

Before I sign off I would like to leave you with a final thought. I was speaking to a retired educator today about her thoughts on the state of education. She expressed being simply overwhelmed by all the information today compared to the slow, structured, and easier to comprehend lessons of her day. She felt helpless to teach kids that constantly needed to be entertained. An analogy popped into my mind that express the nature of today’s MTV/YouTube generation of learners. The mind of the student today mirrors the information that they absorb. Really, it is that simple. Back in the 1950’s, children learned in a sterile and highly linear fashion. Their hands were held, as they explored a giant castle one room at a time, never looking around the corner until they had gotten their fill. Today, students are virtually let loose once they breach the first door, running rampant down the informational hallways, sometimes exploring 2, 3 or 5 rooms simultaneously! Video games, TV, multimedia and the Internet have changed the way students think and indeed retain information. The very concept of a linear path has been outmoded, because a student’s brain is wired to accept information in ways that are at once inspiring, challenging, and possibly downright scary to educators. The system must adapt. If this means that teachers will be running wildly around the halls of the castle, bouncing from room to room and helping students to learn however it comes naturally to them... I say so be it! We will be there to help instructors deal with this new type of student.

For more information about KP Compass and authoring/publishing in a concept driven mastery platform, please contact Nai.

A New Role for CTE by Mary Horne, Editor in Chief

The Millennium Generation describes the students currently occupying middle and high school classrooms across the country--the ones that teachers repeatedly must ask to "unplug" and pay attention. This particular generation has been the subject of countless news articles highlighting their disappointing performance on international reading, math and science tests, raising doubts about their ability to compete in a world economy.

The struggle to reach the Millennium Generation is evident in the concentration of professional development courses focusing on methods of educating these high-tech students, many of whom have short attention spans and very little interest in their teachers' "antiquated" teaching practices. The ultimate goal of these seminars and inservices is to raise test scores and school ranking while attempting to prepare this generation for the adult world of work and citizenship. Are the students in the American public education system sufficiently acquiring literacy, numeracy, and technological skills to survive global competition? Will those who do not move on to higher education, as well as those who do, be prepared to meet demands of the 21st century work force? Educators in all fields feel the pressure, but more expectations are falling on career and technical education (CTE) teachers than ever before.

Two major players in improving education to meet the needs of 21st century learners are technology and CTE. According to Dr. Bill Daggett, founder and President of the International Center for Leadership in Education, "The changing American workplace is impacted by fast changing technologies. Leaders must prepare graduates for this rapidly changing world by instilling the concept of lifelong learning in a technological world." In order to motivate the Millennium Generation to appreciate lifelong learning and to adapt to ever changing educational and career demands, educators must utilize the technology that is such an integral part of their students' experience. Administrators are now expecting teachers to become proficient in technology they never had as students. CTE teachers today not only need to stay on top of the professional standards of their particular fields, but they also need to learn new technological skills, many of which their students have already mastered.

In addition to updating equipment and training staff to keep up with technology, schools are also challenged to make the core skills--reading, writing, science and math-- relevant to the students, to show them that their academic achievement is directly tied to the quality of life they will have after they leave school. CTE has been identified as the ideal setting for students to put literacy, numeracy, science/technology and critical thinking skills into meaningful practice. Dr. Daggett and staff at the International Center for Leadership in Education developed the Rigor/Relevance Framework™ , which incorporates the six cognitive levels of Bloom's Taxonomy with five levels of knowledge in action, to illustrate the ideal combination of high academic standards and real-world applications in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The Framework functions as a plan for instruction (either at the classroom, institution or community level) and the goal of this plan is for students to finish school with the ability to use the higher level thinking skills that are outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy in conjunction with knowledge of multiple disciplines (math, science, language) to create solutions to unpredictable problems and situations.

Although "Writing Across the Curriculum" and "Crosswalk to CORE" are not entirely new concepts in public education, Daggett's position is that merely reinforcing some core academic skills in the CTE classroom is not enough to prepare 21st century learners for the demands that they will face in the work force. "Career and technical education," argues Daggett, "must be seen as a primary deliverer of strong academic preparation." He proposes that schools need to restructure from a program in which core knowledge is taught in a vacuum, removed from practical applications, to an "applied academics program where vocational skills become the platform in which the academic skills are delivered." School improvement, according to Daggett, is not just a matter of raising standards, because rigor alone does not make students successful outside of the classroom. "Relevance makes rigor possible,” says Daggett. For the highest achievement, students must be able to apply the knowledge to situations they might actually encounter in their careers, rather than simply study the concepts detached from relevant contexts. While restructuring to fit the Rigor/Relevance Framework™ might not be in every school's near future, teachers can still use the basic principle of multidisciplinary knowledge in action as a guide to address the needs of their students in their curriculum and to prepare for the future. For Millennium Generation learners, and the generations that follow, career pathways are vehicles for relevance and rigor.

This new attention on career pathways might cause some anxiety for CTE teachers who are unsure of the many expectations that are being placed upon them; however, CTE educators and students benefit from this exciting shift in education that emphasizes application, rather than just acquisition, of knowledge. Courses that were once considered "elective" and of secondary importance to the core academics are now becoming center stage in 21st century learning. Students' interest in the professional field can be used as motivation to foster competence in the core skills--skills that are not separate from the profession, but are in fact integrated within it and necessary for students to achieve their highest potential. Many of these skills are reinforced (even if informally) in the CTE classroom anyway, but perhaps not enough. Taking a more holistic approach to education will be a challenge, but it is also a prime opportunity for educators to contribute in the development of a skilled, competitive, and adaptive American workforce.

"The great aim of education is not knowledge but action."
Herbert Spencer, 19th century philosopher

Mary Horne

Bloom's Taxonomy

KP Education Systems strives to keep up with current practices in education and research-based pedagogy. For this reason, all of the questions in the Sous Chef, including those populating the dynamic test/quiz generator, are organized according to the revised version of Bloom's Taxonomy. If you are not familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy, here is a guide to help you understand the depth of the learning opportunities available to your students in the Sous Chef 7 Curriculum Suite.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification of six levels of intellectual skills involved in learning (from the simplest to the most complex) that was developed by a group of educational psychologists headed by Benjamin S. Bloom in the 1950s. According to the taxonomy, the first categories must be mastered before the learner can move on to the higher levels of cognition. Bloom's Taxonomy revolutionized the way educators approached their learning objectives, since Bloom asserted that over 95% of test questions involved only the lowest level of intellectual ability--remembering data. Teachers could improve their teaching methods by applying the course content to the stages of Bloom's; they began to pay more attention to the higher levels of thinking.

A revised version of Bloom's Taxonomy was developed in the 1990s by his former student, Lorin Anderson, and a group of educational psychologists to keep the research up-to-date with contemporary learning theories and standards-based requirements. This updated model makes the objectives of each stage more specific to learner behaviors, which makes learning at each level more observable to the teacher.

Below are explanations of the levels of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy and sample questions from the Sous Chef 7 to illustrate the application of each classification.

Revised Bloom's

Remember: retrieve knowledge from the long term memory that was acquired from the lesson or reading. This first level of questions encompasses basic multiple choice, true/false, oral response, or fill-in-the-blank questions asking only for recall of the studied material (terminology, facts, places, dates and names). Key Words: define, select, state, recall, label, identify Example from the Sous Chef: How many pints are in one gallon?

Understand: understand what the remembered material means and be able to restate it. The student should be able to explain the concepts in his/her own words or interpret their meaning. Questions from this level can be essay, oral response, multiple choice, or true/false. Key Words: explain, explain why (what is the reason), comprehend, summarize, translate, interpret Example from the Sous Chef: Explain what the Model Food Code is and provide examples of its effects on the food service industry.

Apply: take the knowledge and apply it to a situation—it can either be in the form of a written explanation of a hypothetical situation or it can involve having the students execute, implement, apply, or demonstrate a concept from the learning material. These questions/learning activities are usually in the form of a task or demonstration but can also be multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank when applying a concept such as a formula or mathematical equation. Key Words: applies, computes, constructs, demonstrates, modifies, operates, prepares, produces, shows, solves, uses Example from the Sous Chef: Sanitize your workstation using the instructions in the Sanitation video. Follow the recipe and produce chicken piccata.

Analyze: break the knowledge into its pieces, analyze the relationships, and distinguish between the parts. These questions/activities come in the form of essay, oral response, or a visual project. Key words: analyze, distinguish, differentiate, compare/contrast Example from the Sous Chef: Compare and contrast the Creaming method and the Two Stage mixing method. When would you use one method rather than the other? What would be the effects on the final product?

Evaluate: evaluate a situation and make judgments using the knowledge gained. These questions/activities come in the form of essay, oral response, or a visual project. Key Words: evaluate, defend, judge, argue, support Example from the Sous Chef: Select an image from a cooking magazine of a dessert plate that shows good presentations skills and evaluate the chef's plating techniques using specific examples to support your judgment.

Create: put parts together to form a whole; create something new using the knowledge. At this level, learning activities are fully planned and executed projects in place of or in addition to written work. Key Words: assemble, create, construct, design, reconstruct, modify, generate, compile Example from the Sous Chef: Design a concept and create a proposal for your own television cooking show.

Since the higher level thinking skills often cannot effectively be made into a multiple choice or true/false question, most of the apply, analyze, evaluate, and create questions will be in the form of essay questions, demonstrations, and activities. Since learning objectives for each chapter vary, it is not uncommon for some Bloom's categories to not be represented.

Transition to Standards Based Curriculum

It is an exciting time in our country for Career and Technical Education (CTE).

Our transition to a service-based economy over the past few decades has had both its ups and downs. However, as we move forward in a time of economic uncertainty, it is clear that both as individuals and as communities, Americans are going to have get back to creating and innovating new products and services in order to be competitive in a global market.

It seems like all trends are pointing towards a significant increase in exposure and demand for quality workforce and vocational education. Students today require skills that will prepare them for a successful career, and that education doesn't just start in college anymore.

High school programs across the country are beginning to fully realize the value of career education and the teachers that are committed to vocational education. Carl D. Perkins technology grants are back this fiscal year, not to mention that a large percentage of the 100 billion dollar education stimulus in accordance with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been earmarked for soultions that will create jobs, and emphasize workforce education and relevant assessment methods for all types of learners.

As the educational spectrum continues to change, states are taking initiative by issuing standards and competencies for each of the 16 career 'clusters' that are designed to provide benchmarks for secondary and post secondary education. From 2004-2009, our research has shown numerous states publishing detailed objectives for CTE educators. These standards are clearly being used to reinvent and revitalize CTE programs across the nation.

In addition to transitioning to a competency-driven curriculum, state and national institutions are pushing for the integration of core academics and career education. The goal is to create a learning environment that is both realistic and relevant to all students. As this trend continues, CTE education in America will undoubtedly see greater recognition and funding, which willy not only provide a greater range of opportunities to students, but will pave the way for a productive and competitive American workforce.